US Reconstruction Era 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited denying the right to vote based on what criteria?
- Age, sex, or national origin
- Race, color, or previous condition of servitude (Correct answer)
- Economic status or property ownership
- Literacy or educational attainment
Correct answer: Race, color, or previous condition of servitude
The 15th Amendment specifically prohibited federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Question 2: What was the term used for white Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Republican Party?
- Carpetbaggers
- Scalawags (Correct answer)
- Freedmen
- Copperheads
Correct answer: Scalawags
Scalawags was a derogatory term used to describe white Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Republican Party, viewed as traitors by many of their neighbors.
Question 3: The Reconstruction Era officially ended in 1877 as a direct result of what event?
- The ratification of the 15th Amendment
- The assassination of President Garfield
- The Compromise of 1877, which withdrew federal troops from the South (Correct answer)
- The Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson
Correct answer: The Compromise of 1877, which withdrew federal troops from the South
The Compromise of 1877 resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election by allowing Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to become president in exchange for withdrawing federal troops from the South.
Question 4: The First Reconstruction Act of 1867 did what to the former Confederate states?
- Pardoned all Confederate leaders and restored their political rights
- Divided them into five military districts under Union Army control (Correct answer)
- Returned control of Southern governments to local white authorities
- Required them to pay reparations to freed slaves
Correct answer: Divided them into five military districts under Union Army control
The First Reconstruction Act divided the ten unreconstructed Southern states into five military districts governed by Union Army generals, requiring new state constitutions before readmission.
Question 5: Why was the Ku Klux Klan founded in 1865 during the Reconstruction Era?
- To provide economic assistance to impoverished white Southerners
- To terrorize Black Americans and Republican supporters to undermine Reconstruction (Correct answer)
- To resist Northern corporate investment in Southern industries
- To preserve Confederate veterans' pension rights
Correct answer: To terrorize Black Americans and Republican supporters to undermine Reconstruction
The Ku Klux Klan was founded as a white supremacist organization to use violence and intimidation against Black Americans, carpetbaggers, scalawags, and Reconstruction-era Republican governments.
Question 6: What was 'Radical Reconstruction,' led by the Radical Republicans in Congress?
- A lenient plan to quickly restore Southern states to the Union
- An aggressive approach ensuring civil rights for freed slaves and punishing Confederate leaders (Correct answer)
- A program to redistribute Southern plantation land to freed slaves
- A movement to allow former Confederate soldiers to run for federal office
Correct answer: An aggressive approach ensuring civil rights for freed slaves and punishing Confederate leaders
Radical Reconstruction was the Congressional Republicans' more aggressive approach to Reconstruction, demanding civil and political rights for freed slaves and greater accountability from former Confederate states.
Question 7: What was the significance of General Sherman's Special Field Order No. 15 during Reconstruction?
- It authorized the formation of the Buffalo Soldiers
- It promised freed slaves 40 acres of land, though President Johnson later reversed it (Correct answer)
- It established the Freedmen's Bureau in coastal Southern states
- It ordered the destruction of Confederate infrastructure in the South
Correct answer: It promised freed slaves 40 acres of land, though President Johnson later reversed it
Special Field Order No. 15, issued in January 1865, set aside coastal land in South Carolina and Georgia for freed slaves in 40-acre plots, but President Andrew Johnson reversed the order after Lincoln's assassination.
US Reconstruction Era 2
The 15th Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited denying the right to vote based on what criteria?