APUSH 15

Andrew Johnson

Democrat from Tennessee who served as Lincoln's vice president and, upon Lincoln's assassination, became the seventeenth president; opposed Radical Republican policies on Reconstruction.

Atlanta Compromise

This term describes Booker T. Washington's philosophy, stated in an 1895 speech, that blacks should forgo agitation for political rights and concentrate on self-improvement and preparation for equality.

Black Codes

State laws that developed after the Civil War in the former Confederate states to limit the political power and mobility of black Americans.

Booker T. Washington

The chief spokesman for a commitment to black education and the founder and president of Tuskegee University.

Carpetbagger

Slang term used by white Southern Democrats to describe white men from the North, many of them veterans, who settled in the South as hopeful planters, businessmen, and professionals and supported Republican policies.

Charles Sumner

United States Senator from Massachusetts who was a leading voice against slavery and for black liberties.

Compromise of 1877

Rutherford B. Hayes's promise to withdraw federal troops from the South, effectively ending Reconstruction, in exchange for the support of Southern delegates in the disputed election of 1876 presidential election.

Crop-lien System

A credit system widely used in the South after the Civil War in which farmers promised a portion of their future crops in exchange for supplies from local merchants.

Enforcement Acts

Also known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts, these congressional acts in 1870 and 1871 prohibited states from discriminating against voters on the basis of race and gave the national government authority to prosecute crimes by individuals under federal law.

15th Amendment

An 1870 constitutional amendment that forbade the states and the federal government from denying suffrage to any male citizen on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

14th Amendment

An 1868 constitutional amendment that granted citizenship to all persons born in the United States and prohibited states from denying "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" or equal protection under the law.

Freedman's Bureau

U.S. bureau established in 1858 that aimed to help former enslaved people forge independent lives.

Ida B. Wells

African American journalist whose reporting in the late nineteenth century on racial violence launched what became an international antilynching movement.

Impeachment

The process of charging a public official with misconduct, with the potential for punishment including loss of office.

Jim Crow Laws

A dense network of state and local statutes that institutionalized an elaborate system of racial hierarchy.

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

One of many secret societies that used terrorism and physical violence to intimidate Page 855former slaves and undercut their constitutional rights, especially the right to vote.

Minstrel Show

Form of popular theater and entertainment from the early 1800s to the early 1900s that openly mocked and degraded African American culture.

New South

A term referring to the economic modernization and industrialization of the South after Reconstruction.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 Supreme Court decision that ruled that separate accommodations for blacks and whites were legal so long as they were equal.

Radical Republicans

A wing of the Republican Party in the mid-nineteenth century that aggressively opposed slavery and, after the Civil War, fought to expand and protect African American civil rights.

Reconstruction

The process by which the federal government, between 1865 and 1877, controlled the former Confederate states and set the conditions for their readmission to the Union.

Redeemers

Coalition of white southern landowners, business interests, and professionals who sought to "redeem" the South after the Civil War by limiting the influence of the Republican Party and violently overthrowing federal reconstruction policies and African American citizenship rights.

Scalawag

Slang term referring to Southern whites who supported the Republican Party and federal Reconstruction policies after the Civil War.

Sharecropping

A farming system in which large landowners rent their fields to farmers, usually families, in return for a share of the crop's production.

Thaddeus Stevens

U.S Representative from Pennsylvania who was an abolitionist and a leader of the Radical Republicans.

Ulysses S. Grant

Chief of the Union armies (at the beginning of 1864) and eighteenth president who supervised much of Reconstruction.

Wade-Davis Bill

The 1864 bill stipulating that all Confederate states seeking readmission to the Union have a majority of its voters take a loyalty oath to the federal government; it never passed because Lincoln refused to sign it.

William H. Seward

Secretary of state in both President Lincoln's and President Johnson's administrations who negotiated purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.

Lincoln's 10% Plan

when 10% of voters in southern states pledged allegiance to U.S. it would become part of union

Johnson's Reconstruction Plan

Required former Confederate states to ratify the 13th amendment before they could rejoin the union, hold conventions that would outlaw slavery, and reach 50% population threshold that would vote to abolish slavery

Civil Rights Act of 1866

law that established federal guarantees of civil rights for all citizens

Grant Scandals

There were a series of scandals during Grant's presidency that involved corruption and bribery on the part of Grant appointees. The scandals threatened to overshadow his presidency and tarnished his reputation.

Greenbacks

Name for Union paper money not backed by gold or silver. Value would fluctuate depending on status of the war (plural)

Seward Folly

buying of the Alaskan "icebox", biggest bargain since Louisiana purchase

Solid Democratic South

Although many white Southern leaders sympathized with Republican economic polities, they resented Reconstruction (so no support of Republicans). Survives until mid 1900s

Henry Grady

Journalist from Georgia who coined the phrase "New South". Promoted his ideas through the Atlanta Constitution, as editor. He planned Atlanta's International Cotton Exposition

Lynching

putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law