Reconstruction Era Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms, figures, policies, and constitutional amendments from the Reconstruction era.

Freedmen's Bureau

Formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; established by Congress in March 1865 to help millions of newly freed African Americans transition from slavery to freedom, distribute provisions to needy Southerners, and establish schools.

Radical Republicans

A group that controlled Congress after the Civil War; their Reconstruction plan demanded severe accountability, military oversight, and strict federal protection of civil rights for freedmen, believing President Lincoln's plan was too lenient.

Ten Percent Plan

President Lincoln's Reconstruction plan requiring Southern citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the Union and adopt a new state constitution banning slavery before rejoining the Union.

Thirteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

Fourteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that guaranteed everyone equal protection under the law.

Fifteenth Amendment

The constitutional amendment that prohibited denying a citizen the right to vote based on race and skin color.

Tenure of Office Act

A federal law that prohibited the president from removing senate-approved officials from office without permission from the other members of the Senate.

Edwin Stanton

The official whose firing triggered the House of Representatives to draft impeachment articles against the president under the Tenure of Office Act.

Carpetbaggers

Northerners who moved to the South during the Reconstruction era, named by white Southerners after the luggage suitcases some carried; some were seen as dishonest individuals seeking to exploit Southern difficulties.

Scalawag

A derogatory name given by former Confederates to Southern whites who supported Republican Reconstruction policies in the South.

Ku Klux Klan

A group that disguised themselves in white sheets and hoods so they would not be caught while violently denying rights to African American men and women and those who supported them.

Poll Tax

A specific tax that a person was required to pay in order to vote, utilized as a method to prevent African Americans from exercising their voting rights.

Grandfather Clause

A voting restriction requiring that an individual's grandfather had voted before Reconstruction began in order to vote, allowing poor or illiterate white citizens to bypass poll taxes and literacy tests.

Literacy Test

A method used to prevent people from voting by requiring them to read and write at a certain level.

New South

A post-Civil War vision promoting industrial manufacturing, wage-based labor, small farms with crop variety rather than reliance on cotton, and industries based on coal, iron, tobacco, and lumber.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Legislation passed by Congress to protect African Americans and grant them equal rights under the law.

Sharecropping

A system of farming in which a farmer works land owned by someone else in exchange for a share of the crop, which often resulted in economic bondage due to unfairly large debts and wages charged by landowners.

Disputed Election of 1876

A contested presidential election that gave Southern Democrats the leverage to end federal interference and ended Republican power in the South for decades.

Reconstruction

The task of rebuilding the former Confederate states and readmitting them to the Union following the American Civil War.

Black Codes

Laws passed in the South after the Civil War aimed at controlling the newly freed African Americans and limiting their freedom.

Impeach

To formally charge a public official with misconduct in office.

Segregation

The forced separation or isolation of a race, class, or group.

Lynching

Putting a person to death by the illegal action of a mob, usually by hanging.

Redeemers

Southern Democrats who came to power in the South toward the end of Reconstruction.