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Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan (1st Phase)
Definition: 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. Phase: Lincoln's Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. POV: Lincoln’s Plans and new laws the nation must abide by. It states all those who participated in the rebellion are pardoned and will receive all of their belongings and property except slaves. -
Wade Davis Bill (1st Phase)
Definition: 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. Phase: Lincoln’s Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: A strict Reconstruction plan proposed by a few Congressional Republicans that required 50% of the states white males to pledge loyalty to the Union. -
Special Field Order 15 (2nd Phase)
Definition: 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. Phase: Lincoln’s Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: Document details the land that is reserved for the now free African Americans as result of the war. States the rules surrounding them and their rights. -
President Lincoln's Death (1st Phase)
Definition: 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. Phase: Lincoln’s Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: This shows that Lincoln’s killer snuck up on him and Lincoln had no idea he was about to get shot. John Booth his killer was apart of the Confederacy. Lincoln’s death took place right after Lee’s surrender. -
Radical Republicans (2nd Phase)
Definition: Faction of politicians within the Republican party that wanted to prevent the leaders of the Confederacy from returning to power after the war. Phase: Presidential Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: Letter by Charles Sumner the key Radical Republican leader wrote to Andrew Johnson accusing him of jeopardizing the North's victory in the war. Radical Republicans didn’t like President Andrew Johnson and disagreed with his politics. 1864-1867 -
Freedman's Bureau (2nd Phase)
Definition: 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. The goal was to provide sufficient aid to the newly freed African Americans and help them in their transition to normal life.
Phase: Presidential Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: This picture shows a representative of the Freedman’s Bureau protecting Emancipated Slaves from a group of white planters. -
Black Codes (2nd Phase)
Definition: The Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866 in the United States after the American Civil War with the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. Phase: Presidential Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: These are among the first post-Civil War statutes designed to establish the rights and regulate the behavior of ex-slaves at the state level. -
Klu Klux Klan (2nd Phase)
Definition: The Ku Klux Klan was one of a number of secret, oath-bound organizations using violence, which included the Southern Cross in New Orleans. Phase: Presidential Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: The Klan was founded by 6 Confederate veterans in 1865. The members represented the ghosts of the dead confederates coming back to haunt the African Americans and Republicans. -
13th Amendment (3rd Phase)
Definition: This Amendment abolished slavery. Ratified December 6, 1865. Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: This amendment bans slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States unless it is as a punishment for a specific crime. -
Civil Rights Act (2nd Phase)
Definition: 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. Phase: Presidential Reconstruction Phase Primary Doc. Pov: States that all persons born in the United States are not subject to any foreign power. All persons that were born in the United States are citizens regardless of past conditions of slavery. -
Reconstruction Act (3rd Phase)
Definition:Reconstruction Acts, 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.
Phase:Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc Pov:Source states that peace and good order should be enforced in southern states until loyal and Republican State governments can be legally established there. -
Impeachment of President Johnson (3rd Phase)
Definition: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson occurred in 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: This Shows that the actions leading to Johnson’s impeachment were his belief that it was his duty to reconstruct the south. He saw the reconstruction of the south as an executive responsibility and vetoed all congressional initiatives. This left Johnson and Congress divided. -
14th Amendment (3rd Phase)
Definition: 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.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: This Amendment states all persons born in the United States, regardless if they were a slave, are now citizens. It also prevents states from denying these people life, liberty, or property. -
Scalawags (3rd Phase)
Defintions: 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.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: This show that people often frowned upon Scalawags and Carpet-Baggers and they were a prominent topic in politics at the time. -
Great Constitutional Revolution (3rd Phase)
Definition:The Reconstruction amendments transformed the Constitution from a document primarily concerned with federal-state relations into a system through which members of vulnerable minorities could claim freedom and seek protection against all levels of government.
Phase:Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov:All of the Reconstruction Amendments together redefined the constitution. For the first time the Constitution benefitted and protected the people, specifically minorities. -
15th Amendment (3rd Phase)
Definition: Prevented the US or any of its states from denying the right to vote to any citizen based on color, race, or previous condition of servitude. Ratified on February 3, 1870.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc Pov: Amendment grants all citizens the right to vote, specifically African Americans and former slaves. -
Sharecropping (3rd Phase)
Definition: Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: After President Johnson returned the land to the prewar white owners they made deals with black families. Granting them land and a house while the owners would get a share of the crops produced and the profit made. -
Enforcement Acts (3rd Phase)
Definition: The Enforcement Act of 1870 prohibited discrimination by state officials in voter registration on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: All citizens are allowed to vote at all kinds of elections without their color, race, or Previous condition of servitude playing a part. -
Slaughterhouse Cases (3rd Phase)
Definition: Slaughterhouse Cases 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.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phas
Primary Doc. Pov: This states a citizens privileges and immunities protected by the 14th amendment include only those listed in the constitution and doesn’t include some of the rights given to citizens by individual states. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875 (3rd Phase)
Definition: Enforcement Act was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction Era in response to civil rights violations to African Americans, "to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights".
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: The purpose of this act was to prohibit public discrimination against blacks. Gave them the right to occupy public spaces such as hotels, restaurants, etc. -
Bargain of 1877 (3rd Phase)
Definition: It was an unwritten deal that settled the disputed 1876 presidential election. It resulted in Rutherford B. Hayes as the new president.
Phase: Congressional Reconstruction Phase
Primary Doc. Pov: Both sides of the 1876 election accused the other side of cheating during the voting process. As a solution, Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes was announced as president, remaining federal troops were pulled out of the south, and a cabinet position was gifted to a southern democrat.
