freedmen
Enslaved people who had been freed by the war
Reconstruction
Rebuilding of the South after the Civil War 1865-1877
Ten Percent Plan
Lincoln's plan that allowed a southern state to form a new government after 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the United States
Wade-Davis Bill
an 1864 plan for Reconstruction that denied the right to vote or hold office to anyone who had volunteered to fight for the Confederacy
Freedmen's Bureau
government agency founded during Reconstruction to help former slaves
Thirteenth Amendment
1865 - abolished slavery
black codes
Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War
Radical Republicans
Congressional group that wished to punish the South for its secession from the Union; pushed for measures that gave economic and political rights to newly freed blacks in the South and that made it difficult for former Confederate states to rejoin the Uni
Fourteenth Amendment
guarantees equal protection of the law, due process of law, and rights of citizenship to all people born or naturalized in US
Reconstruction Act
an 1867 law that threw out the southern state governments that had refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment
impeach
An action by the House of Representatives to accuse the president, vice president, or other civil officers of the United States of committing "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Fifteenth Amendment
forbids any state to deny African Americans the right to vote because of race. All males 21+ can vote.
scalawag
A derogatory term for white Southerners who supported Reconstruction following the Civil War.
carpetbagger
A northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War; especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states
Ku Klux Klan
A secret society created by white southerners in 1866 that used terror and violence to keep African Americans from obtaining their civil rights.
sharecropper
A person who works fields rented from a landowner and pays the rent and repays loans by turning over to the landowner a share of the crops.
poll tax
A requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote
literacy test
A test given to persons to prove they can read and write before being allowed to register to vote
grandfather clause
Southern laws that excluded blacks from exercising suffrage by restricting the right to vote only to those whose grandfathers had voted before 1865
segregation
Separation of people based on racial, ethnic, or other differences
Plessy v. Ferguson
1896 court case that ruled in favor of segregation. Declared "separate, but equal" is constitutional and led to Jim Crow laws being passed-especially in the South.
Homestead Act of 1862
any citizen could occupy 160 acres of government land, if improvements were made to the land citizens would own the land after 5 years
Dawes Act of 1887
tried to civilize Indians and make them more little settlers by giving them land to farm, instead it harmed their native culture
Tenant Farming
A system in which farm workers supply their own tools and rent farmland for cash