Ch. 12 Test Quizlet
Tenure of Office Act
1866 - enacted by radical congress - forbade president from removing civil officers without senatorial consent - was to prevent Johnson from removing a radical republican Edwin Stanton from his cabinet position of Secretary of War.
President Ulysses S. Grant
18th President of the United States , who was nominated by the Republican party and won the 1868 presidential election, succeeding Democratic President Andrew Johnson. - He was an honest person, but an awful judge of character, resulting in his presidency being corrupted by friends and acquaintances, who were his political appointees to various government positions and engaged in multiple scandals.
Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873
A setback for Reconstruction - The Supreme Court ruled that most civil rights were state, rather than federal, rights and therefore unprotected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Tenant Farming
A system where each farmer bought his own tools and seed and rented land for cash from the Planters and kept all of their harvest.
Ten Days
According to the U.S. Constitution, the president has this many days to either sign or veto a bill passed by Congress. - If the president does neither, the bill automatically becomes law.
Enforcement Act of 1870
Act passed by Congress in response to some Southern governments who refused to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, and some white Southerners who used violence to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote. - This act gave the federal government more power to punish those who tried to prevent African Americans from exercising their constitutional rights.
Hampton Institute
African American college founded during Reconstruction in Hampton , Virginia.
The Reconstruction Act of 1867
Congressional Reconstruction plan that was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson. Congress then passed the act into law through a 2/3rds override of President Johnson's presidential veto. - The act: 1. Divided the remaining ten former Confederate states into five military districts, each headed by a Union general. 2. The voters in each district —— including African American men —- would elect delegates to conventions in which new state constitutions would be drafted. 3. In order for a former Confederate state to re-enter the Union, its constitution had to ensure African Americans men the right to vote, and the state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Third Force Act of April 1871
Empowered the president to use the armed forces to combat those who conspired to deny equal protection of the laws and to suspend habeas corpus, if necessary, to enforce the act.
South Carolina
Only Southern state during Reconstruction that had a black majority in the state legislature.
U.S. v. Reese (1876)
Supreme Court case which said the 15th Amendment did not give everyone the right to vote but listed the grounds for which states could NOT deny the right to vote. - This was yet another legal setback for Reconstruction.
The Freedmen's Bureau
The bureau, established by Congress in the last month of the Civil War, assisted former slaves and poor whites in the South by distributing clothing and food. - In addition, the Bureau set up: 1. more that 40 hospitals. 2. approximately 4,000 schools. 3. 61 industrial institutes. 4. 74 teacher-training centers.
Horace Greeley
The editor of the New York Tribune, who was nominated by both the splinter group the Liberal Republicans and the Democratic Parties to run against President Grant in the 1872 presidential election. - He lost to President Grant by a wide margin and Grant was re-elected president.
Hiram Revels
The first African American elected to the U.S. senate. - He was from the Southern state of Mississippi.
Two-Thirds Vote in both the House and the Senate ( both Chambers ).
The process by which Congress can override a veto of a bill by the president ( presidential veto ). - The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first major legislation ever enacted over a presidential veto. - In mid-1866, moderate Republicans joined with Radical Republicans to override President Andrew Johnson's vetoes of the Civil Rights and Freedman's Bureau Acts.
Reconstruction
The twelve year period which the United States began to rebuild from the Civil War, lasting from 1865 to 1877. - The term also refers to the process the government used to readmit the Confederate states back into the Union.
Carpetbaggers
The unflattering name that Democrats used for Northerners who moved to the South following the Civil War. - Some of these Northerners were Freedman's Bureau agents, teachers, and ministers who felt a moral duty to help former slaves. - Others wanted to buy land or hoped to start new industries legitimately. - Most white Southerners believed that these Northerners wanted to exploit the South's postwar turmoil for their own profit.
Republican Governments
These Southern governments built roads, bridges, railroads, and established orphanages and institutions for the care of people with mental illnesses and disabilities. - They also created the first public school systems that most Southern states ever had. - To raise money, most Southern governments increased taxes of all kinds.
Radical Republicans
A minority of Republicans in Congress who were angered by Lincoln's moderate Reconstruction plan. - They wanted to destroy the political power of former slave holders. - Most of all, they wanted African Americans to be given full citizenship and the right to vote. - They responded to Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction by passing the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864, which Lincoln killed using a "Pocket Veto."
The Ku Klux Klan ( KKK )
A secret white supremacy group whose overarching goal was to restore white supremacy. - Another of its objectives was to turn the Republicans, who had established the Reconstruction governments, out of power. - The method that this group used was to prevent African Americans from exercising their political power ( voting ). - Between 1868 and 1871, this and other secret groups killed thousands of men, women, and children. They also burned schools, churches, and property. - In the 1875 and 1876 Southern states' elections, their terrorist campaign frightened the African American majority away from the voting polls, and white Democratic candidates swept these elections. - African Americans who owned their own land or who worked in occupations other than agriculture were subject to attacks and destruction of property. - While the vast majority of this secret group's victims were African Americans, whites who tried to help African Americans—- whether by educating them, renting land to them, or buying their crops were also in danger.
