Reconstruction and the 13th Amendment

Flashcards reviewing key vocabulary, events, legal rulings, and concepts surrounding Reconstruction, racial violence, and the 13th Amendment loophole.

Colfax Massacre

A violent event on April 13, 1873, in Colfax, Louisiana, where between 62 and 153 Black men were murdered by former Confederate soldiers and the KKK following a disputed gubernatorial election.

United States v. Cruikshank

An 1876 Supreme Court decision ruling that 14th Amendment protections do not apply to the actions of private individuals, effectively making federal enforcement against private racial violence a state responsibility.

Enforcement Act of 1870

Federal legislation used by the federal government to intervene in the Colfax Massacre after local parish governments failed to prosecute the perpetrators.

13th Amendment Loophole

The constitutional exception clause, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," which allowed for involuntary servitude and re-enslavement of convicted individuals.

Convict Leasing

A post-Civil War system in which states leased overwhelmingly Black convicted individuals to private companies and citizens for labor, generating revenue for states under lethal conditions.

Black Freedom Struggles

Intergenerational efforts by African Americans to achieve economic, political, and social participation in the United States and the African diaspora.

William Kellogg

The Republican candidate whose disputed gubernatorial election against Democratic opposition in Louisiana served as motivation for the Colfax Massacre.

Charles Sumner

A politician who opposed the loophole in the 13th Amendment, warning that it would allow slavery to persist.

Chain Gangs

The forced labor system that eventually replaced convict leasing in the 20th century.