American Pageant Chapter 22 Key Terms

10 percent Reconstruction plan

Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent of its voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation.

Black Codes

Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerners' criticisms of President Andrew Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policies.

carpetbaggers

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.

Civil Rights Bill

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.

Ex parte Milligan

Civil War Era case in which the Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals could not be used to try civilians if civil courts were open.

Fifteenth Amendment

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.

Force Acts

Passed by Congress following a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence, the acts banned clan membership, prohibited the use of intimidation to prevent blacks from voting, and gave the U.S. military the authority to enforce the acts.

Fourteenth Amendment

Constitutional amendment that extended civil rights to freedmen and prohibited States from taking away such rights without due process.

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.

Ku Klux Klan

White paramilitary organization whose members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War. By the 1890s, Klan-style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in virtually disenfranchising all Southern blacks.

Pacific Railroad Act

Helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad with the use of land grants and government bonds.

Reconstruction Act

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 state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union.

Redeemers

Southern Democratic politicians who sought to wrest control from Republican regimes in the South after Reconstruction.

scalawags

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.

Seward's Folly

Popular term for Secretary of State William Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia. The derisive term reflected the anti-expansionist sentiments of most Americans immediately after the Civil War.

Tenure of Office Act

Required the President to seek approval from the Senate before removing appointees. When Andrew Johnson removed his secretary of war in violation of the act, he was impeached by the house but remained in office when the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Union League

Reconstruction-Era African American organization that worked to educate Southern blacks about civic life, built black schools and churches, and represented African American interests before government and employers. It also campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates and recruited local militias to protect blacks from white intimidation.

Wade-Davis Bill

Passed by Congressional Republicans in response to Abraham Lincoln's "10 percent plan", it required that 50 percent of a state's voters pledge allegiance to the Union, and set stronger safeguards for emancipation. Reflected divisions between Congress and the President, and between radical and moderate Republicans, over the treatment of the defeated South.

Woman's Loyal League

Women's organization formed to help bring about an end to the Civil War and encourage Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to prohibiting slavery.

moderate Republicans

Favored letting the south back slowly into the Union under Congress's rules.

radical Republicans

Favored a harsher treatment of the South after the war, pushed for absolute equality for blacks.

sharecropping

System in which landowners leased a few acres of land to farm workers in return for a portion of their crops, fate for many freed slaves.

swing around the circle

Speaking campaign of US President Andrew Johnson in which he tried to gain support of his mild Reconstruction policies, but it failed miserably as Johnson lost his temper.

radical regimes

By 1870 southern states had reorganized their governments and had been accorded full rights. The hated "blue bellies" remained until the new Republican regimes.

Andrew Johnson

A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote. He was a very weak president.

Oliver O. Howard

Head of the Freedmen's Bureau which was intended to be a kind of primitive welfare agency for free blacks. Later founded and served as President of Howard University in Washington D.C.

Alexander Stephens

He was the vice-president of the Confederacy until 1865 when it was defeated and destroyed by the Union. Like the other leaders of the Confederacy, he was under indictment for treason.

Charles Sumner

Radical Republican, favored total equality for blacks (also got caned earlier).

Thaddeus Stevens

Man behind the 14th Amendment, which ends slavery. Absolutely opposed to Johnson. Known as a Radical Republican.

William Seward

Secretary of State who was responsible for purchasing Alaskan Territory from Russia. By purchasing Alaska, he expanded the territory of the country at a reasonable price.

Exodusters

African Americans who moved from post reconstruction South to Kansas.