Sharecropping
A system where land owners divided their land and gave each worker —- either freed African American or poor white —- a few acres, along with tools and seed. - At harvest time, each worker gave a share of his crop, usually half, to the landowner. - This share paid back the landowner back and the arrangement ended until it was renewed the following year.
Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freedmen's Bureau Act.
President Andrew Jackson shocked everyone when he vetoed both of these acts passed by Congress. - Johnson contended that Congress had gone far beyond anything " contemplated by the authors of the Constitution." - By rejecting these two acts, Johnson alienated the moderate Republicans who were trying to improve his Reconstruction plan. - Johnson's vetoes of these acts also angered the Radical Republicans by his appearing to support Southerners who denied African Americans their full rights. - In mid-1866, the moderate Republicans joined with the Radical Republicans to override President Johnson's vetoes of these two acts and they became law.
The Amnesty Act
Passed by Congress in May of 1872, returned the right to hold federal and state offices —- which had been revoked as part of the Fourteenth Amendment —— to about 150,000 former Confederates, who would almost certainly vote Democrat.
The Thirteenth Amendment
Permanently abolished slavery in all states. - The U.S. Constitution now stated that " Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States."
The Second Force Act of February 1871
Placed administration of national elections under the control of the federal government and empowered federal judges and United States marshals to supervise local polling places.
Impeach
To accuse government officials of misconduct in office, especially the President. - The House of Representatives votes on whether laws have been violated to warrant an impeachment trail, like a Grand Jury does for a civil trial. - The trail is held in the Senate, where a 2/3rds vote is required to find the official guilty and removed from office.
The Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871
To curtail Ku Klux Klan violence and Democratic intimidation, Congress passed these series of Act in 1870 and 1871. - However, President Grant was not aggressive in his use of these Acts, and in 1882, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1871 Act was unconstitutional.
Andrew Johnson
A Democratic Senator from Tennessee who was the only senator from a Confederate state to remain loyal to the Union. - He was an abolitionist. - He hated wealthy Southern planters, whom he held responsible for dragging poor whites into the Civil War. - He felt that the traitors to the Union must be punished and impoverished... their social power must be destroyed. - He was Lincoln's Democratic vice-president. - He became the 17th president of the United State when the Republican President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. by John Wilkes Booth.
Wade-Davis Bill of 1864
A bill passed by the Radical Republicans in July 1864, which proposed that Congress, not the president, be responsible for Reconstruction. - This bill also declared that for a new Southern state government to be formed 50% —-not just 10% —— of those eligible to vote in 1860 would have to take a solemn oath to support the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln killed this bill using what is known as the " pocket veto." - Lincoln chose to veto this act by Congress because he believed it would be too difficult to repair all of the ties within the Union if he signed this Bill into law.
The Liberal Republican Party
A group of Republicans, angered by the corruption in the Grant administration, formed their own political party in the hopes of ousting Grant in the 1872 presidential election.
Baptist or Methodist
After the Civil War African Americans founded their own churches, usually of these two denominations, and held services similar to the early praise meetings. - Because churches were the principal institutions that African Americans fully controlled, African Americans ministers emerged as influential community leaders.
The Fifteenth Amendment
Constitutional amendment that states that no one can be kept from voting because of " race, color, or previous conditions of servitude." - The amendment was ratified in 1870 and also affected Northern states, many of which at this time barred African Americans from voting.
Presidential Reconstruction
Democratic President Andrew Johnson's plan for Reconstruction. Johnson often expressed his intent to deal harshly with Confederate leaders. - Under Johnson's Reconstruction plan each remaining Confederate state —— Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas —— could be readmitted to the Union if it would meet several conditions: 1. withdrawal its secession. 2. 10% of white males on the 1860 voting lists had to swear allegiance to the Union. 3. annul ( make void or cancel ) Confederate war debts. 4. ratify ( approve ) the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery. The one major difference between Lincoln's and Johnson's Reconstruction plans was that Johnson wished to prevent most high-ranking Confederates and wealthy Southern landowners from taking the oath needed for voting privileges. The Radical Republicans were especially upset that Johnson's plan, like Lincoln's, failed to address the needs of former slaves in three areas: 1. land. 2. voting rights. 3. Protection under the law.
Lincoln's Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction ( 10% Plan )
Favored a lenient Reconstruction policy. - Believed that secession was constitutionally impossible and therefore the Confederate states had never left the Union. - Wished to make the South's return to the Union as quick and easy as possible. - Under this proposal, also known as the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction: 1. The government would pardon all Confederates ——- except high-ranking officials and those accused of crimes against prisoners of war —— who would swear allegiance to the Union. 2. After ten percent of those on the 1860 voting list took the oath of allegiance, a Confederate state could form a new state government and gain representation in Congress. - Under the terms of this plan, four Southern states —- Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia —- moved toward readmission to the Union.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
Gave African Americans citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws —— black codes —- that severely restricted African Americans' lives. — The Southern states of South Carolina and Mississippi had first enacted black codes in 1865, and other Southern states had rapidly followed suit. - This Act became the first major legislation ever enacted due to a 2/3rds congressional override of a presidential veto after President Andrew Johnson had vetoed it.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
President Andrew Johnson, among others, was certain that the Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional. - To force a court test of the act, President Johnson fired this cabinet member. - The House of Representatives, led by Radical Republicans, brought 11 articles of impeachment against President Johnson, 9 of which were based on his perceived violation of the Tenure of Office Act. - President Andrew Johnson's lawyers disputed these charges by pointing out that President Lincoln, and not President Johnson, had appointed the cabinet official, so the Tenure of Office Act did not apply. - President Andrew Johnson avoided being found guilty and removed from office by one vote of the necessary 2/3rd votes required in his trial, which was held in the senate.
The Presidential Election of 1876
President Grant chose not to run for re-election. - The Republicans chose Governor Rutherford B. Hayes as their candidate. - The Democrats chose Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York, who had cleaned up the graft that had flourished in New York City under the corrupt Tweed Ring. - The Democrat, Tilden, won the popular vote, but fell one vote short of winning the electoral college. - 20 electoral votes were disputed. - Congress appointed a commission to settle the election. - The commission, made up of mostly Republicans, gave the election to their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, even though he had received a minority of the popular vote. - This was the first time in U.S. History that a candidate who had lost the popular vote became president.
Schuyler Colfax
President Grant's vice president who was implicated in the Credit Mobilier scheme to skim profits from the Union Pacific Railroad.
The Enforcement Act of May 1870
Prohibited groups of people from banding together " or to go in disguise upon the public highways, or upon the premises of another" with the intention of violating citizens' constitutional rights.
Fourteenth Amendment
Provided a constitutional basis for the Civil Rights Act of 1866. - This constitutional amendment made " all persons born or naturalized in the United States " citizens of the country." - All citizens were entitled to equal protection under the law, and no state could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. - This amendment DID NOT specifically give African Americans the vote. - However, this Amendment did state that if any state prevented a portion of its male citizens from voting, that state would lose a percentage of its congressional seats equal to the percentage of citizens kept from the polls.
Charles Sumner ( Massachusetts) and Thaddeus Stevens ( Pennsylvania)
Representatives from the Northern states of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania who were the leaders of the Radical Republicans.
The Compromise of 1877
The Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, which had to approve the election results for Rutherford B. Hayes to be named president. - The Southern Democrats were willing to accept the election of Hayes if they could get three things in return from the Republicans ( a deal ) : 1. the withdrawal of federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina— two of the three Southern states that Republicans still governed. 2. The Southern Democrats wanted federal money to build a railroad from Texas to the West Coast and to improve Southern rivers, harbors, and bridges. 3. Finally, that Rutherford B. Hayes appoint a conservative Southerner to his presidential cabinet. The Republicans agreed to the Democrats demands and Rutherford B. Hayes was inaugurated as the 19th president.
Scalawags
The term that Democrats, opposed to the Republicans' plan for Reconstruction, called white Southerners who joined the Republican Party. - The majority of these people were small farmers who wanted to improve their economic and political position and to prevent the former wealthy planters from regaining power. - However, some unscrupulous individuals hoped to gain political offices with the help of the African-American vote and then use those offices to enrich themselves. - Few ended up sharing the Republican commitment to civil rights and suffrage for African Americans. - Overtime, many of them returned to the Democratic Party.
President Andrew Johnson
The first United States president to be impeached in the House of Representatives. - The House voted to impeach him because it was believed that he violated the Tenure of Office Act when he fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. - He was tried in the Senate but survived being found guilty and removed from office by one vote.
40 Acres of land and the use of an army mule ( " 40 Acres and a Mule" )
The two things that Union General William Tecumseh Sherman had promised freed slaves who followed his army.
Black Codes
These laws were first enacted by the Southern states of South Carolina and Mississippi in 1865. - These discriminatory measures had the effect of restoring many of the restrictions of slavery: 1. prohibited blacks from carrying weapons. 2. serving on juries. 3. testifying against whites. 4. marrying whites. 5. traveling without permits. 6. In some states, African Americans were prohibited from owning land.
Credit Mobilier Scandal
This famous scandal occurred during the Grant administration. - This construction company working for the Union Pacific Railroad, had skimmed off large profits from the railroad's government contract. - Among those Grant administration officials implicated was Vice-President Schuyler Colfax.
African Americans
This group made up the largest group of Southern Republicans. - Nine out of ten voted to support the Republican Party.
U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876)
This was another setback for Reconstruction. - This Supreme Court decision weakened the Fourteenth Amendment by declaring that the federal government had no authority to punish individual whites who oppressed blacks.
Pocket Veto
When a bill is passed less than ten days before the end of a congressional session, the president can prevent its becoming law by simply ignoring, or " pocketing, " it. - President Lincoln used a pocket veto when he vetoed the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864 because he felt that if he signed this Bill into law it would be too difficult to repair all of the ties within the Union.
Home Rule
When now President Rutherford B. Hayes removed federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina the Democrats took over political power in those states. - The Democrats had now achieved their long-desired goal of the ability to run state governments without federal intervention. - The Democrats passed laws that restricted the rights of African Americans, wiped out social programs, slashed taxes, and dismantled public schools.