US History Unit 1: Reconstruction - Vocab

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20 Terms

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Reconstruction

A period of rebuilding and reorganizing the political and social structures of a country, particularly after a major conflict or disruption.

  • American Reconstruction era (1865-1877)

    • Reintegrating the Confederate states into the Union

    • Defining the rights and status of newly freed African Americans

    • Changing the relationship between the federal government & the states

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Desegregation

The official process of eliminating laws, policies, and practices that enforce separation between different racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural groups, typically to promote equality and social justice within public institutions and society as a whole

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Amnesty

A legislative act of forgiveness for past crimes, often for political offenses, that extinguishes the crime itself, preventing prosecution and erasing the criminal record as if the offense never happened

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Civil Rights Act 1866

A landmark federal law that defined citizenship for all persons born in the U.S. and guaranteed them equal protection under the law, regardless of race or color. It provided federal protection for fundamental rights, such as the ability to contract, own property, sue, and receive equal benefits from the law, to counter the discriminatory "Black Codes" enacted after the Civil War.

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Pardon

An act of executive forgiveness granted to an individual for a specific, existing conviction, relieving them of some or all punishment, but the conviction remains on their record.

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14th Amendment

  • Grants citizenship to all persons born in the U.S.

  • Prohibits states from denying rights or privileges to any person without due process of law

  • Ensures equal protection under the law for all individuals (due process)

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Due Process

Fair treatment through the normal judicial system especially as a citizen’s entitlement.

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Impeachment

Process where a legislative body formally accuses a public official of misconduct. It's the first step in removing an official from their position, acting as a charge rather than a conviction.

  • Accused by the House. Must be enough evidence to put person on trial.

  • Trial held by the Senate

  • Judge is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

  • 2/3 of the Senators must say person is guilty

  • If found guilty, the official is kicked out of office.

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Override

To set aside or cancel the decision, action, or law of another branch of government, typically through a legislative body overriding a veto from the executive.

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Chief Justice

The Chief Justice is the top judicial officer and presiding judge of the nation's highest court, such as the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Tenant Farmers

A person who farmed land owned by someone else, paying the landlord a fixed amount of cash or a portion of their crop as rent, and typically providing their own tools, equipment, and farm animals.

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Sharecroppers

A poor farmer who worked a landowner's plot of land and paid rent by giving a portion of the harvest to the landowner.

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Black Codes

The Black Codes were a series of discriminatory state laws designed to maintain the social and economic structure of racial slavery.

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Scalawags

A pejorative term for a white Southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction. (White Republican in the South)

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Carpetbaggers

A pejorative term used to describe Northern Republicans who moved to the South after the Civil War. The term implied that these individuals were opportunistic outsiders who came to exploit the defeated South for their own political and financial gain.

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Literacy Test

Tests of reading and writing ability but were weaponized as tools of racial disenfranchisement, particularly against Black Americans, to prevent them from voting.

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Grandfather Clause

Laws enacted in Southern states to disenfranchise African American voters while allowing poor, illiterate whites to retain their voting rights. These clauses exempted individuals from new voting restrictions, like literacy tests and poll taxes, if their grandfathers had been eligible to vote before a specific date (usually 1867).

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Jim Crow Laws

Any state or local laws that enforced or legalized racial segregation.

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KKK

White supremacist terrorist group that took violent steps to undermine the Republican party, hoping to maintain black economic instability and ensure white racial and economic superiority in the post Civil War South.

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White Supremacy

White supremacy is the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should dominate society. It was codified by the black codes by restricting civic participation of freed people as the codes deprived them of the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, the right to own/carry weapons, and even the right to rent or lease land.