Key Terms:
|
|
Freedmen's Bureau
- Established to help newly freed slaves by giving them food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support. Headed by Oliver O. Howard.
"10 percent" Reconstruction plan
- Lincoln's plan which said that a state could be readmitted to the Union when 10% of its voters in the presidential election fo 1860 had taken an oath of allegiance to the U.S. and agreed to abide by emancipation.
Wade-Davis Bill
- Passed in response to the "10 percent" plan, saying that 50% of the state's voters had to pledge allegiance to the Union and it made better protection of emancipation.
Black Codes
- Laws passed throughout the south that restricted the rights given to former slaves. It increased criticism of Andrew Johnson's lose Reconstruction policies by Northerners.
Pacific Railroad Act
- Used land grants and government bonds to fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad. Favored the north like the Morrill Act and Homestead Act.
Civil Rights Bill
- Passed despite Andrew Johnson's veto; it looked to counteract the Black Codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and it made it a crime to deny blacks the right to sue, testify in court, or hold property.
Fourteenth Amendment
- Extended civil rights given in the Civil Rights Bill to former slaves and stopped states from taking away these rights without due process.
Reconstruction Act
- Divided the south into 5 military districts, got rid of former confederates, and said the Southern states had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and make state constitutions promising former slaves those rights before they could come back into the Union.
Fifteenth Amendment
- Prohibited states from denying a citizen the franchise because of race. Protection for suffrage provisions in the Reconstruction Act.
Ex parte Milligan
- Case where Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals couldn't be used to try civilians if a civil court was to open.
Redeemers
- Southern Democratic politicians who wanted to take control from Republican regimes in the South after Reconstruction so they could make their own decisions on things like how to work around restrictions made on the Black Codes.
Woman's Loyal League
- Formed to help end the Civil War and encourage Congress to pass an amendment that banned slavery. They campaigned against the Fourteenth amendment because for the first time it specifically said men when referring to the right to vote.
Union League
- After blacks gained rights to suffrage in the fifteenth amendment it was created that helped to educate Southern blacks about civic life, they built schools and churches for black and they represented black grievances before government and employers.
scalawags
- Pro-Union southerners accused by former Confederates of plundering the resources of the South with Republican governments.
carpetbaggers
- How former Confederates described Northern businessmen and politicians who came to the south after war to helped with reconstruction or invest in southern infrastructure.
Ku Klux Klan
- An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society that would terrorized former slaves and sympathetic whites throughout the south. The terror caused carpetbaggers to shun the polls.
Force Acts
- Passed after the violence caused by the Ku Klux Klan, banning clan membership, and prohibited the use of intimidation to stop blacks from voting and it allowed for the U.S. military to enforce it.
Tenure of Office Act
- Said that the President must get approval from Senate before removing appointees. Andrew Johnson violated this by removing secretary of war and he was impeached but stayed in office because Senate was one vote short.
Seward's Folly
- Term for William Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia.