Chapter 15 Learning Curve
Why did many Republicans believe after 1874 that Reconstruction needed to end?
A. They had suffered a stunning defeat in the 1874 midterm elections.
Why did some Republicans in the Senate vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson of criminal misconduct at the end of his impeachment trial?
A. They thought that removing a president over a policy dispute would be a dangerous precedent.
What law was struck down in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) decision by the Supreme Court?
B. Civil Rights Act of 1875
Why did the Democratic loser of the contested 1876 election, Samuel Tilden, urge Democratic House members to go along with the decision of the electoral commission?
B. Republican candidate Hayes had indicated his willingness to offer substantial patronage to the South.
Why did the freedmen insist that they needed to receive grants of land?
D. As the only way to guarantee their freedom
Under President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan, how could high-ranking Confederate military officers regain their property and win amnesty?
D. By petitioning the president
How did the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Cruikshank (1876) weaken the Fourteenth Amendment?
D. By saying it did not apply to the actions of private citizens
Why did some Republicans begin to revolt against the Grant administration in the early 1870s?
D. They lost faith in their party because of the economic depression.
How do scholars now view Freedmen's Bureau officials?
A. As dedicated and idealistic
Which institutions were a central focus of African American culture in the Reconstruction South?
A. Churches
Which of the following best assesses the role of Ulysses S. Grant in the impeachment crisis of 1868?
A. Grant had stepped down as secretary of war in favor of Edwin Stanton, precipitating the crisis.
What was radical about the Fourteenth Amendment?
A. It defined citizenship in national rather than state terms.
What was the name of the paramilitary force that was founded in Tennessee and used violence against Republicans and blacks across the South?
A. Ku Klux Klan
In the election of 1876, on what grounds did Republican officials certify the states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina for Rutherford B. Hayes?
A. There was ample evidence of Democratic voter fraud.
Why were the odds stacked against freedmen who became sharecroppers?
A. They could not escape debt.
With what was President Andrew Johnson charged when he was impeached in 1868?
B. Engaging in misconduct and infringing on the powers of Congress
What did President Andrew Johnson's opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment succeeded in achieving?
B. Helping Republicans win an overwhelming majority in Congress in 1866
What benefit did sharecropping offer African Americans over the old institution of slavery?
B. It ended gang labor and allowed freedmen to work on their own terms.
Why did wage labor not become common in cotton-producing areas of the South?
B. Landowners did not have the cash to pay wages.
Which former Confederate general was the first leader of the Ku Klux Klan?
B. Nathan Bedford Forrest
In an 1865 published letter to his former master in Tennessee, Jourdon Anderson asked "if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane. . . . I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters." Judging by this statement, what was one of the most important benefits of black freedom after the Civil War?
B. Safety from a master's sexual violence
What did American women's rights leaders hope to gain from Reconstruction?
B. Suffrage
Which political leader supported reparations for slaves in the form of the planters' land?
B. Thaddeus Stevens
Why were Supreme Court decisions of the 1870s and 1880s regarding the Civil War amendments and civil rights acts significant?
B. They restricted the impact of these amendments and rulings.
What service, in addition to religious services, did churches provide African Americans after the Civil War?
B. They served as social centers.
Which provision was part of the Wade-Davis Bill of July 1864, the first congressional plan for Reconstruction?
B. Those who had fought against the United States could not form new governments.
In the South of the late 1800s, sharecroppers found themselves tied to the land and in debt to landlords and merchants in a system of forced labor known as
B. peonage.
How was Reconstruction taught in American children schools at least until the 1960s?
C. As the illegitimate regime of lazy blacks
What triggered the 1873 depression in the United States?
C. Bankruptcy of the Northern Pacific Railroad
Under President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan, how could high-ranking Confederate military officers regain their property and win amnesty?
C. By petitioning the president
Why did Congress pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875 after the bill had remained on Capitol Hill for five years?
C. Congress passed the law to honor Charles Sumner, who had died the year before.
Why did Congress believe it was important for military commanders in the occupied South to supervise new state constitutional conventions?
C. Congress wanted to ensure that new constitutions guaranteed black suffrage.
What position did Frederick Douglass assume on the issue of women's voting rights during Reconstruction?
C. Douglass asked women to allow black male suffrage to take priority.
What was the primary reason Republican governments across the South fell one by one to Democrats in the mid-1870s?
C. Ex-Confederate politicians, using terrorism, silenced the black and Republican vote.
What were the "Redemption" governments of the South in the late 1800s?
C. Governments formed of ex-Confederates
Why did Republicans nominate Rutherford B. Hayes for the presidential election of 1876?
C. He came from the important swing state of Ohio.
By the late 1870s, how did the majority of freedmen and freedwomen in the South live?
C. In poverty with uncertain political rights
What statement describes Abraham Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan for Reconstruction?
C. It included general amnesty to all but high-ranking Confederates willing to pledge loyalty to the Union.
Why did the Grant administration's reaction to the depression that began in 1873 deepen resentment toward Washington Republicans?
C. It rejected calls for providing relief for debt and unemployment.
The Black Codes instituted by southern state governments created under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan aimed to achieve what goal?
C. Place African Americans in a situation as close to slavery as possible
Why did the economic troubles brought on by the panic of 1873 hit southern governments particularly hard?
C. The southern economy had already been growing slowly before the downturn.
Why are the Republican Reconstruction governments of the South categorized as reforming governments?
C. They expanded education and health care.
What did Republicans in Congress do in 1865 to block implementation of President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan?
C. They refused to admit southern delegates to Congress.
Which adjective accurately describes Republican state governments in the Reconstruction South?
D. Ambitious in goals
How did sharecropping develop as an agricultural system in the post-Civil War South?
D. By way of strained, need-based negotiations between landlords and freedmen
Why was the outcome of the 1876 election given to an electoral commission to determine?
D. Electoral votes from three states were disputed.
Why did some African Americans in the Reconstruction South resist the idea of desegregated schools?
D. Fear for children's safety
Which of the following best assesses the significance of the election of 1876 for the South?
D. It made little immediate difference in the South, where Redeemers had already assumed power.
In early 1877, who replaced Supreme Court Justice David Davis on the electoral commission empowered to settle the disputed presidential election of 1876?
D. Joseph P. Bradley
As of 1876, which state no longer had any U.S. military units remaining?
D. Mississippi
What was significant about the results of the 1866 congressional elections?
D. Republicans won enough seats to override President Andrew Johnson's vetoes.
Which statement best describes the constitutional revolution associated with Reconstruction?
D. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments laid the foundation for the civil rights movement of the twentieth century.
What made the failure of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (FSTC) in 1874 so tragic?
D. This bank was predominantly used by black farmers, charities, and small businesses.
During Reconstruction, the term "scalawag" referred to what group of southern whites?
D. Those who supported Reconstruction
Why did Congress pass the Enforcement Laws in 1870?
D. To try to stop violence perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups