Reconstruction

Abraham Lincoln - became the United States 16th president in 1861

Andrew Johnson - the 17th president of the United States, replaced Lincoln after his death.

Ulysses S. Grant - an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877).

Edwin Stanton - Secretary of War appointed by Lincoln. 

Alexander Stephens - He was the vice-president of the Confederacy until 1865 when it was defeated and destroyed by the Union. 

Booker T. Washington - proponent of gradual gain of equal rights for African-Americans

Ida Wells -  African American who led the fight against lynching

George Washington Carver- a scientist who discovered many new uses for peanuts and other southern crops

W. E. B. DuBois - Co-founded the NAACP to help secure legal equality for minority citizens.

Reconstruction - the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Supermajority - any majority that is larger than a simple majority, such as three-fifths, two-thirds, or three-fourths

Freedman’s Bureau - provided: food, clothing, jobs, medical care, and schools for former slaves and poor whites

Tenure of Office Act - required the president to seek approval from the Senate before removing appointees.

KKK - Ku Klux Klan--Against Blacks, Jews, Catholics. Used terror to control them

13th Amendment - abolished slavery

14th Amendment  - Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws

15th Amendment - States cannot deny any person the right to vote because of race.

Amnesty - a pardon to a group of people

Disenfranchisement - Denial of the right to vote

Carpetbaggers - northern whites who moved to the South and served as republican leaders during the reconstruction

Scalawags - Southern whites who supported Republican policy through reconstruction

Poll tax - A tax of a fixed amount per person and payable as a requirement for the right to vote

Segregation - Separation of alleles during gamete formation

Jim Crow Laws - Limited rights of blacks. Literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and poll taxes limited black voting rights

Lost Cause - A romanticized view of slavery, the Old South, and the Confederacy that arose in the decades following the Civil War.

Sharecropping - a tenant farmer who gives a part of each crop as rent.

Tammany Hall - Political machine in New York, headed by Boss Tweed.

Solid South - A term used to describe the tendency of the southern states to vote Democratic after the Civil War.

Exacerbate - to make worse or more severe

Lynching - putting to death a person by the illegal action of a mob

Hiram Revels - The first African American to serve in the U.S. Congress.

Frederick Douglass - Escaped slave and great black abolitionist who fought to end slavery through political action

Lincoln’s Plan - Reconstruction plan that required 10% of the population to swear loyalty; granted amnesty to all Southerners except Confederate leaders; required a new Constitution

Johnson’s Plan - Amnesty for those taking an oath of loyalty to the union; Required states to abolish slavery

Military Reconstruction Act - divided the former Confederacy into five districts