Deck 17: Reconstruction

Question 1

The incident between John Orrick and Alex Webb in Greensboro, Alabama, illustrated which problem in southern communities immediately after the Civil War?

A) a large influx of carpetbaggers
B) the power of the Ku Klux Klan
C) violent encounters between blacks and whites
D) large plantation owners cheating freedmen out of wages

Answer 1

violent encounters between blacks and whites

Question 2

Tougaloo, Hampton, and Fisk are examples of __________.

A) black teaching colleges founded after the Civil War
B) places where lynchings took place
C) towns founded by freed African Americans in the West
D) missionaries who went South to help in "wayside schools"

Answer 2

black teaching colleges founded after the Civil War

Question 3

One of the most lasting African American institutions and the first they fully controlled was the __________.

A) school
B) Freedmen's Bureau
C) church
D) state legislatures

Answer 3

church

Question 4

Andrew Johnson was the only __________.

A) Radical Republican who supported Lincoln's reconstruction plan
B) Confederate state Senator to remain loyal to the Union
C) nonslaveholder among prewar Tennessee leaders
D) member of Lincoln's administration not a target of Booth's plot

Question 5

By the late 1860s, the dominant form of agricultural labor for black Southerners was as __________.

A) independent land owners
B) day laborers
C) sharecroppers
D) overseers

Question 6

The Reconstruction era saw __________.

A) the establishment of an independent women's suffrage movement
B) the temporary retrenchment of the women's suffrage movement
C) the weakening of ideas about reforms for women
D) that the vote for freed blacks made it easier to argue for women's suffrage

Question 7

The premise behind Thaddeus Stevens's view of Reconstruction was that the South should be __________.

A) industrialized
B) returned to the rule of the planter elite
C) controlled by corporate farms that would replace the old plantation system
D) populated with black and white yeomen

Question 8

Rather than "reconstruction," Andrew Johnson referred to his plan as a __________ of the Union.

A) renewal
B) restoration
C) reconciliation
D) rebirth

Question 9

The main objective of most African Americans after the Civil War was __________.

A) education
B) legislative influence
C) a high-wage job
D) economic autonomy

Question 10

The Radical Republicans intended the Tenure of Office Act to limit the powers of __________.

A) the planter Democrats
B) President Johnson
C) the Supreme Court
D) Congress

Question 11

How did emancipation affect the roles of African American women?

A) They continued working for white planters as domestic servants.
B) They were unable to achieve head-of-household status under the Freedmen's Bureau.
C) They gained the rights to serve on juries and to vote.
D) They began to earn wages equal to those of African American men.

Question 12

Which of these bestowed full citizenship on African Americans, overturned Dred Scott, and invalidated the black codes?

A) First Reconstruction Act
B) Civil Rights bill of 1866
C) Ku Klux Klan Act
D) Joint Committee on Reconstruction

Question 13

The first impulse of many emancipated slaves was to __________.

A) board the first train heading north
B) lash out at their former masters
C) stick to places and activities that were already familiar
D) test their freedom

Question 14

What was one concern that convinced enough moderate Senate Republicans to not convict Andrew Johnson during his impeachment trial?

A) Removing Johnson as president would do irreparable damage to the constitutional separation of powers.
B) There was no precedent to determine who would succeed Johnson as president if he were removed from office.
C) Removing Johnson as president would result in his home state of Tennessee not ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment.
D) Ulysses S. Grant, who had no political experience, would become the next president.

Question 15

Sherman's Special Field Order 15 was intended to __________.

A) revolutionize southern society
B) set up a guerrilla force
C) destroy the wealth of the white civilian population
D) deal with the freed refugees who sought refuge with his troops

Question 16

Fearful that their 1866 Civil Rights Act might be declared unconstitutional, the Radical Republicans __________.

A) required each state to pass its own civil rights laws
B) worked to gain full black male suffrage
C) gained passage of the Fourteenth Amendment
D) gained passage of the Fifteenth Amendment

Question 17

What did Republicans find effective in the 1866 congressional elections?

