Flashcard Chapter 15--Reconstruction | Quizlet

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Civil Rights Act of 1866

-Among the first actions in congressional reconstruction were votes to override, with some modification, Johnson's vetoes of both the Freedmen's Bureau Act and the first Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act pronounced all African Americans to be U.S. citizens.
-Attempted legal shield against the South's Black Codes.

14th Amendment

- Ratified in 1868
-Declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States were citizens.
Obligated the states to respect the rights of U.S. citizens and provide them with "equal protection of the laws" and "due process of law"

Equal protection of the laws

Law applies equally regardless of race or gender.

15th Amendment

Republican majorities in Congress acted quickly in 1869 to secure the vote for African Americans. Adding one more reconstruction amendment to those already adopted. Congress passed the 15th amendment, which prohibited any state from denying or abridhing a citizen's right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Ratified in 1870.

Credit Mobilier

-In the Crédit Mobilier affair, insiders gave stock to influential members of COngress to avoid investigation of the profits that they were making---as high as 348 percent-- from government subsidies for building the transcontinental railroad.

William (Boss) Tweed

-Boss of democratic party
-Masterminded dozens of schemes for helping himself and his cronies to large chunks of graft. Virtually stole $200 million from New York's taxpayers.

Patronage

Jobs given to supporters as political favors.

Spoilsmen

Individuals receiving jobs from political bosses.

Thomas Nast

-Political cartoonist that exposed Tweed and brought about his arrest and imprisonment in 1871

Horace Greeley

-The scandals of the Grant Administration drove reform-minded Republicans to break with the party in 1872 and select Horace Greenley, editor of the New York Tribune as their presidential candidate.

Liberal Republicans

-Advocate civil service reform
-End to railroad subsidies
-Withdrawal of troops from SOuth
-Reduce tariffs
-Free trade

Panic of 1873

-Grant's second term began with an economic disaster that angered many northerners jobless and homeless.
-Overspeculation by financiers and overbuilding by industry and railroads led to widespread business failures and depression.

Greenbacks

-Debtors on the farms and in the cities, suffering from the tight money policies, demanded the creation of greenback paper money that was not supported by gold.

Redeemers

-Southern conservatives.
-Took control of one state government after another -- process was completed by 1877.
-States' rights, reduced taxes, reduced spending on social programs, white supremacy.

Rutherford B. Hayes

-Looked for because untouched by corruption of Grant administration-- nominated the governor of Ohio.
-Election of 1876

Samuel J. Tilden

-Nominated by Democrats, New York's reform governor. Made a name for himself fighting the corrupt Tweed administration.

Compromise of 1877

-Democrats allow Hayes to become president. In return he would (1) immediately end federal support for the Republicans in the South and 2) support the building of the Southern transcontinental railroad.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

-offered a full pardon to those individuals that took an oath of loyalty and accepted the abolition of slavery.

Wade-Davis Bill (1864)

-Passed in 1864 and proposed far more demanding and stringent terms for Reconstruction.
The bill required 50 percent of voters of the state to take a loyalty oath and permitted only non-Confedderates to vote for a new state constitution.
Lincoln refused to sign the vote and pocket-vetoed it after Congress adjourned.

Freedmen's Bureau

-The bureau acted as an early welfare agency, providing food, shelter, and medical aid for those who were made destitute by the war -- most african americans and homeless whites.

Andrew Johnson

-Self-taught tailor that rose in Tennessee politics by championing the interests of poor Whites in their economic conflict with rich planters.
-Only senators in confederate states that remained loyal to the union.
-White supremacist
-Became president upon lincoln's assassination in 1865

Presidential Reconstruction

All former leaders and officeholders of the confederacy and confederates with more than $20,000 in taxable property were disenfranchised.
President had power to pardon disloyal southerners. (escape clause for wealthy planters)

Black Codes

-Southern legislatures adopted Black Codes that restricted the rights and movement of former slaves.
Prohibited black people from either renting land for borrowing money to buy land
2) placed freedmen into a form of semibondage by forcing them as "vagrants" ad "apprentices" to sign with contracts
3) prohibited black people from testifying against whites in court.

Congressional Reconstruction

-Congress being angry at Johnson's policies led to a second round of reconstruction.
Dominated by congress and featured policies that were harsher on Southern whites and more protective of freed African Americans.

Radical Republicans

-Championed civil rights for Black Americans.
-More became radical because of fear that Democratic Party would be dominant again.

Charles Sumner

Reformer who had control of the Republican Party prior to the 1870s. From Massachusetts. Leader of Radical Republicans. (Caned by Brooks)

Thaddeus Stevens

Reformer who had control of the Republican Party prior to the 1870s. Pennslylvanian. Hopped to revolutionize Southern society through an extended period of military rule in which African Americans would be free to exercise their civil rights, would be educated in schools funded by the federal government, and would receive lands confiscated from the planter class.

Benjamin Wade

Reformer who had control of the Republican Party prior to the 1870s.
-From Ohio. Endorsed several liberal causes: women's suffrage, rights for labor unions, civil rights for Northern African Americans.

Reconstruction Acts (1867)

-Over Johnson's vetoes, Congress Passed three Reconstruction acts in early 1867.
-Placed south under military occupation.
-The acts divided the former Confederate states into five military districts, each under the control of the Union army.
-increased requirements for gaining readmission into the Union (ex-Confederate states had to ratify the 14th amendment and place it's guarantees in the constitution for granting the franchise (right to vote) to all adult men regardless of race).

Tenure of Office Act (1867)

-May have been an unconstitutional violation of executive authority, prohibiting the president from removing a federal official or military commander without approval of the senate.
-Strictly political in purpose.

Edwin Stanton

-Congress wanted to protect the Radical Republicans in Johnson's cabinet, such as secretary of war Edwin Stanton.
-In charge of military governments in the South.

Impeachment

-First impeached president was Andrew Johnson-- removed from office. Charged with 11 "high crimes and misdemeanors" by The House.

Scalawags

-Southern republicans (given by democratic opponents)

Carpetbaggers

-Northern newcomers (given by Democratic opponents)

Blanche K. Bruce

African Americans sent by republicans to senate. Served as U.S. senator in Mississippi.

Hiram Revels

African Americans sent by republicans to the senate. Served as U.S. senator in Mississippi.

Sharecropping

-South's agricultural economy was in turmoil after the war because of the lost labor force.
-White landowners adopt a system based on tenancy and sharecropping. Under sharecropping the landlord provided the seed and other needed farm supplies in return for a share (usually half) of the harvest.

Ku Klux Klan

-Southern Whites organized secret societies to intimidate African Americans and White reformers.
-Founded in 1867 by ex-Confederate general Nathaniel Bedford Forrest.
-Burned black-owned buildings, flogged and murdered freedmen to keep them from exercising their voting rights.

Force Acts (1870, 1871)

-To give federal authorities the power to stop the Ku klux Klan violence and protect the civil rights of citizens in the South, Congress passed the Force Acts of 1870 and 1871.

Amnesty Act (1872)

-Removed the last of the restrictions on ex-Confederates, except for the top leaders.
-Consequence: allowed southern conservatives to vote for Democrats to retake control of state governments.