U.S. History Lecture: Reconstruction & Post-Civil War Era

Vocabulary flashcards covering citizenship, Reconstruction amendments, post-Civil War Southern economics, political factions, and social developments.

Fourteenth Amendment

A Reconstruction amendment passed in 1868 that defines U.S. citizenship as including anyone born on American soil and guarantees equal protection under the law for all citizens.

1873 Supreme Court Case

A Supreme Court ruling that effectively rolled back many of the citizenship protections granted to people of color under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Thirteenth Amendment

The Reconstruction amendment that officially abolished slavery in the United States.

Fifteenth Amendment

The final Reconstruction amendment, passed in 1870, which prohibits denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, while penalizing states that violate this provision.

Reconstruction Amendments

The collective term for the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Freedmen's Bureau Agents

Federal representatives stationed in small numbers throughout the South, such as in Northeast Texas, who were tasked with assisting formerly enslaved people amidst widespread post-war violence.

Sharecropping

A post-Civil War agricultural economic system in which landowners allowed tenants to farm their land in exchange for a percentage share of the crops produced.

Radical Republicans

A small, left-wing faction within the post-Civil War Republican Party that actively advocated for full social equality among all races.

Charles Sumner

A Radical Republican leader from Massachusetts who championed social equality for Black Americans during Reconstruction.

John Rainer

An example of an exceptional Black political officeholder who served during the Reconstruction era between 1870 and 1877.

Carpetbaggers

A derogatory term used to describe Northern Republicans who relocated to the South during Reconstruction, often accused of manipulating political power for personal gain.

Scalawags

A derogatory term used in the South for Southern white individuals who cooperated and collaborated with Reconstruction Republicans.

Freedman Schools

Community schools established across the South after the Civil War, largely taught by altruistic Northern volunteers, to provide education to formerly enslaved individuals.

Cash Crop Agriculture

An economic farming framework forced onto sharecroppers that required planting market crops like cotton on nearly all available land rather than subsistence farming.