A) promoting reconstruction as restoration
B) siding with white Southerners
C) provoking fear of hoards of disaffected ex-slaves
D) "waving the bloody shirt"

Question 18

Andrew Johnson's nomination as vice president for Lincoln's second term was unconventional because he __________.

A) belonged to a different political party
B) came from the same state as Lincoln
C) was born in a foreign country
D) never held political office before

Question 19

In general, freed African Americans in the late 1860s were __________.

A) more interested in jobs than in politics
B) generally apathetic about political activity
C) highly involved in political activity
D) supportive of the Democratic Party

Question 20

White soldiers who remained in the South after the war were derisively called __________.

A) scalawags
B) interlopers
C) redeemers
D) carpetbaggers

Question 21

Radical Republicans countered Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan by calling for loyalty oaths to be taken by __________.

A) all white Southerners
B) all freedmen
C) 50 percent of white male citizens
D) all former Confederate officers

Question 22

At the time of the First Reconstruction Act, which of these states had a black electoral majority?

A) Tennessee
B) Kentucky
C) Virginia
D) South Carolina

Question 23

An electoral crisis developed in the election of 1876 because of __________.

A) the death of the Republican nominee
B) widespread voter fraud
C) Democratic refusal to accept a Republican lead in the vote
D) disputed electoral returns from Ohio and New York

Question 24

Lincoln's "Ten Percent Plan" refers to the percentage of __________.

A) southern voters who had to take loyalty oaths to establish a new government in each state
B) Republicans in Congress who supported his plan
C) Army troops that would stay in the South after the war
D) confiscated property to be returned to slave owners

Question 25

The right to vote without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude was guaranteed by the __________ Amendment.

A) Thirteenth
B) Fourteenth
C) Fifteenth
D) Sixteenth

Question 26

As the maps of the Barrow Plantation show, __________.

A) few former slaves stayed on their masters' plantations
B) most former slaves became landowners
C) many former slaves remained on the plantations as sharecroppers and tenants
D) freedmen were unable to form separate communities

Question 27

The main issue that led to Andrew Johnson's impeachment was his __________.

A) violation of the Tenure of Office Act
B) membership in the Ku Klux Klan
C) support for the Civil Rights bill
D) authorship of the Wade-Davis bill

Question 28

Republican leaders saw what development as the key to southern economic reconstruction?

A) railroads
B) cotton plantations
C) schools
D) churches

Question 29

How did government officials respond to workers' demands for support during the economic depression of 1873?

A) They nationalized the railroad system that was responsible for causing this depression.
B) They gave financial subsidies to farmers as relief for dropping farm prices.
C) They refused to create jobs through public works.
D) They provided funding for the establishment of additional charitable organizations.

Question 30

Which statement would a late-nineteenth-century Liberal Republican have agreed with?

A) Excessive government interference in the economy breeds corruption.
B) The government must actively direct the economy in an industrialized society.
C) Universal suffrage is at the heart of a virtuous republic.
D) Reconstruction of the South for freedmen must continue.

Question 31

After the Civil War, "King Cotton" __________.

A) became a less popular crop
B) lost importance as production significantly declined
C) lost out to diversified commercial farming
D) expanded its realm in the South

Question 32

Rutherford B. Hayes's election to the presidency in 1876 meant the __________.

A) continuation of federal military occupation of the South
B) beginning of active federal involvement in regulating the economy
C) nullification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act
D) solidification of Republican rule of the South

Question 33

The First Reconstruction Act, which divided the South into five military districts, __________.

A) was passed by Congress over Johnson's veto
B) included every former Confederate state
C) remained in effect until 1880
D) was part of Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction agenda

Question 34

Generally, sharecropping families received __________ of the year's crop.

A) one-tenth
B) one-half
C) all
D) one-third

Question 35

A white southerner who was both a Union loyalist during the Civil War and a small farmer would most likely have been in a group derisively called __________.

A) redeemers
B) carpetbaggers
C) scalawags
D) sharecroppers

Question 36

During the late nineteenth century, cotton __________.

