47. What was the “Lost Cause”?
It was a term that referred to southerners’ sense of embarrassment following the Civil War that they
had ever engaged in and fought for a practice as terrible as slavery.
It was a common phrase used by African Americans to describe their frustrations with
Reconstruction and belief that life had been better before the war because they had more security.
It was a narrative that described the widespread belief among northerners that Reconstruction had
been a waste of time and had resulted in few advances in terms of African American rights.
It was a concept shared among northerners and southerners that whether they liked it or not, their
prior way of life would be lost forever as they set aside their differences in favor of an integrated
nation.
It was a sanitized version of history in the South that glamorized the old plantation culture and
claimed that the Civil War concerned the honorable defense of states’ rights rather than slavery.
48. What happened after the end of Reconstruction?
The freedmen remained a powerful force in southern politics and made Reconstruction a successful
experiment in interracial democracy.
Women filled the power vacuum that Reconstruction had created and soon held positions of
political power in city legislatures.
The South embarked on a path toward rapid industrial development as it fought to compete with the
North again economically.
The protections of black civil rights crumbled under the pressure of restored white rule and
unfavorable Supreme Court decisions.
The majority of blacks migrated out of the South because conditions were so difficult in the wake
of the war.
49. Which of the following statements accurately describes attitudes freed slaves held toward the
Yankees at the beginning of Reconstruction versus after the end of it?
Whereas freed slaves had little trust or hope when it came to the goodwill of the Yankees at the
beginning of Reconstruction, they were convinced after the end of Reconstruction that the Yankees
would continue to transform their lives for the better.
Whereas freed slaves were still angry with the Yankees at the beginning of Reconstruction because
of they way in which the Civil War had uprooted their lives, they came to adopt the Yankee way of
life as they moved North in large numbers.
Although freed slaves experienced drastic changes in their everyday lives once emancipated, their
views toward the Yankees evolved little over the course of Reconstruction because Yankees had
little to do with those changes.
Although Yankees were quick to take credit for freeing enslaved African Americans at the
beginning of Reconstruction, freed slaves tended to find that southern whites were far more
supportive and responsible for advances in civil rights by the end of Reconstruction.
Whereas freed slaves often thought of the Yankees as their saviors at the beginning of
Reconstruction, some felt let down by the Yankees with the collapse of Reconstruction as they
began to move backward in terms of civil rights.
50. What was the MOST significant enduring legacy of Reconstruction?
the creation of true social equality in the South