07.06 End of Reconstruction Reading Questions Worksheet

Name: ________________________________________________ Date: _____________________________ Class: ____
The End of Reconstruction
As time passed, it became more and decade of racial warfare. Unfortunately, the
more obvious that the problems of the South pendulum of national racial policy swung
were not being solved by harsh laws and from one extreme to the other. A federal
continuing rancor against former government that had supported harsh
Confederates. Moreover, some Southern penalties against Southern white leaders now
Radical state governments with prominent tolerated new and humiliating kinds of
African-American officials appeared corrupt discrimination against African Americans.
and inefficient. The nation was quickly tiring The last quarter of the 19th century saw a
of the attempt to impose racial democracy profusion of "Jim Crow" laws in Southern
and liberal values on the South with Union states that segregated public schools, forbade
bayonets. In May 1872, Congress passed a or limited African-American access to many
general Amnesty Act, restoring full political public facilities such as parks, restaurants,
rights to all but about 500 former rebels. and hotels, and denied most blacks the right
Gradually Southern states began to vote by imposing poll taxes and arbitrary
electing members of the Democratic Party literacy tests. "Jim Crow" is a term derived
into office, ousting carpetbagger from a song in an 1828 minstrel show where
governments and intimidating African a white man first performed in "blackface."
Americans from voting or attempting to hold Historians have tended to judge
public office. By 1876 the Republicans Reconstruction harshly, as a murky period of
remained in power in only three Southern political conflict, corruption, and regression
states. As part of the bargaining that resolved that failed to achieve its original high-minded
the disputed presidential elections that year goals and collapsed into a sinkhole of virulent
in favor of Rutherford B. Hayes, the racism. Slaves were granted freedom, but the
Republicans promised to withdraw federal North completely failed to address their
troops that had propped up the remaining economic needs. The Freedmen's Bureau was
Republican governments. In 1877 Hayes unable to provide former slaves with political
kept his promise, tacitly abandoning federal and economic opportunity. Union military
responsibility for enforcing blacks' civil occupiers often could not even protect them
rights. from violence and intimidation. Indeed,
The South was still a region federal army officers and agents of the
devastated by war, burdened by debt caused Freedmen's Bureau were often racists
by misgovernment, and demoralized by a themselves. Without economic resources of
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Name: ________________________________________________ Date: _____________________________ Class: ____
their own, many Southern African Americans 3. List three “Jim Crow” laws.
were forced to become tenant farmers on ________________________________________________
land owned by their former masters, caught ________________________________________________
in a cycle of poverty that would continue well ________________________________________________
into the 20th century. ________________________________________________
Reconstruction-era governments did ________________________________________________
make genuine gains in rebuilding Southern ________________________________________________
states devastated by the war, and in
expanding public services, notably in 4. Explain why Reconstruction ultimately
establishing tax-supported, free public failed.
schools for African Americans and whites. ________________________________________________
However, recalcitrant Southerners seized ________________________________________________
upon instances of corruption (hardly unique ________________________________________________
to the South in this era) and exploited them ________________________________________________
to bring down radical regimes. The failure of ________________________________________________
Reconstruction meant that the struggle of ________________________________________________
African Americans for equality and freedom
was deferred until the 20th century – when it 5. Imagine that you are a member of
would become a national, not just a Southern Congress in 1870. Would you support
issue. Reconstruction? Why or why not?
________________________________________________
1. Describe the Amnesty Act of 1872. ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________
2. Summarize the deal that made Rutherford ________________________________________________
B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 ________________________________________________
presidential election. ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
________________________________________________ ________________________________________________
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Name: ________________________ Date: _ Class:

The End of Reconstruction

Free K-12 Worksheets and More www.STUDENTHANDOUTS.com

Free K-12 Worksheets and More www.STUDENTHANDOUTS.com

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