A) fell steadily in price
B) was the economic salvation of the South
C) became less important to the southern economy
D) was profitable enough to lift many small farmers out of poverty

Question 37

Johnson, like Lincoln, held the view that Reconstruction __________.

A) should punish the South for secession
B) should make it impossible for secession to ever happen again
C) needed to be a complete socioeconomic transformation
D) was a presidential function

Question 38

When Democrats regained control of southern states after 1869, they considered these states to have been __________.

A) cleansed
B) redeemed
C) reformed
D) born again

Question 39

Grant was nominated by the Republicans in 1868 because of his __________.

A) demonstrated political experience
B) popularity as a war hero
C) ties to the Liberal wing of the party
D) friendship with Andrew Johnson

Question 40

The first big businesses in the United States were __________.

A) textile companies
B) railroad corporations
C) steel corporations
D) oil companies

Question 41

By the election of 1872, the federal government's intervention had __________.

A) turned back the tide of "redemption"
B) guaranteed the dominance of the Republican Party in all southern elections
C) helped break the Klan and restore a semblance of law and order
D) prevented all but a handful of blacks from exercising their right to vote

Question 42

What was the Freedmen's Bureau and what did it accomplish?

Question 43

Congress passed _________ in March 1867, dividing the South into five military districts subject to martial law.

A) the First Reconstruction Act
B) the Tenure of Office Act
C) Special Field Order 15
D) the Civil Rights bill

Question 44

In the decade following Appomattox, the North's economy __________.

A) shifted away from industry and toward agriculture
B) contracted slightly
C) slid into a severe depression that lasted from 1865 to 1873
D) continued the industrial boom begun during the Civil War

Question 45

Senator Benjamin F. Wade is best described as a __________.

A) Peace Democrat
B) scalawag
C) Radical Republican
D) Liberal Republican

Question 46

The Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s and 1870s is best described as a __________.

A) conventional political organization
B) terrorist organization
C) religious organization
D) social organization

Question 47

Which of these was true of the South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War?

A) Much of the best agricultural land had been laid waste.
B) Cotton production was as high as ever.
C) The cities were in ruins, but the countryside was largely untouched.
D) The countryside was in ruins, but the cities were largely untouched.

Question 48

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 outlawed racial discrimination in __________.

A) theaters and hotels
B) employment
C) the textile industry
D) the military

Question 49

By 1877, the great majority of black Southerners had __________.

A) withdrawn from white-dominated churches
B) joined white-dominated churches
C) quit going to church
D) joined an Episcopalian church

Question 50

Who did the Republicans nominate for president in 1876?

A) Horace Greeley
B) Ulysses S. Grant
C) Samuel J. Tilden
D) Rutherford B. Hayes

Question 51

How do the changes on the Barrow Plantation from 1860 to 1881 illustrate the progress of blacks and the limits they faced?

Question 52

Which statement best assesses the primary way in which Abraham Lincoln's death affected the Reconstruction process?

A) Lincoln would have argued for a speedy restoration of the southern states to the Union and a minimum of federal intervention in their affairs.
B) Lincoln would have redistributed confiscated southern lands to freed slaves.
C) Lincoln's requirements for the Confederate states would have made it more difficult for each state to rejoin the Union.
D) Lincoln would not have pardoned nearly as many Southerners as President Johnson pardoned.

Question 53

By 1870, the __________ household was the norm for a large majority of African Americans.

A) two-parent
B) one-parent
C) dispersed-family
D) multigenerational

Question 54

How did the Freedmen's Bureau bring lasting, long-term change to the newly freed slaves in the South?

A) It laid the foundation for southern public education.
B) It helped newly freed slaves acquire land.
C) It guaranteed voting rights for all African American men.
D) It organized military units to protect African Americans from the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.

Question 55

What was the consuming passion of most white Southerners during the Reconstruction years?

A) reconciliation with the North
B) the stimulation of economic growth
C) the development of industry
D) the reestablishment of the racial hierarchy

Question 56

How did Andrew Johnson approach Reconstruction? How did his vision clash with that of the Radical Republicans?

