Questions: Reconstruction in the United States (1865–1877)

Question 1

Which amendment made all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens and promised them equal protection of the laws?

• A. The Thirteenth Amendment
• B. The Fourteenth Amendment
• C. The Fifteenth Amendment
• D. The Nineteenth Amendment

Answer: (B)

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, defined national citizenship and required states to give equal protection and due process. The Thirteenth ended slavery, and the Fifteenth addressed race in voting.

Question 2

During Reconstruction, African American men were elected to state legislatures and to the U.S. Congress.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

Hundreds of Black men served in Southern state legislatures, and Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first Black U.S. senator in 1870. These gains were reversed after Reconstruction ended.

Question 3

Give two reasons Reconstruction came to an end.

Model answer: Any two of: violence by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan against Black voters and their allies; the Panic of 1873, which turned Northern attention to the economy; declining Northern support for using federal power in the South; the Compromise of 1877, under which federal troops were withdrawn from the last Southern state capitals.

Reconstruction required continued federal enforcement. When Northern voters and leaders stopped supporting it, white Southern Democrats regained control of every Southern state government.

Question 4

What was the main purpose of the Black Codes passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866?

• A. To grant freedpeople land
• B. To restrict the freedom of formerly enslaved people and force them into low-paid labor
• C. To give Black men the right to vote
• D. To set up public schools for all children

Answer: (B)

The Black Codes limited where freedpeople could work and live and punished them for 'vagrancy' if they lacked labor contracts. Northern anger at these laws helped Radical Republicans take control of Reconstruction.