Era of Reconstruction Study Guide Mr. Judd Name______
Reconstruction In a Nutshell
Reconstruction, the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, was one of the most revolutionary episodes in American history. The war had opened the door to far-reaching changes in American society. In the twelve years that followed the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, the United States pursued some of its noblest values and committed some of its darkest betrayals. By the end of Reconstruction, the federal government and its citizenry, in both the North and the South, would be forever transformed. The legacy of Reconstruction would be debated for over a century, until the Civil Rights Movement set out to finish what Reconstruction had begun.
Why Should I Care?
If you care about the Civil Rights Movement, you should care about Reconstruction. If you are concerned with racial equality in America, you need to study Reconstruction. If you have ever been curious about the history behind the current debate over the role of the federal government in people's lives, then this is the chapter of history for you.
Reconstruction was a truly revolutionary time. It was the sort of experiment in expanded federal authority and intervention that could only have come after a cataclysmic war; at least, that was true in the nineteenth century. Just imagine it: four million people, suddenly freed from the chains of bondage, walking around amidst the ruins of the South and still interacting with the people who used to own them, who used to whip them or sell their relatives down the river if they chose. Under slavery, racial boundaries had been clearly established. Now the question on everyone's mind was: "How free is free?" That turned out to be an extremely difficult and complex question. One historian—Leon F. Litwack—won a Pulitzer Prize for the 600 pages he took to try and explain it, and even then he said his answer only began to suggest the challenges inherent in the idea. We will give that question and a few others our very best shot here—in considerably fewer than 600 pages. What happened when freedom suddenly came to four million people, and what did that mean?
This is a story about federal, state, and local governments; about presidents and sheriffs; about northerners and southerners, terrorists and liberated slaves, and blacks and whites and mulattoes. This is a story about the everyday people on the ground whose names are mostly lost to history, and about the prominent legislators and journalists who were and are more well-known. It encompasses politics, society, gender, economics, and constitutional law. It involves the confrontation between black hopes and white values that structured the Reconstruction period. It details the process by which this country sought to put itself back together again. It is not simple, but the most important stories seldom are. What they are, is worth reading.
Name: Date:
Reconstruction Study Guide
U.S. History & Government
Directions: Use your notes, your packet, and/or your text book to answer the following questions.
1. Describe Lincoln’s “Ten Percent Plan” for Reconstruction.
2. How were the Reconstruction Plans of Presidents Lincoln and Andrew Johnson similar?
3. Describe the Radical Republicans’ plan for Reconstruction.
4. What did the following constitutional amendments do?
13th:
14th:
15th:
5. What was the purpose of the Freedmen’s Bureau do?
6. What were Black Codes or Jim Crow Laws?
7. Explain how the “sharecropping” system worked?
8. Identify the following three groups that supported the Republican Party in the South:
a. Freedmen:
b. “Scalawags:”
c. “Carpetbaggers:”
9. Identify some strategies that Southern planters and ex-Confederates used to limit the rights of African-Americans?
10. Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?
11. Why did Reconstruction end in 1877?
12. Describe the impact of the case Plessey v. Ferguson (1896) on South.
Reconstruction Plans Mr. Judd Name______
Presidential Reconstruction / Congressional ReconstructionAccording to this plan, what did former Confederate states have to do to be readmitted to the Union? / Lincoln / Johnson
What happened to former Confederate leaders
under this plan?
Under this plan, how would the government
help freedmen? What political rights would
freedmen have?
How did Southerners react to this plan?
How did Northerners react to the plan?
The U.S. Constitution and the Impeachment Process
Article I, Section 3
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Article I, Section 6
The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
Article II, Section 4
The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
The Impeachment Process Name______
1. Who has the power to try all impeachments?
2. Who presides when the president is being tried?
3. What fractional part of the Senate would need to vote guilty for a president to be convicted and removed from office?
4. What are the consequences of being found guilty during an impeach-ment hearing?
5. Sum up the three things that are mentioned about Senators and
Representatives in Article 1, Section 6.
6. What are the THREE categories of impeachable offenses? (What are grounds for impeachment?)
Jim Crow Name______
Slavery is over, now what?
In the years right after the Civil War, freedmen (former slaves) were able to vote and participate in government, thanks to the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts. Sadly, some people did not understand that freedmen deserved equal rights and opportunities. The federal government had been protecting these rights, but in 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes became president and ended Reconstruction. All of a sudden, there was no one to enforce the new laws and amendments and no authority to punish those who treated blacks unfairly. From then on, people worked to undermine efforts at equality, and states passed laws that greatly restricted the rights and freedoms of blacks living in the South (and the North!).
