e. The United States had become a declining world power in regard to trade.
110. The Bargain of 1877
a. formed a commission to oversee the results of the presidential election.
b. was not fulfilled in all its parts.
c. included the agreement that Hayes would put a northerner in the cabinet position of postmaster general.
d. radicalized black activists.
e. gave more power to southern Republicans.
Matching
TEST 1
___ 1. Benjamin Turner
___ 2. Andrew Johnson
___ 3. Charles Sumner
___ 4. Carl Schurz
___ 5. Edwin Stanton
___ 6. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
___ 7. Lyman Trumbull
___ 8. Hiram Revels
___ 9. Ulysses S. Grant
___ 10. Horace Greeley
___ 11. Blanche Bruce
___ 12. Frederick Douglass
a. second black U.S. senator
b. proposed the Civil Rights Bill of 1866
c. Presidential Reconstruction
d. Liberal Republicans’ presidential candidate
e. abolitionist who condemned anti-Asian discrimination
f. Reconstruction congressman and black leader
g. Whiskey Ring
h. leader of the Republican Party
i. National Woman Suffrage Association
j. Radical Republican senator from Massachusetts
k. first black U.S. senator
l. secretary of war
TEST 2
___ 1. Special Field Order 15
___ 2. carpetbaggers
___ 3. Howard University
___ 4. scalawag
___ 5. Black Codes
___ 6. Enforcement Acts
___ 7. Redeemers
___ 8. Compromise of 1877
___ 9. Freedmen’s Bureau
___ 10. Ku Klux Klan
___ 11. Whiskey Ring
___ 12. impeachment
a. restrictions placed on freed blacks in the South
b. scandal in the Grant administration
c. origin of “forty acres and a mule”
d. northern-born Republicans in the South during Reconstruction
e. ended Reconstruction
f. government agency that helped blacks in the South
g. black school in Washington, D.C.
h. public official charged with wrongdoing
i. southern-born white Republican
j. targeted the Ku Klux Klan
k. Democrats who took control in the South during the 1870s
l. terrorist organization
TEST 3
___ 1. Fourteenth Amendment
___ 2. Fifteenth Amendment
___ 3. Reconstruction Act
___ 4. Enforcement Acts
___ 5. Civil Rights Act of 1875
___ 6. Civil Rights Bill of 1866
___ 7. Tenure of Office Act
___ 8. Bargain of 1877
a. Declared that all persons born in the United States were citizens
b. Started with the period of Radical Reconstruction
c. Expanded the power of national government during Reconstruction
d. Settled the presidential elections of 1877
e. Outlawed racial discrimination in public places
f. Guaranteed all citizens equal protection of the laws
g. Declared no U.S. citizen should be denied the right to vote
h. Restricted the power of the president to remove certain officeholders
True/False
1. After the Civil War, some ex-slaves walked hundreds of miles in search of family members.
2. During Reconstruction, blacks could only get an education inside the classroom.
3. The Freedmen’s Bureau presaged some government social policies that would be enacted during the Great
Depression.
4. Because of land redistribution, the vast majority of rural freedmen and freedwomen prospered during
Reconstruction.
5. By the mid-1870s, white farmers were cultivating as much as 80 percent of the region’s cotton crop.
6. Economic growth in the South was stronger in urban areas than in rural centers.
7. Compared to rebels in the rest of world history’s civil wars, the rebels of the defeated Confederacy were treated
very harshly.
8. Thaddeus Stevens’s most cherished aim was to confiscate the land of disloyal planters and divide it among former
slaves and northern migrants to the South.
9. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 became the first major law in American history to be passed over a presidential veto.
10. With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, all people born in the United States were automatically
citizens.
11. The Senate, following the House’s impeachment vote, removed Andrew Johnson from office.
12. The 1868 presidential election saw Ulysses S. Grant defeating Horatio Seymour.
13. Birthright citizenship can be viewed as a rejection of associating citizenship only with whiteness.
14. According to his speech “A Composite Nation,” Frederick Douglass believed Chinese immigrants should be
naturalized as Americans and hold the same rights as all other citizens.
15. Unlike Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone favored the Fifteenth Amendment.
16. The Wyoming territorial government granted suffrage to women because people voted for gender equality.
17. Black ministers during Reconstruction played a minor role in politics because they could not hold public offices.
18. By the time the Union was restored in 1870, the southern states had Democratic majorities.
19. Black suffrage made little difference in the South, as very few blacks voted or ran for public office during
Reconstruction.