Question 57

What did the Civil Rights bill passed in the spring of 1866 do?

A) It gave full U.S. citizenship to African Americans.
B) It gave all African Americans the right to a living wage.
C) It gave African Americans the right to vote.
D) It freed all African American slaves in the United States.

Question 58

Question: What precedent was established by the crisis surrounding Andrew Johnson's impeachment?

A) The president can only be removed from office for criminal actions, not for political disagreements with Congress.
B) The president pro tem of the Senate is next in the line of succession if the president is removed from office.
C) One-half of the Senate must find the president guilty during his impeachment trial if he or she is to be removed from office.
D) Three-quarters of the members of the House of Representatives must vote to impeach the president for his or her case to be referred to the Senate for trial.

Question 59

Defend or refute the following assertion: "The South lost the war but won the peace."

Question 60

In what way was "King Cotton" still the king after the war? How was "King Cotton" detrimental to the South?

Question 61

Which of these was true of Radical Republicans?

A) They believed that fundamental changes had to occur in southern society before former Confederate states could be readmitted to the Union.
B) They wanted to give amnesty to former Confederate soldiers.
C) They believed state government should supersede the federal government.
D) They wanted to limit the rights of freed slaves.

Question 62

How were American women impacted by passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments during Reconstruction?

A) Women failed to gain full citizenship or voting rights, which African American men obtained under these two amendments.
B) The women's suffrage movement remained united despite differences among its leaders over the issues of African American and women's suffrage.
C) Radical leaders of the women's suffrage movement such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony supported the Fifteenth Amendment, arguing that voting rights for African Americans took precedence over those same rights for women.
D) Many middle-class women abandoned the women's suffrage movement after passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Question 63

Why did cotton come to be called "King Cotton"?

A) Cotton cultivation dominated the southern economy, affecting almost all inhabitants, directly or indirectly.
B) In southern states, only an elite group was allowed to grow cotton.
C) Cotton plants overgrew in fields used to harvest subsistence crops, making it difficult to grow anything but cotton in some areas.
D) Independent farmers could not grow cotton; it could only be harvested on government-owned land.

Question 64

What is the primary reason Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau in 1865?

A) to give basic assistance to former slaves and manage abandoned land in the South that could be offered to them
B) to encourage freed slaves to move to the North and take jobs in the industrial sector
C) to serve as a mediator between freemen who wished to air grievances against one another
D) to help freed slaves form political parties and campaign for government office

Question 65

What was the Republican Party's motivation for nominating Democrat Andrew Johnson for vice president?

A) They believed Johnson would appeal to the "War Democrats" in the border states and bring their support to the party.
B) They hoped Johnson would support an increase in the power of the legislative branch.
C) They hoped Johnson could overturn many of Lincoln's wartime policies.
D) They believed Johnson would appeal to Radical Republicans and bring their support to the party.

Question 66

How did the Liberal Republicans affect the 1872 presidential election?

A) They did not have a direct effect on the election, but their ideas entered the political discourse after the election.
B) They supported Horace Greeley for president, causing him to nearly upset Ulysses Grant.
C) Although they did not win the election, the Liberal Republicans swept the South.
D) By putting their support behind Ulysses Grant, they were able to get him reelected.

Question 67

What role did carpetbaggers play in southern politics?

A) They helped to strengthen the Republican Party in the South.
B) They used the newspapers and pamphlets to slander African Americans and whites who supported equal rights.
C) They left southern governments in disarray when they abandoned political posts to go back north.
D) They used unscrupulous methods to block African Americans from voting.

Question 68

Which statement most accurately describes the role of African American women in the Reconstruction era?

A) They were responsible for domestic duties and child care, as well as seasonal fieldwork for wages.
B) They worked wage jobs in the fields alongside men on a full-time basis.
C) They were usually better paid than their male counterparts for doing the same work.
D) They worked only inside the home performing domestic duties.

Question 69

To which of the following did Republicans agree as part of the Compromise of 1877?

