Reconstruction and Post-Civil War History Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key people, laws, amendments, and social conditions during the American Reconstruction era and the late 19th century.

Poll tax

A fee paid to vote.

Grandfather Clause

Southern voting law that allowed voters whose grandfather had been a registered voter before Reconstruction started to be exempt from taking a literacy test to vote.

Prejudice

An unfair belief or opinion in which a person judges another before knowing them.

Discrimination

An action taken to treat someone unfairly.

Plessy v. Ferguson

Supreme Court ruling in 1896 that legalized segregation and the Jim Crow laws, stating that "Separate but Equal" was okay.

Frederick Douglass

Civil Rights activist and powerful voice for human rights, civil liberties, and equal voting rights for all people including men, women, and immigrants.

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency from 1865-1872 meant to help recently freed people and others in the South by providing food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and education.

13th Amendment

The Reconstruction Amendment that abolishes slaves.

14th Amendment

The Reconstruction Amendment stating that if you are born in America, you become a citizen.

15th Amendment

The Reconstruction Amendment stating that black men could vote, though it did not include women or Native Americans.

Sharecropper contracts

Agreements that usually favored the landowner, especially after the end of Reconstruction, and could be very unfair to the individuals farming the land.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Law that guaranteed citizenship and civil rights to African Americans and allowed the federal government to enforce these laws.

Jim Crow laws

Laws established as Reconstruction was ending in the South with the purpose of limiting the rights of newly freed African Americans.

Compromise of 1877

Agreement that ended Reconstruction by giving the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the removal of the last federal troops from the South.

Segregation

Separating people based on their race.

Firing on Fort Sumter

The opening shots of the Civil War.

Andrew Johnson

The individual sworn in as president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Reconstruction

The period from 1865 to 1877 focused on rebuilding the nation, particularly the South, and integrating formerly enslaved people into society.

Literacy Tests

Unfair and confusing exams designed to assess reading and writing abilities, often used to restrict voting rights for African Americans and immigrants.

Disenfranchise

To take away someone's right to vote or participate in something.

KKK

A white supremacist hate group founded by confederate soldiers after the Civil War.

Hiram Revels

The first African American senator.

Amnesty

The act of forgiving people who broke the law.

Amendment

An addition or change to the Constitution.

10% plan

Lincoln’s plan stating a confederate state could form a new government and rejoin the Union once 10% of its voters took an oath of loyalty to the United States.

Integration

The post-Civil War effort to reintegrate Confederate states and newly freed African Americans into the United States.

Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's 1863 issuance declaring all slaves in rebellious states were free.

"Forty acres and a mule"

A promise made to newly freed enslaved people suggesting they would receive land and resources to become economically self-sufficient.

Dred Scott decision

A landmark 1857 Supreme Court ruling that declared people of African descent were not and could never be citizens of the United States.

Lynching

An attack on a person that usually ended with the victim’s death by hanging.

Reconciliation

The reestablishment of friendly relationships.