20. White southern Democrats considered scalawags traitors to both their party and their race.
21. While Republicans were in power in the South, they established the region’s first state-supported public
schools.
22. Northern financiers were more likely to invest in the West than in the South.
23. Opponents of Radical Reconstruction could not accept the idea of former slaves voting, holding office, and
enjoying equality before the law.
24. The Ku Klux Klan tended to be led by planters, merchants, and Democratic politicians.
25. James Pike’s The Prostrate State was in support of the black Republican governments in the South during
Reconstruction.
26. The 1873 depression strengthened the North’s resolve to ensure the success of Reconstruction because the
depression really hurt the South’s farmers, highlighting the need for reform in the region.
27. In Mississippi in 1875, white rifle clubs drilled in public and openly assaulted and murdered Republicans.
28. As part of the Bargain of 1877, Hayes agreed to recognize Democratic control of the South.
Short Answer
1. The Fourteenth Amendment generated much debate and division among the political parties. Give a brief
description of the amendment and assess in what ways it was successful. Be sure to summarize how the
different political parties viewed the amendment.
2. Republican leader Carl Schurz referred to the laws and amendments passed during Reconstruction as the
“great Constitutional revolution.” Please explain what he meant by this, making sure to specify what made
the amendments transformative.
3. Describe in a paragraph or two the historical significance of each of the following terms, events, and people.
Essay
1. What did freedom mean for the ex-slaves? Be sure to address economic opportunities, gender roles, religious
independence, and family security.
2. Why did Radical Republicans believe that Andrew Johnson would support their agenda? Why was Johnson
ultimately unable to lend his support to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 or to the Fourteenth Amendment?
3. Defend this statement: For whites, freedom, no matter how defined, was a given, a birthright to be defended. For
African-Americans, it was an open-ended process, a transformation of every aspect of their lives and of the society
and culture that had sustained slavery in the first place.
4. Explain how wartime devastation set in motion a chain of events that permanently altered the white yeomanry’s
independent way of life, leading to what they considered a loss of freedom.
5. Reconstruction witnessed profound changes in the lives of southerners, black and white, rich and poor. Explain
the various ways that the lives of these groups changed. Were the changes for the better or the worse?
6. Stating that he “lived among men, not among angels,” Thaddeus Stevens recognized that the Fourteenth
Amendment was not perfect. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the Fourteenth Amendment. What liberties
and freedoms did it extend in the nineteenth century, and to whom? How did it alter the relationship between the
federal government and the states?
7. What faults did the Republicans see with Presidential Reconstruction? How did they propose to rectify those
deficiencies? Be sure to distinguish moderate Republicans from Radical Republicans in your answer.
8. Who were the Redeemers, what did they want, and what were their methods? How did the Redeemers feel that
their freedom was being threatened by Radical Reconstruction? Conclude your essay with a comment on how you
think the federal government should have responded to the Redeemers.
9. Do you think the permanent distribution of land to former slaves would have made a difference in the outcome of
Reconstruction? Why or why not?
10. Was Reconstruction a success or a failure? Or was it something in between? In your response, consider land
policy, key legislation during Presidential and Radical Reconstruction, southern politics, racial and political
violence, and northern “fatigue” with Reconstruction. Be sure to make clear what you mean by success and
failure.
11. The debate surrounding the creation and ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment divided one-time political allies over
the matter of women’s suffrage. What were the arguments for and against including a woman’s right to vote in the
Fifteenth Amendment? What did this debate say about the boundaries of freedom defined by Reconstruction?
12. One of the most divisive issues during the Reconstruction period was the meaning of “freedom” and “citizenship.”
Did this debate reach some closure during the Reconstruction period? Why or why not? Be sure to summarize the
opinions of different social and political groups that dominated the national agenda during this period.
13. As in earlier periods of American history, Reconstruction saw political debates over the meaning of federalism
and the balance of power between the national government and the states. Keeping this in mind, discuss how
laws and regulations such as the Civil Rights Bill of 1866 and the Reconstruction amendments factored into this
debate. Please consider how the positions of Republicans and Democrats differed in terms of this debate.
14. Eric Foner argues, “The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from a document primarily
concerned with federal-state relations and the rights of property into a vehicle through which members of vulnerable
minorities could stake a claim.” Please explain in your own words how the Constitution changed due to the
amendments. Who were the main actors involved?