Under Lincoln's 1863 Ten Percent Plan, what had to happen before a former Confederate state could form a new state government?
One-tenth of its 1860 voters had to swear loyalty
✓
A majority had to swear they never aided the rebellion
Its legislature had to give Black men the vote
Federal troops had to occupy it for ten years
Correct Answer
One-tenth of its 1860 voters had to swear loyalty
Lincoln's lenient plan let a state reorganize once one-tenth of its 1860 voters took an oath of future loyalty and accepted emancipation. A majority had to swear they never aided the rebellion is wrong for Lincoln's plan; the stricter Wade-Davis Bill required a majority of white men to swear allegiance and barred anyone who had held Confederate office or voluntarily fought against the Union from voting for a new convention. Its legislature had to give Black men the vote was not required by Lincoln's plan. Federal troops had to occupy it for ten years was not part of the plan.
Category: Presidential Reconstruction
Question 2
What happened to the Wade-Davis Bill of 1864, the Radical Republican alternative to Lincoln's plan?
The Supreme Court struck it down
Lincoln killed it with a pocket veto
✓
Congress voted it down
It became law over Lincoln's veto
Correct Answer
Lincoln killed it with a pocket veto
Congress passed the bill, but Lincoln declined to sign it before Congress adjourned, a pocket veto. He said publicly that he did not want to be bound to a single plan of restoration or to undo the new governments already formed in Louisiana and Arkansas. The Supreme Court struck it down is wrong, since it never became law. Congress voted it down is wrong, because Congress passed it. It became law over Lincoln's veto is wrong; a pocket veto cannot be overridden.
Category: Presidential Reconstruction
Question 3
What did the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in December 1865, accomplish?
It made formerly enslaved people citizens
It barred racial discrimination in voting
It abolished slavery throughout the United States
✓
It required equal treatment in public places
Correct Answer
It abolished slavery throughout the United States
The Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery everywhere in the nation, including the loyal border states the Emancipation Proclamation had not covered. Making formerly enslaved people citizens was the work of the Fourteenth Amendment. Barring racial discrimination in voting was the Fifteenth Amendment. Requiring equal treatment in public places was the goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
Category: End of Slavery
Question 4
Who shot Abraham Lincoln at a Washington theater in April 1865?
Edwin Stanton
Jefferson Davis
Charles Guiteau
John Wilkes Booth
✓
Correct Answer
John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, and Lincoln died the next morning. Edwin Stanton was Lincoln's secretary of war. Jefferson Davis was the Confederate president, who was captured in May 1865. Charles Guiteau assassinated President James Garfield in 1881.
Category: Lincoln's Assassination
Question 5
What was President Andrew Johnson's approach to the former Confederate states after the war?
He sought to restore them quickly on lenient terms
✓
He required Black voting rights first
He kept them under military rule for years
He gave plantation land to freed people
Correct Answer
He sought to restore them quickly on lenient terms
Johnson pardoned most former Confederates and, once the states repealed secession and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, declared the Union restored, though Congress refused to seat their newly elected members. He required Black voting rights first is wrong; he opposed federal protection of Black voting. He kept them under military rule for years describes the Reconstruction Acts Congress passed over his veto. He gave plantation land to freed people is wrong; his pardons returned land to former Confederates.
Category: Presidential Reconstruction
Question 6
What were the Black Codes passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866 designed to do?
Guarantee freed people the right to vote
Restore control over freed people's labor and lives
✓
Provide land to formerly enslaved families
Fund public schools for Black children
Correct Answer
Restore control over freed people's labor and lives
The Black Codes barred freed people from voting, serving on juries or carrying weapons, and tied them to labor contracts, keeping much of slavery's structure in place without slavery itself. Guaranteeing freed people the right to vote is the opposite of what the codes did. Providing land to formerly enslaved families was never their purpose. Funding public schools for Black children is wrong; schools for freed people came largely from the Freedmen's Bureau and missionary groups.