A) a return to "home rule" by southern Democrats in the former Confederate states
B) an even division of the disputed electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina
C) Tilden's appointment as Hayes's vice president
D) repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which outlawed racial discrimination in public places

Question 70

How were freed blacks legally forced into agricultural labor?

A) Black codes prevented them from entering other fields.
B) They were given land by the U.S. government that they were required to maintain.
C) They were required by the Freedmen's Bureau to work the fields for their former owners.
D) They were required to perform labor equal to their value as slaves before gaining citizenship.

Question 71

What was the primary purpose of the Union League?

A) to unite African Americans and like-minded white people to advocate the end of legal discrimination against African Americans
B) to raise funds for African Americans who were interested in returning to West Africa
C) to serve as mediator for freed people and former owners
D) to provide basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing for African Americans in the South

Question 72

Which of the following statements best describes the condition of the northern American industrial economy by the end of the 1870s?

A) On a global scale, the U.S. manufacturing economy was only exceeded by that of Great Britain.
B) The postwar boom that began in the late 1860s continued throughout the 1870s, enriching the lives of many industrial and commercialized agricultural workers.
C) The number of wage earners in manufacturing remained stagnant.
D) The industrial advances of the 1850s and 1860s had largely been reversed.

Question 73

Which of these is true of the Depression of 1873?

A) It was the result of commercial overexpansion.
B) It lasted less than two years.
C) It only affected industrial workers.
D) It was the result of skyrocketing federal budget deficits.

Question 74

In its ruling in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court argued which of the following?

A) Under the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress only had the power to outlaw discrimination by states, not by individuals.
B) The Fifteenth Amendment did not guarantee a person's right to vote; it only barred certain specific grounds for denying suffrage, such as race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
C) Congress did not have the power to enforce federal punishments against Ku Klux Klan terrorism; that was a power reserved for the states.
D) The Fourteenth Amendment only protected national citizenship rights, not the regulatory powers of the states.

Question 75

How did corruption impact American government at the national level during the Reconstruction Era?

A) Political scandal and corruption were common to both the Democratic and Republican parties.
B) Political corruption was usually restricted to the large cities that were controlled by Democratic political rings and was all but nonexistent at the state and federal levels of government.
C) Republicans in the South were associated with the greatest number of political scandals during the 1870s.
D) The Crédit Mobilier railroad scandal had little impact on the federal government and was restricted to corruption at the state level of government.

Question 76

What was meant by the term "redemption"?

A) a return to white Democratic control in the South
B) the integration of former slaves into a New South
C) the absolution of whites for the sin of slavery
D) a pledge of loyalty by former Confederates to the Union

Question 77

To whom does the term "scalawags" refer?

A) white native Southerners who supported the Republican Party
B) white Northerners who supported the Whig Party
C) Northerners who moved to the South for economic and political gain
D) African Americans who attempted to hold political office in the South

Question 78

In addition to serving as places of worship for the African American community, black churches served as __________.

A) the center of social activities that unified the African American community
B) a major source of paid labor for a largely unemployed community
C) a way to unite the races through shared religious practice
D) the only forum for African Americans to air grievances against each other

Question 79

How did President Andrew Johnson prevent freed African Americans from becoming self-sufficient farmers?

A) Johnson ordered the head of the Freedmen's Bureau to evict thousands of former slaves who had settled on confiscated or abandoned land in the South.
B) Freedmen were restricted under Johnson's executive orders to owning no more than 40 acres of land.
C) Johnson vetoed the bill that was meant to enlarge the Freedmen's Bureau and would let this agency assist former slaves in obtaining free or inexpensive land.
D) Johnson signed congressional legislation that made it illegal for freedmen to own land.

Question 80

Why was sharecropping a disappointment for many African Americans?

A) Black sharecroppers rarely achieved economic independence or land ownership.
B) By the 1870s, new farming technology eliminated the need for most workers on sharecropping farms.
C) Former slaves, who had wanted to work in family units, were quickly pressed back into gangs.
D) Landowners regularly took farm land away from families who "defied" them.