Chapter 18: Reconstruction

Front 1

Freedman's Bureau

Back 1

The first federal experiment and social welfare, was geared toward negotiating labor contracts, providing medical care, setting up schools, and supervising court cases for newly freed blacks. The effort was thwarted by the intense racial prejudice of the south.

Front 2

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction

Back 2

President Lincoln's plan to establish government in the South. It stated that any former rebel state could form a union government when 10% of the population declared allegiance to the Constitution and the Union.

Front 3

Wade-Davis Bill

Back 3

A bill, supported by Radical Republicans, to insist that it was Congress' job to supervise reconstruction. The bill required the majority of white male citizens to declare allegiance before being able to serve or vote in the state constitution. Lincoln vetoed the bill before it could become law.

Front 4

Andrew Johnson

Back 4

Vice president under Abraham Lincoln, who rose to presidency after Lincoln's assassination. He was a war Democrat and racist yeoman and settled the southern government issue by declaring that each state would have a native unionist provisional governor and enforce emancipation.

Front 5

Black Codes

Back 5

Passed by Southern legislators in an effort to preserve slavery, they restricted the freedom of African Americans. Black were forced to work for whites under labor contracts, were allowed to sue and be sued, and occasionally able to hold land.

Front 6

Thaddeus Stevens

Back 6

A Radical Republican that argued that Confederate states should be considered conquered provinces, subject to the will of the victor. He also stated that the entirety of Southern society must be changed.

Front 7

Fourteenth Amendment

Back 7

Reaffirmed the state and federal citizenship of persons born or naturalized in the US. It also forbid any state from denying citizens their basic rights, reaffirming the Civil Rights Act.

Front 8

Military Reconstruction Act

Back 8

Passed by Congress, overriding Jackson's vetoes, the Act prescribed the way to form southern governments again. It designated a commander to one of five military districts in order to protect the rights given in the Constitution for adult males regardless of race, color or previous condition.

Front 9

Fifteenth Amendment

Back 9

Ratifying this amendment allowed Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, and Georgia back into the Union. The Amendment forbid the states to deny any person the vote on any grounds of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Front 10

Carpetbaggers

Back 10

A name given to white republicans that took positions in postwar southern state governments. These northernmen were said to have stuffed their belongings in carpetbags to take a political spoils of the many were union soldiers looking for economic opportunity and often became teachers, social workers, or preachers.

Front 11

Scalawags

Back 11

Native white Republicans that opposed secession and formed the unionist majority in the south. Others were Whigs that were attracted to the Republican Party's economic program of industrial and commercial expansion.

Front 12

Greenbacks

Back 12

Paper money, soft money, that was issued during the Civil War and was assumed to be recalled after the conflict. Its recall was halted as agrarian and debtor groups voiced that it would mean lower prices for their crops and result in more difficulty repaying long-term debt. President Grant in the end signed the Public Credit Act, stating the war debt would be paid in gold.

Front 13

Credit Mobilier Scandal

Back 13

A scandal under Grant's presidency in which Union Pacific Railroad insiders created the scam construction company called Credit Mobilier. They hired themselves at inflated prices to build a railroad, earning high dividends. When it was found out that government officials were paid to stay quiet, some officials were censured.

Front 14

Horace Greenley

Back 14

The presidential candidate for the liberal Republicans and editor of the New York Tribune. He endorsed reform, vegetarianism, and spiritualism, but still lost to Grant.

Front 15

Panic of 1873

Back 15

The scandals of the Grant administration, the withdrawal of green backs, and the market for railroads failing caused a six-year depression. Businesses went bankrupt, millions lost their jobs, and voters blamed the political party in power (Republicans) for the trouble.

Front 16

Compromise of 1877

Back 16

After the election of Republican, Rutherford B. Hayes, prominent leaders of both Republican and Democratic parties that met in secret to make a deal. The Republicans promised to withdraw federal troops from Louisiana and South Carolina in exchange for Democrats withdrawing opposition to Hayes, accepting Reconstruction Amendments, and refraining partisan reprisal against Republicans in the South.