P5 ID Terms

Secession

the action of withdrawing formally from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state; the withdrawal of eleven southern states from the Union in 1860, leading to the Civil War

Compulsory

required by law or a rule; obligatory; coercive

Reconstruction

the period 1865–77 following the Civil War, during which the states of the Confederacy were controlled by the federal government and social legislation, including the granting of new rights to African Americans, was introduced; Period after the Civil War during which Northern political leaders created plans for the governance of the South and a procedure for former Southern states to rejoin the Union; Southern resentment of this era lasted well into the twentieth century. Radical Republicans

Ulysses S. Grant

an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States; Achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War; led the Union Armies to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War; American hero later elected the 18th President of the United States, working to implement Congressional Reconstruction and to remove the vestiges of slavery

Robert E. Lee

General of the Confederate troops; Prosperous in many battles; Defeated at Antietam when he retreated across the Potomac; Defeated at Gettysburg by General Meade's troops, leading to surrender to General Ulysses; captured John Brown

Thaddeus Stevens

Pennsylvania congressman who led the Radical Republican faction in the House of Representatives during and after the Civil War, advocating for abolition and later, the extension of civil rights to freed blacks; U.S. Radical Republican congressional leader during Reconstruction who battled for freedmen's rights and insisted on stern requirements for readmission of Southern states into the Union after the Civil War

Charles Sumner

American Politician and senator from Massachusetts; leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and among the leaders of the Radical Republicans; Republican idealist who pushed for black suffrage during Reconstruction as a principle of black freedom and racial equality; Delivered the speech “The Crime against Kansas” in which he condemned slavery, insulted South Carolina and senator Andrew Butler--speech led to well-known example of violence between pro and anti-slavery groups

Harriet Tubman

Conductor of the Underground Railroad; an escaped slave who repeatedly returned to the South and eventually escorted to freedom more than 200 slaves; outspoken advocate for women's rights; African American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the Civil War

Clara Barton

A reformer and nurse of the nineteenth century, who founded the American Red Cross in the 1880s; Organized nursing care for Union soldiers during the Civil War; Massachusetts-born teacher and philanthropist who served as a nurse with the Union army during the Civil War; Helped transform the nursing profession into a respected job

Repudiate

refuse to accept or be associated with; deny the truth or validity of; refuse to fulfill or discharge (an agreement, obligation, or debt)

Intransigence

refusal to change one's views or to agree about something; unwilling or refusing to change one's views or to agree about something

Hiram Revels

A minister and educator who became the first African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate, representing Mississippi; first African-American senator, elected in 1870 to the Mississippi seat previously occupied by Jefferson Davis; Born to free black parents in North Carolina and worked as a minister throughout the South before entering politics

Scalawag

a person who behaves badly but in an amusingly mischievous rather than harmful way; a rascal; a white Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. The term was used derisively by white Southern Democrats who opposed Reconstruction legislation; Derogatory term for pro-Union Southerners whom Southern Democrats accused of plundering the resources of the South in collusion with Republican governments after the Civil War

Carpetbagger

a political candidate who seeks election in an area where they have no local connections; a person from the northern states who went to the South after the Civil War to profit from the Reconstruction; a person perceived as an unscrupulous opportunist; Pejorative used by Southern whites to describe Northern businessmen and politicians who came to the South after the Civil War to work on Reconstruction projects or invest in Southern infrastructure

Recalcitrance

obstinately defiant of authority or restraint; difficult to manage or operate; having an obstinately uncooperative attitude toward authority or discipline; a person with an obstinately uncooperative attitude

Malfeasance

wrongdoing, especially by a public official; the fact of someone in a position of authority intentionally doing something dishonest or illegal

Thirteenth Amendment

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction; Abolished slavery

Fourteenth Amendment

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws; Constitutional amendment that extended civil rights to freedmen and prohibited states from taking away such rights without due process

Fifteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; Prohibited states from denying citizens the franchise on account of race. It disappointed feminists who wanted the Amendment to include guarantees for women's suffrage

Civil Rights Act of 1866

the first United States federal law to define US citizenship and affirmed that all citizens were equally protected by the law. It was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War; Passed over Andrew Johnson's veto, the bill aimed to counteract the Black Codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and making it a crime to deprive blacks of their rights to sue, testify in court, or hold property

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Prohibited racial discrimination in all public accommodations, transportation, places of amusement, and juries; sometimes called Enforcement Act or Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era that guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public accommodations, public transportation, and prohibited exclusion from jury service

Black Codes

Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerner's criticisms of President Andrew Jackson's lenient Reconstruction policies; series of laws passed by southern states in 1865 and 1866, modeled on the slave codes in effect before the Civil War; granted African Americans some rights not enjoyed by slaves, but their primary purpose was to keep African Americans as propertyless agricultural laborers

*Slaughterhouse* cases

ruled that a citizen's "privileges and immunities," as protected by the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment against the states, were limited to those spelled out in the Constitution and did not include many rights given by the individual states; U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1873 limited the protection of the privileges and immunities clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Enforcement Act of 1871

Passed by Congress to end violence and empower the president to use military force to protect African Americans; passed to combat attacks upon the suffrage rights of African Americans

Peril

serious and immediate danger; the dangers or difficulties that arise from a particular situation or activity

Freedmen’s Bureau

Created to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support. Its achievements were uneven and depended largely on the quality of local administrators; assigned the task of protecting freedpeople’s economic rights; . created by Congress in 1865 to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support; The first kind of primitive welfare agency used to provide food, clothing, medical care, and education to freedman and to white refugees

Stephen Douglas

An American politician from Illinois that designed the Kansas-Nebraska Act; Won the election for senator of Illinois after the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858; A believer in popular sovereignty--people’s choice to practice slavery in a territory-- KS-NE Act repealed MO Compromise and fostered end of Whig Party; proposed the Freeport Doctrine which stated that if slave codes weren’t passed by **territorial** legislatures, then slaveowners won’t bring their slaves because they’ll lack protection--lost favor of the South; enforced Fugitive Slave Laws

Partition

(especially with reference to a country with separate areas of government) the action or state of dividing or being divided into parts; divide into parts

John Brown

An abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by capturing Armories in southern territory and giving weapons to slaves, was hung in Harpers Ferry after capturing an Armory; led the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre in which 5 pro-slavery Kansans were executed; Who Southerners associated all abolitionists with; Became a martyr to many abolitionists

Subjugate

bring under domination or control, especially by conquest; to bring under control and governance

Thwart

prevent (someone) from accomplishing something; oppose (a plan, attempt, or ambition) successfully

Segregate

set apart from the rest or from each other; isolate or divide; separate or divide along racial, sexual, or religious lines

Jim Crow

The era during which local and state laws enforced the legal segregation of white and black citizens; laws that codified a racist ideology and provide legal support for the social, economic, and political oppression of African Americans; Laws written to separate blacks and whites in public areas/meant African Americans had unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government

Military Reconstruction Act

the Congressional act of 1867 which swept away white state governments in the South and replaced them with five military districts commanded by Union generals; Passed by the newly elected Republican Congress, it divided the South into five military districts, disenfranchised former confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write states constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union