APUSH - Chapter 15 Key Terms

Ten Percent Plan

A plan proposed by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, but never implemented, that would have granted amnesty to most ex-Confederates and allowed each rebellious state to return to the Union as soon as 10 percent of its voters had taken a loyalty oath and the state had approved the Thirteenth Amendment.

Wade-Davis Bill

A bill proposed by Congress in July 1864 that required an oath of allegiance by a majority of each state's adult white men, new governments formed only by those who had never taken up arms against the Union, and permanent disenfranchisement of Confederate leaders. The plan was passed but pocket vetoed by President Abraham Lincoln.

Black Codes

Laws passed by southern states after the Civil War that denied ex-slaves the civil rights enjoyed by whites, punished vague crimes such as “vagrancy” or failing to have a labor contract, and tried to force African Americans back to plantation labor systems that closely mirrored those in slavery times.

Freedmen's Bureau

Government organization created in March 1865 to aid displaced blacks and other war refugees. Active until the early 1870s, it was the first federal agency in history that provided direct payments to assist those in poverty and to foster social welfare.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Legislation passed by Congress that nullified the Black Codes and affirmed that African Americans should have equal benefit of the law.

Fourteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in 1868 that made all native-born or naturalized persons U.S. citizens and prohibited states from abridging the rights of national citizens, thus giving primacy to national rather than state citizenship.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

An act that divided the conquered South into five military districts, each under the command of a U.S. general. To reenter the Union, former Confederate states had to grant the vote to freedmen and deny it to leading ex-Confederates.

Fifteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment ratified in 1869 that forbade states to deny citizens the right to vote on grounds of race, color, or “previous condition of servitude.”

American Woman Suffrage Association

A women’s suffrage organization led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others who remained loyal to the Republican Party, despite its failure to include women’s voting rights in the Reconstruction Amendments. Stressing the urgency of voting rights for African American men, AWSA leaders held out hope that once Reconstruction had been settled, it would be women’s turn.

National Woman Suffrage Association

A suffrage group headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony that stressed the need for women to lead organizations on their own behalf. The NWSA focused exclusively on women’s rights — sometimes denigrating men of color, in the process — and took up the battle for a federal women’s suffrage amendment.

Minor v. Happersett

A Supreme Court decision in 1875 that ruled that suffrage rights were not inherent in citizenship and had not been granted by the Fourteenth Amendment, as some women’s rights advocates argued. Women were citizens, the Court ruled, but state legislatures could deny women the vote if they wished.

Sharecropping

The labor system by which landowners and impoverished southern farmworkers, particularly African Americans, divided the proceeds from crops harvested on the landowner’s property. With local merchants providing supplies — in exchange for a lien on the crop — it pushed farmers into cash-crop production and often trapped them in long-term debt.

Union League

A secret fraternal order in which black and white Republicans joined forces in the late 1860s. The League became a powerful political association that spread through the former Confederacy, pressuring Congress to uphold justice for freedmen.

Scalawags

Southern whites who supported Republican Reconstruction and were ridiculed by ex-Confederates as worthless traitors.

Carpetbaggers

A derisive name given by ex-Confederates to northerners who, motivated by idealism or the search for personal opportunity or profit, moved to the South during Reconstruction.

Convict Leasing

Notorious system, begun during Reconstruction, whereby southern state officials allowed private companies to hire out prisoners to labor under brutal conditions in mines and other industries.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

A law that required “full and equal” access to jury service and to transportation and public accommodations, irrespective of race.

Freedman’s Saving and Trust Company

A private bank founded in 1865 that had worked closely with the Freedmen’s Bureau and Union army across the South. In June 1874, when the bank failed, Congress refused to compensate its 61,000 depositors, including many African Americans.

Classical Liberalism

The political ideology of individual liberty, private property, a competitive market economy, free trade, and limited government. The idea being that the less government does, the better, particularly in reference to economic policies such as tariffs and incentives for industrial development. Attacking corruption and defending private property, late-nineteenth century liberals generally called for elite governance and questioned the advisability of full democratic participation.

Laissez Faire

French for “let do” or “leave alone.” A doctrine espoused by classical liberals that the less the government does, the better, particularly in reference to the economy.

Credit Mobilier

A sham corporation set up by shareholders in the Union Pacific Railroad to secure government grants at an enormous profit. Organizers of the scheme protected it from investigation by providing gifts of its stock to powerful members of Congress.

Redemption

A term used by southern Democrats for the overthrow of elected governments that ended Reconstruction in many parts of the South. So-called Redeemers terrorized Republicans, especially in districts with large proportions of black voters, and killed and intimidated their opponents to regain power.

Ku Klux Klan

Secret society that first undertook violence against African Americans in the South after the Civil War but was reborn in 1915 to fight the perceived threats posed by African Americans, immigrants, radicals, feminists, Catholics, and Jews.

Enforcement Laws

Acts passed in Congress in 1870 and signed by President U. S. Grant that were designed to protect freedmen’s rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Authorizing federal prosecutions, military intervention, and martial law to suppress terrorist activity, they largely succeeded in shutting down Klan activities.

Slaughter-house Cases

A group of decisions begun in 1873 in which the Court began to undercut the power of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect African American rights.

U.S. v. Cruikshank

A decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that voting rights remained a state matter unless the state itself violated those rights. If former slaves’ rights were violated by individuals or private groups, that lay beyond federal jurisdiction. Like the Slaughter-House Cases, the ruling undercut the power of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect African American rights.

Civil Rights Cases

A series of 1883 Supreme Court decisions that struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, rolling back key Reconstruction laws and paving the way for later decisions that sanctioned segregation.

Andrew Johnson

The 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Charles Sumner

The 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. The 16th vice president, he assumed the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Thaddeus Stevens

An American politician and lawyer who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, being one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s.

Ulysses S. Grant

The 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A prominent leader of the women's rights movement in the 19th century, and an early advocate for women's suffrage.

Robert Smalls

An American Republican politician who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Blanche K. Bruce

An American politician who represented Mississippi as a Republican in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1881. Born into slavery in Prince Edward County, Virginia, he went on to become the first elected African-American senator to serve a full term.

Nathan Bedford Forrest

A general in the Army of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.