RECONSTRUCTION
Questions/Thinking Points

Terms

"Birth of a Nation"
Thomas Dixon
scalawag
carpetbagger
Juneteenth
sharecropping
Freedmen's Bureau
"black codes"
Presidential Reconstruction
Radical Republicans
Civil Rights Act of 1866
14th Amendment
15th Amendment
Reconstruction Act of 1867
Hiram Revels
Tenure of Office Act
impeachment

Redemption
White League
The Force Act
The Ku Klux Klan Act
Panic of 1873
Election of 1876
Rutherford B. Hayes
Compromise of 1877

Questions

1.  How was Reconstruction portrayed in the early twentieth century?  How have these views changed in recent years and why?
2.  How did freedmen respond to emancipation?
3.  How did whites often respond to freedmen?
4.  How did emancipation in the U. S. compared to the same process in other countries?
5.  How did sharecropping evolve?
6.  What was President Johnson's approach to Reconstruction?
7.  How did Congress direct Reconstruction?
8.  Why was Andrew Johnson impeached?  What was the outcome of his trial?
9.  What were some of the positive and negative achievements of the Reconstruction governments in the South?
10.  What was the myth concerning Republican governments in the South during Reconstruction?
11.  How did the so-called "Redeemers" overthrow Republican governments in the South?
12.  Why did Northern interest in the South wane after 1870?
13.  How did economic factors affect the overthrow of Reconstruction governments in the South?
14.  What was the outcome of the Election of 1876?  How did this bring an end to Reconstruction?
15.  What was the signifiance of Reconstruction, and what were its long-term consequences?

This page last updated 9 November 2007

© Kahne Parsons 2007-08