History Chapter 1 (Reconstruction)

Reconstruction

Time period from 1865-1867 when the government’s main focus was to bring the southern states back into the union and guarantee rights to former slaves.

Ten Percent Plan

Offered southerners amnesty, or legal pardon, for all illegal acts supporting the rebellion.

13th Amendment

Made slavery illegal throughout the United States.

Freedman’s Bureau

Established to undertake the effort and unprocessed social reconstruction that would bring freed people to full citizenship.

Andrew Johnson

Lincoln’s vice president that took over for him after he was assassinated.

Black Codes

Laws that greatly limited the freedom of African Americans - required them to sign work contracts and face harsh punishment if employment or residency could not be proved.

Radical Republicans

Republicans who took a harsher stance against Black Codes, as they wanted to force change in the south.

Civil Rights act of 1866

Act that provided African Americans with the same legal rights as white Americans.

14th Amendment

All born in the United States are a citizen, all with equal equal protection under the law. No state can deprive a person of life, liberty, or property. State laws are subject to review in court.

Laws that divided the south into 5 districts,. each one controlled by a military commander.

Impeachment

The process used by a legislative body to bring charges of wrongdoing to a public figure.

15th Amendment

Denied the federal government from being able to prohibit anyone the right to vote based off on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

Ku Klux Klan

Secret society that used violence and terror against African Americans.

Compromise of 1877

Where the democrats agreed to accept Hayes’s victory in return for all remaining federal troops to be removed from the south.

Poll Tax

A special tax African Americans had to pay before they could vote.

Segregation

The forced separation of whites and African Americans in public places.

Jim Crow Laws

Laws that enforced segregation.

Plessy vs. Ferguson

SCOTUS case that determined “separate but equal” facilities were equal.

Sharecropping

Where land owners provided tools and supplies and the sharecroppers would do the labor for a small share of the harvest.