Category: Congress Takes Charge
Question 7
Which federal agency, created in 1865, distributed food, helped negotiate labor contracts and built schools for formerly enslaved people?
The Union League
The Department of the Interior
The Freedmen's Bureau
✓
The Bureau of Indian Affairs
Correct Answer
The Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau, formally the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, aided both freed people and poor white Southerners, reunited families and founded schools. The Union League was a political club, not a federal agency. The Department of the Interior managed public lands. The Bureau of Indian Affairs dealt with Native nations.
Category: Congress Takes Charge
Question 8
What happened after President Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866?
The bill died and was never revived
The Supreme Court enacted it instead
The Southern states ratified it instead
Congress overrode the veto and it became law
✓
Correct Answer
Congress overrode the veto and it became law
Congress gathered the two-thirds majorities needed to override Johnson's veto, making the act, which declared African Americans citizens, law. The bill died and was never revived is wrong, since it was enacted. The Supreme Court enacted it instead is wrong, because courts do not pass laws. The Southern states ratified it instead is wrong; ordinary laws are not ratified by states.
Category: Congress Takes Charge
Question 9
Which constitutional amendment made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens and promised them equal protection of the laws?
The Fourteenth Amendment
✓
The Thirteenth Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment
Correct Answer
The Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, overturned the Dred Scott decision by defining national citizenship and barred states from denying anyone equal protection of the laws. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Fifteenth Amendment barred racial discrimination in voting. The Nineteenth Amendment, from 1920, guaranteed women the vote.
Category: Congress Takes Charge
Question 10
How did the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 reorganize the ten Southern states that had not yet been readmitted?
Into territories with no voting rights at all
Into five military districts under Union generals
✓
Into two provinces under civilian governors
Into independent states outside the Union
Correct Answer
Into five military districts under Union generals
Congress placed the states under military rule in five districts, each commanded by a Union general, with troops overseeing voter registration that included freed men. Territories with no voting rights at all is wrong, because freed men voted under army supervision. Two provinces under civilian governors is wrong; the districts were military. Independent states outside the Union is wrong, since Congress denied that secession was legal.
Category: Radical Reconstruction
Question 11
When the House impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868, the charges centered on his alleged violation of which law?
The Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Homestead Act
The Tenure of Office Act
✓
The Ku Klux Klan Act
Correct Answer
The Tenure of Office Act
The Tenure of Office Act required Senate approval before the president removed certain officials, and Johnson's firing of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton led to impeachment. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was a law Johnson vetoed, not one he was charged with breaking. The Homestead Act of 1862 dealt with western land. The Ku Klux Klan Act was passed in 1871, after Johnson left office.
Category: Radical Reconstruction
Question 12
What was the outcome of Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial in the Senate?
He was convicted and removed
He resigned before the vote
The trial was never held
He was acquitted by a single vote
✓
Correct Answer
He was acquitted by a single vote
The Senate vote fell one short of the two-thirds needed to convict, as several Republicans joined Democrats to acquit, so Johnson finished his term. He was convicted and removed is wrong; no president has been removed by impeachment. He resigned before the vote is wrong, since he stayed in office. The trial was never held is wrong; the Senate tried him in 1868.
Category: Radical Reconstruction
Question 13
Which Republican candidate, a Union war hero, won the presidential election of 1868?
Ulysses S. Grant
✓
Rutherford B. Hayes
William T. Sherman
Andrew Johnson
Correct Answer
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant, the general who accepted Lee's surrender, won in 1868 and again in 1872. Rutherford B. Hayes won the disputed election of 1876. William T. Sherman refused to run for president. Andrew Johnson did not win his party's nomination in 1868.
Category: Radical Reconstruction
Question 14
Who became the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate, representing Mississippi beginning in 1870?
Blanche K. Bruce
Hiram Revels
✓
Frederick Douglass
Robert Smalls
Correct Answer
Hiram Revels
Hiram Revels, a minister born free in North Carolina, was chosen by the Mississippi legislature in 1870 to fill a vacant Senate seat. Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi was the second Black senator. Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist and writer who never served in Congress. Robert Smalls of South Carolina served in the House, not the Senate.