Group of freedmen in Richmond, VA 1865
Making Adjustments
The end of slavery meant major social changes for all because slavery had kept black and white societies apart for so long. Once freed, former slaves acted quickly to create their own communities with new churches and schools. Some stayed in the South, while others migrated to the North hoping to find better living conditions and work.
By the 1870s, most southern states adopted laws known as Black Codes, creating a legal form of segregation. Segregation is when people are separated by race. These codes limited the rights and freedoms of black people. Northern states varied in the way they accepted the new arrivals, but segregation was common all over the nation.
So, who is Jim Crow?
Before the iPod, before television, movies and radio, people went to the theater for entertainment. Daddy Rice, a white actor, would cover his face with charcoal and then sing and dance in a silly way. This character’s name was Jim Crow. Just like we compare people to characters on TV, people began to use Jim Crow as a way to describe black people. (It wasn’t a compliment.) For example, there were ‘Jim Crow’ cars on trains where all blacks were forced to sit, even if they bought a first-class ticket! As time went on, the term was also used to describe any racist law that restricted the rights and opportunities of black people.
You Say I Can’t Do What?!
Jim Crow laws were found all over the South and even in many Northern states. It would have been very difficult to walk around any large town or city and not see a sign dividing whites and blacks. The segregation of public accommodations was only one way that Jim Crow laws controlled people’s behavior. There were limits on whom people could marry, adopt, or where they could attend school. There was even one law limiting who could cut your hair! The laws don’t make any sense today, but it was a fact of life for the millions of people living in America between the 1860s and the 1960s.
Who is Black?
All of the Jim Crow laws were based on the difference between whites and blacks. But what does that mean? Most states decided that you were considered black if you had only one great grandparent who was black (1/8 African heritage). If there was doubt, a person would have to prove that they could go back three generations without any African heritage.
Great
Grand-
Parents
Grand-
Parents
Parents
YOU
Jim Crow Laws
Education: Public schools were provided for black children, but they were not as nice as the schools provided for white children. Most lacked books, supplies and other resources. One law said that blacks and whites could not use the same textbooks, and another required bus drivers to be the same race as the children they drove around!
Marriage and Family: Miscegenation is a word that means the mixing of races. Both Northern and Southern states had a variety of laws that banned marriages and relationships between blacks and whites. There were also laws that either banned interracial (more than one race) adoptions or required the race of the baby and adopting parents to be written on the legal documents.
Public Accommodation:
Accommodation means a place where people spend time. This can mean anything from a restaurant to a prison to a hotel. Many of the Jim Crow laws were written to keep the races separate, and public spaces were the most visible area for interaction. Restaurants could not serve blacks and whites in the same dining room. Circuses and theaters had to provide two separate ticket booths, entrances, and seating areas. Missouri, Texas, and other states called for separate libraries for blacks and whites. ‘White Only’ signs were seen on bathroom doors, drinking fountains, public pools, waiting rooms and businesses all over the South and in some areas of the North.
Transportation: Blacks were required to sit in the back of public buses and train cars, or in a separate car altogether. The famous Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson established that it was okay to create ‘separate but equal’ public settings. This 1896 case set the stage for numerous state and local laws requiring blacks and whites to stay segregated in society.
Voting Rights: We already know that freedmen were given the right to vote under the 15th Amendment in 1870. Between 1871 and 1889, almost all Southern states passed laws that restricted African Americans’ right to vote. In Georgia and South Carolina black voting was cut in half between 1880 and 1888! Even when blacks did vote, many of their ballots were stolen or not even counted. These restrictive laws continued into the 1960s until President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Barriers to Voting What kinds of laws did Southern states use to keep blacks from voting?
Connect the laws to the descriptions to find out!
A. White Primary
B. Grandfather Clause
C. Poll Tests
D. Poll Taxes
E. Intimidation & Violence
q Citizens had to pay a fee to the poll worker before they could vote.
q Only white people could vote in the primary party elections, so they decided who would be running in the regular election.
q In order to register or get to the polls, blacks faced threats, beatings and false arrests.
q Citizens had to pass reading and logic questions that the pool worker ‘graded’. If you were white, you usually passed.
q Only those who had grandfathers who could vote before the Civil War could vote in elections. (Few if any blacks voted before the Civil War!)
Cartoon Time! Two groups are shown in this cartoon. Answer the questions for each group.
What two groups do these people represent?
______
What emotion are they showing?
______
Complete the 3 statements written near them.
1) The Union as it ______.
2) This is a ______man’s government.
3) The ______cause.
Do these men look a) powerful or b) weak?
Who do these people represent?
______
What emotion are they showing?
______
Find each image and label it with the correct
number.
1) Man hanging in tree 2) Book with ABC’s
3) Burning school house 4) Pool of blood