Give Me Liberty: Chapter 15 QUIZ 1

One of the main purposes of the Freedmen's Bureau was to

ensure a fair and viable system of labor relations between former slaves and former slaveholders.

In the five years following the end of the Civil War, former slaves were guaranteed the following in three amendments to the United States Constitution:

freedom from slavery; recognition as citizens; and the vote for adult black men.

In President Andrew Johnson's view, African-Americans ought to play what part in Reconstruction?

none

Presidential Reconstruction (1865-1867) was a success.

False

The KKK was founded in 1866 as a Tennessee secret society and served, in effect, as a military arm of the Democratic Party.

True

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

prohibited federal and state governments from denying any citizen the vote because of race.

Radical Republicans in the Reconstruction era shared the view that

the Union victory created a golden opportunity to institutionalize the principle of equal rights for all, regardless of race.

All of the victims of the Ku Klux Klan were black.

False

Upon Lincoln's assassination, ____________ became president.

Andrew Johnson

The 1865 agency responsible for the attempt to establish a working free labor system was called the

Freedmen's Bureau.

Which was not true of Liberal Republicans in the post-Civil War era?

They believed the growth of federal power needed to be expanded.

Between 1880 and 1940 there were more white sharecroppers than black sharecroppers.

True

Black Codes denied black Americans the right to testify against whites, serve on juries or in state militias, or vote.

True

Black Codes sometimes assigned black children to work for their former masters without parental consent.

True

In 1866, the civil rights bill became the first major law in American history to be passed over a presidential veto.

True

In the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment had not altered traditional federalism.

True

The civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s is sometimes called the "Second Reconstruction."

True

The struggles over land and labor united the postemancipation experience in many countries, yet this one aspect made the United States unique.

Within two years after the end of slavery, black males were given the right to vote.

Which of the following was not a major cause of the decline of Reconstruction?

a deepening of mutual respect between black and white southerners, making Reconstruction seem no longer necessary

A "carpetbagger" is

a northerner who settled in the South after the war.

Sharecropping

allowed a black family to rent part of a plantation, with the crop divided between worker and owner at the end of the year.

In the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson ordered nearly all land in federal hands

be returned to its former owners.

The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871

defined crimes that deprived citizens of their civil and political rights as federal offenses, and under these laws President Grant sent federal marshals to arrest hundreds of accused Klansmen.

The Reconstruction Act of March 1867

divided the South into five military districts and called for creation of new state governments, with black men given the right to vote.

In consequence of the Reconstruction governments across the South, the region became a vibrant and successful hub of dynamic and expansive economic growth, allowing many African-Americans to escape from poverty.

False

Robert Smalls was a black senator who served one unsuccessful term before being replaced by a white senator in 1900.

False

Some 900 blacks sat in state legislatures during Reconstruction, yet few held local offices.

False

The Black Codes were laws passed by southern Republicans to promote black rights.

False

The Fifteenth Amendment granted the vote to white women but not black women.

False

Under Radical Reconstruction, blacks held most of the South's top elected positions.

False

The phrase "forty acres and a mule" is derived from

Sherman's Field Order 15.

Among the important accomplishments of Reconstruction state governments was the establishment of the South's first state-supported public schools.

True

During Radical Reconstruction, following ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, the vast majority of eligible African-Americans registered to vote.

True

During Reconstruction, a number of state governments initiated civil rights legislation that made it illegal for railroads, hotels, and other institutions to discriminate on the basis of race.

True

The country was plunged into an economic depression in 1873, and support among Republicans for further reforms in the South weakened.

True

The once prosperous Confederate General Braxton Bragg returned from the Civil War to find he had lost everything and lived for some time with his wife in a slave cabin.

True

There were cases of freed slaves returning to the land they had previously worked demanding that they were "joint heirs" of the estate.

True

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because

it did not enfranchise women.

The Burlingame Treaty reaffirmed China's national sovereignty, and

provided reciprocal protection for religious freedom and against discrimination for citizens of each country emigrating or visiting the other.

The victorious Republicans, the "Redeemers," claimed to have redeemed the white South from corruption, misgovernment, and northern and black control.

False

The House of Representatives approved articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson for violation of what law?

The Tenure of Office Act

In relishing their newfound freedom, blacks acquired dogs, guns, and liquor, activities previously barred to them under slavery.

True

Opposition to Reconstruction resulted from the distaste many southerners had for tax increases that were needed to fund public schools and other improvements, and also because many white southerners could not accept black Americans voting, holding office, and enjoying equality before the law.

True

During Reconstruction, some 2,000 African-Americans held public office, among them fourteen in the United States House of Representatives and two U.S. senators.

True

The Black Codes were

laws that sought to regulate the lives of former slaves.

In a society that had made political participation a core element of freedom, this activity became central to the former slaves' desire for empowerment and equality.

right to vote

The Ku Klux Klan sought to uphold the American ideal of equality and justice for all.

False

In the aftermath of the Civil War, the black church was a powerful influence in the South. What two denominations commanded the largest African-American following?

Baptist and Methodist

While Reconstruction brought profound changes, the postwar South was peopled with the same social classes.

False

Before the Civil War, American citizenship had been closely linked to

Race

Which of the following series of events is listed in proper sequence?

Tenure of Office Act; impeachment of Johnson; election of Grant

"Scalawags" was a derogatory term used to describe southern white Republicans.

True

Who among the following was not a leader of the Radical Republicans?

Andrew Johnson

Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens argued that disloyal planters' land should be confiscated and redistributed among former slaves.

True

During the 1872 elections, the Liberal Republicans argued that Reconstruction was a failure.

True

In consequence of the "Bargain of 1877," President Rutherford B. Hayes

ordered federal troops to stop guarding the state houses in Louisiana and South Carolina.

Many women saw the opportunity to insert their issues into the reforming nation. Their immediate main concerns were all of the following except

outlawing the sale and manufacture of liquor.

Following the Civil War, white and black farmers in the South

saw the price of cotton fall steadily.

Which was not a principal task of the Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1870)?

support black churches and businesses

Which were central elements in the lives of postemancipation blacks in the twenty years following the end of the Civil War?

the family, the church, the school

After emancipation, many freedwomen elected to withdraw from work in the fields and focus their energies at home.

true

Black Americans who refused to sign labor contracts to work for whites during Reconstruction

were often convicted of vagrancy and fined; sometimes they were then auctioned off to work for the person who paid the fine.