Category: Black Political Power
Question 15
During Reconstruction, what scornful name did opponents give to white Southerners who supported the Republican Party?
Carpetbaggers
Copperheads
Scalawags
✓
Redeemers
Correct Answer
Scalawags
Scalawags were white Southerners who cooperated with Reconstruction governments, and their opponents treated them as traitors to their region and race. Carpetbaggers was the label for Northerners who moved South during Reconstruction. Copperheads were Northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War. Redeemers were Southern Democrats who worked to overthrow Reconstruction.
Category: Black Political Power
Question 16
What was the goal of the Southern Democrats known as Redeemers in the 1870s?
Protecting Black voting rights in the South
Expanding the work of the Freedmen's Bureau
Bringing Southern states into the Republican Party
Restoring white Democratic control of the South
✓
Correct Answer
Restoring white Democratic control of the South
Redeemers sought to end Reconstruction governments and return Southern states to white Democratic rule, often aided by violence from groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Protecting Black voting rights was the opposite of their aim. Expanding the Freedmen's Bureau ran against their opposition to federal involvement. Bringing Southern states into the Republican Party was what they fought against.
Category: Collapse of Reconstruction
Question 17
Under sharecropping, how did a landless farmer pay for the use of the land he worked?
By giving the landowner part of the harvest
✓
By working for a fixed daily wage
By paying rent in gold each month
By serving the landowner for seven years
Correct Answer
By giving the landowner part of the harvest
Sharecroppers, many of them freed people working the same plantations where they had been enslaved, paid landlords with a share of the crop, often up to half. Working for a fixed daily wage describes wage labor. Paying rent in gold each month was beyond the means of most landless farmers. Serving the landowner for seven years describes indentured servitude.
Category: Southern Economy
Question 18
What event in 1873 set off a long economic depression that weakened Northern support for Reconstruction?
The completion of the first transcontinental line
The failure of Jay Cooke and Company
✓
The repeal of the Homestead Act
A sharp rise in federal tariffs
Correct Answer
The failure of Jay Cooke and Company
The collapse of the banking firm of Jay Cooke and Company triggered the Panic of 1873, and the depression that followed turned Northern attention from the South to economic hardship. The completion of the first transcontinental line came in 1869. The repeal of the Homestead Act did not happen in the 1870s. A sharp rise in federal tariffs did not cause the panic.
Category: Collapse of Reconstruction
Question 19
In the Compromise of 1877, Democrats accepted Rutherford B. Hayes as president in exchange for what?
The repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment
The return of the Freedmen's Bureau
The withdrawal of federal troops from the South
✓
A cabinet seat for Samuel Tilden
Correct Answer
The withdrawal of federal troops from the South
Democrats conceded the disputed 1876 election once Republicans agreed, in an informal and unwritten bargain, to stop using federal troops to prop up the last Republican state governments in the South, which effectively ended Reconstruction. The repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment never occurred. The return of the Freedmen's Bureau was not part of the deal; Congress had shut the bureau down in 1872. A cabinet seat for Samuel Tilden was not part of it; Hayes did name a Southern Democrat, David Key, to his cabinet.
Category: Collapse of Reconstruction
Question 20
The Whiskey Ring scandal of the Grant administration involved officials who did what?
Sold railroad stock to members of Congress
Rigged the votes of the electoral commission
Sold liquor illegally to Native nations
Stole federal taxes collected on liquor
✓
Correct Answer
Stole federal taxes collected on liquor
In the Whiskey Ring, distillers and federal officials, with Grant's personal secretary Orville Babcock implicated, siphoned off excise taxes on whiskey. Selling railroad stock to members of Congress describes the Credit Mobilier scandal. Rigging the votes of the electoral commission was not part of it; the commission met in 1877. Selling liquor illegally to Native nations is unrelated to the scandal.
Category: Grant Era