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Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan
Also known as the 10 percent plan,
Was Lincoln's blueprint for Reconstruction. It specified that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history#ref295413 : To Lincoln, the plan would weaken the Confederacy rather that create a blueprint of reconstruction for the South. -
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Reconstruction
Reconstruction, in U.S. history, the period (1863–77) that followed the American Civil War which attempted to solve the inequalities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to reunite the Union after the 11 states seceded during the war. -
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Lincoln Reconstruction Period
Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the Union and bring the southern states back into the Union. After the North won the Battle of Antidum, Lincoln was able to come out with the Emancipation Proclamation which made the war about slavery. In the Gettysburg address, Lincoln speaks about the United States as “a new nation”. -
Wade Davis Bill
A plan proposed by Senator Benjamin F. Wade and Representative Henry Winter Davis which required that 50 percent of a state's white males take a loyalty oath to be readmitted to the Union. In addition, states were required to give blacks the right to vote. https://www.britannica.com/event/Wade-Davis-Bill :
The unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans to set up the Reconstruction policy to end the war. -
Special Field Order 15
Union General, William T. Sherman, issued Special Order 15 which ordered the confiscation of 400,000 acres of land across the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Field-Order-No-15 : Sherman set aside a large settlement of land for black families but Johnson ordered for the land to be returned to its former owners. -
President Lincoln’s Death
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. https://www.britannica.com/event/assassination-of-Abraham-Lincoln : Booth was a member of the Confederacy and the assassination took place days after the surrender of Lee. -
Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Freedmens-Bureau : Established by Congress to provide practical aid to 4,000,000 newly freed African Americans in their transition from slavery to freedom. Despite inadequate funds and poorly trained personnel, the bureau built hospitals and gave direct medical assistance to many freedmen. -
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans. They fought for white supremacy. -
13th Amendment
Thirteenth Amendment, amendment (1865) to the Constitution of the United States that formally abolished slavery. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirteenth-Amendment -
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Presidential Reconstruction Period
President Andrew Johnson announced his lenient plans for reconstruction which included giving all land back to its prewar owners, allowing the South to reconstruct themselves and even let them form “black codes” to restrict African Americans freedom which enraged many in the North. Congress passed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Act, but after Johnson vetoed the bill, he was impeached and the Civil Rights Act was the first major bill to become law after being vetoed by the president. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The act declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Johnson : It was the first instance of a president’s veto being overridden. Against Johnson’s objections, the amendment was ratified. -
Radical Republicans
During and after the American Civil War, members of the Republican Party committed to emancipation of the slaves and later to the equal treatment and enfranchisement of the freed blacks. While Pres. Abraham Lincoln declared restoration of the Union to be his aim during the Civil War, the antislavery advocates in Congress pressed for emancipation as a stated war aim as well. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Radical-Republican -
Black Codes
Black codes are any of numerous laws enacted in the states of the former Confederacy after the American Civil War and intended to assure the continuance of white supremacy. Enacted in 1865 and 1866, the laws were designed restrict African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. https://www.britannica.com/topic/black-code -
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Congressional Reconstruction Period
The Republicans wanted to ensure the Civil Rights Act by adding an amendment to the constitution that acknowledged citizenship for anyone born in the United States and forbid any state to prohibit life, liberty or property without due process of law. The Military Reconstruction Act was the final plan and identified the new conditions under which the Southern governments would be formed. The last reconstruction measure was the Civil Rights Act which prohibited racial discrimination. -
Reconstruction Act
U.S. legislation enacted in 1867–68 that outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War (1861–65). The bills were largely written by the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Reconstruction-Acts -
Impeachment of President Johnson
Johnson’s vetoing of two important pieces of legislation aimed at protecting blacks, an extension of the Freedmen’s Bureau bill and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was disastrous. With Reconstruction virtually taken out of his hands, the president, by exercising his veto and by narrowly interpreting the law, managed to delay the program so seriously that he contributed materially to its failure. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andrew-Johnson -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. In addition, it forbids states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fourteenth-Amendment -
Great Constitutional Revolution
These amendments formed the great Constitutional revolution" that broke the connection between citizenship and race and put the national government at the center of struggles for freedom. http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/foner2/contents/ch15/documents01.asp -
Scalawags
A white Southerner who collaborated with northern Republicans during Reconstruction, often for personal profit. The term was used derisively by white Southern Democrats who opposed Reconstruction legislation. https://www.britannica.com/topic/scalawag-United-States-history -
15th Amendment
Guaranteed that the right to vote could not be denied based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fifteenth-Amendment -
Enforcement Acts
The Enforcement Act of 1870 prohibited discrimination by state officials in voter registration on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. https://www.britannica.com/event/Reconstruction-United-States-history#ref295415 -
Sharecropping
Tenant farming, agricultural system in which landowners contribute their land and a measure of operating capital and management while tenants contribute their labour with various amounts of capital and management, the returns being shared in a variety of ways. Payment to the owner may be in the form of a share in the product, or in cash, or in a combination of both. https://www.britannica.com/topic/tenant-farming#ref247709 -
Slaughterhouse Cases
Slaughterhouse Cases, in American history, was a legal dispute that resulted in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1873 limiting the protection of the privileges and immunities of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. https://www.britannica.com/event/Slaughterhouse-Cases -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Enacted on March 1, 1875, the Civil Rights Act affirmed the “equality of all men before the law” and prohibited racial discrimination in public places and facilities such as restaurants and public transportation. The law also made it a crime for anyone to facilitate the denial of such accommodations or services on the basis of colour, race, or “previous condition of servitude". https://www.britannica.com/topic/Civil-Rights-Act-United-States-1875 -
Bargain of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, formally ending the Reconstruction Era and making Rutherford B. Hayes the new president. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/reconstruction/a/compromise-of-1877
