Reconstruction (1865-1877) & Migration to Great Plains

Reconstruction

The process of putting the Union back together and readmitting the Southern

states after the Civil War

Lincoln’s 10% Plan

Lincoln’s lenient plan for Reconstruction. A state had to accept the 13th

amendment and when 10% of people in a state took a loyalty oath to the Union,

the state would be let back into the Union; Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas

were readmitted into the Union

Radical Republicans

Group of Congressmen who wanted to punish the South after the Civil War by

making the process of Reconstruction more harsh and by giving newly freed

Black Americans rights

Andrew Johnson

Became president after Lincoln’s assassination; implemented a lenient plan for

reconstruction and clashed with Radical Republicans; did not want to give

African Americans rights after the Civil War

Freedmen’s Bureau

A social welfare agency that aided newly formerly enslaved people and poor

whites after the Civil War. Provided food, shelter and medical aid; established

schools, hospitals and literacy programs to teach newly Black Americans to read

Military Reconstruction Act of 1867

The South would be divided into 5 military districts with Union troops stationed

in them; a state would be readmitted into the Union if they ratified the 14th amendment and protected Black voting rights—this plan for Reconstruction

became law

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery throughout the United States

14th Amendment

All people born in the U.S. are citizens; all citizens are entitled to due process

of the law and equal protection of the law (1868)

Tenure of Office Act

Law passed by Congress stating that no sitting president could fire any member

of his cabinet without Congressional approval; Johnson defying this law led to

his impeachment

15th Amendment

The right of suffrage shall not be infringed based on race (1870)—protected

voting rights for Black Americans

Jim Crow Laws

Laws passed in Southern states that instituted legal segregation in all public

places

Black Codes

Laws passed in Southern states that allowed for the arrest and imprisonment of

Black Americans who were not employed; once they were imprisoned they could

be hired out for domestic service or agricultural work

Ku Klux Klan

A white supremacist organization created to prevent Black Americans from

voting; committed violent and brutal lynchings against Black Americans

throughout the South during Reconstruction; became a mainstream organization

in the 1920s and extended their hatred to immigrants, Jews and Catholics

Poll Taxes

Southern state policy that required payment to vote; discriminated against

Blacks and poor whites

Literacy Tests

Southern state policy that required the ability to read to vote; discriminated

against Blacks and poor whites

Grandfather Clause

Southern state policy that allowed those to vote if their grandfather could vote

prior to 1867; exempted poor whites from the above 2 policies

Sharecropping

System in which a farmer worked on the land of someone else and gave half of

their crop to the landowner in exchange for the use of the land; kept Blacks and

poor whites in a cycle of poverty for almost a century after the Civil War;

“economic slavery”

Compromise of 1877

Allowed Rutherford B. Hayes to become president if Union troops were pulled

out of the South; ended Reconstruction and considered “the great betrayal”

“Solid South”

The act of Southern states voting for Democrat policies after the Civil War

New South

The propagandized idea of a modern, industrial South in order to encourage

northern business to develop there; while some industries developed in the

South, sharecropping, poverty and racism remained

Plessy v. Ferguson

SCOTUS case in which Separate but Equal (laws that permit segregation) was

deemed constitutional (1896)