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Reconstruction era - Quiz
Contributed by: Ball
  • 1. The Reconstruction era followed which major historical event?
A) World War I
B) War of 1812
C) American Civil War
D) The Great Depression
  • 2. How many amendments were added to the Constitution to grant citizenship and equal rights to freed slaves?
A) Three
B) Five
C) Four
D) Two
  • 3. What methods did former Confederate states use to prevent Black citizens from voting?
A) Required military service
B) Poll taxes and literacy tests
C) Age restrictions and land ownership
D) Religious test oaths
  • 4. Which institution played a vital role in establishing a free labor economy in the South?
A) The Freedmen's Bureau
B) The Supreme Court
C) The Red Cross
D) The United States Army
  • 5. What was the purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau?
A) To provide food and shelter to freed slaves
B) To conduct military trials
C) To manage the Confederate government
D) To collect taxes from the South
  • 6. Which plan for readmission of states did Abraham Lincoln favor?
A) Radical reconstruction plan
B) The Redeemers plan
C) Ten percent plan
D) Wade-Davis Bill
  • 7. Who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as President after his assassination?
A) Ulysses S. Grant
B) Andrew Johnson
C) William Seward
D) Rutherford B. Hayes
  • 8. What were the restrictive laws passed by Southern states during Andrew Johnson's presidency called?
A) Black Codes
B) Jim Crow Laws
C) Reconstruction Acts
D) Confederate Statutes
  • 9. Which political group gained majorities in Congress in the 1866 midterm elections?
A) Radical Republicans
B) Democrats
C) Moderates
D) Whigs
  • 10. What groups engaged in paramilitary insurgency and terrorism to disrupt Reconstruction governments?
A) Freedmen's Committees
B) The Union Army and Navy
C) Ku Klux Klan, White League, and Red Shirts
D) Congressional delegates
  • 11. What was the result of Andrew Johnson's impeachment by the House of Representatives?
A) He resigned immediately
B) He was removed from office
C) He was not convicted by the Senate
D) He was sent to prison
  • 12. Which legislation was enacted under President Ulysses S. Grant to enforce civil rights?
A) Ten percent plan
B) Wade-Davis Bill
C) Confiscation Act
D) Ku Klux Klan Act
  • 13. What event effectively ended the Reconstruction era?
A) Compromise of 1877
B) Election of 1866
C) The impeachment of Johnson
D) The Civil War
  • 14. Who won the presidential election of 1876?
A) Abraham Lincoln
B) Rutherford B. Hayes
C) Ulysses S. Grant
D) Andrew Johnson
  • 15. What did the failure of the Lodge Bill in 1890 signify?
A) The start of the Civil War
B) The end of efforts to enforce federal civil rights in the South
C) The beginning of the Freedmen's Bureau
D) The election of Andrew Johnson
  • 16. What was a primary goal of the 'Redeemers' in the South?
A) To support the Radical Republicans
B) To enforce the Wade-Davis Bill
C) To assist the Freedmen's Bureau
D) To restore white supremacy
  • 17. What legislation provided the precedent for the Emancipation Proclamation?
A) Confiscation Acts
B) Lodge Bill
C) Black Codes
D) Ku Klux Klan Act
  • 18. What period of time does the American Civil War span?
A) 1865–1877
B) 1850–1860
C) 1877–1890
D) 1861–1865
  • 19. What does the text suggest is one of the positive legacies of Reconstruction?
A) Establishing a legal framework for racial equality
B) The total elimination of poverty
C) The immediate end of all violence
D) The total replacement of Southern elite
  • 20. What did the Reconstruction Acts of 1867–68 dictate?
A) Terms for readmission of former Confederate states
B) Conditions for ending slavery
C) Terms for presidential impeachment
D) Restrictions on federal spending
  • 21. Which historian proposes 1863 as the start date of Reconstruction?
A) Heather Cox Richardson
B) Manisha Sinha
C) Eric Foner
D) Fritzhugh Brundage
  • 22. What was the significance of November 7, 1861, for the Gullah population?
A) They were relocated to the North
B) They became free overnight
C) They formed a new government
D) They gained the right to vote
  • 23. Heather Cox Richardson argues that Reconstruction ended in 1920 with the election of which president?
A) Warren G. Harding
B) Rutherford B. Hayes
C) Abraham Lincoln
D) Ulysses S. Grant
  • 24. According to the text, what happened after the Battle of Port Royal?
A) The Lodge Bill was introduced
B) The Emancipation Proclamation was signed
C) Slaveholders fled the area
D) Federal troops were defeated
  • 25. What event in 1860 does Manisha Sinha link to the beginning of Reconstruction?
A) The start of the Civil War
B) The Battle of Port Royal
C) The ratification of the 13th amendment
D) Lincoln winning the presidency
  • 26. How many Southern states seceded from the United States following Lincoln's election?
A) Nine
B) Eleven
C) Thirteen
D) Seven
  • 27. What event prompted Lincoln to raise an army to quell the South?
A) The collapse of the plantation economy
B) The Emancipation Proclamation
C) The secession of South Carolina
D) The assault on Fort Sumter
  • 28. How many named battles were fought during the American Civil War?
A) 150
B) 500
C) 237
D) 300
  • 29. What type of jobs were Black women largely confined to after the war?
A) Legal advocacy
B) Domestic work
C) Railroad construction
D) Lumber mill management
  • 30. What economic system replaced the plantation system following the war?
A) Industrial manufacturing
B) State-run collective farming
C) Sharecropping
D) Mercantilism
  • 31. According to David W. Blight, which vision emphasized full citizenship and constitutional equality?
A) The white supremacist vision
B) The reconciliationist vision
C) The emancipationist vision
D) The plantation revival vision
  • 32. Which vision of Reconstruction focused on coping with the death and devastation of the war?
A) The emancipationist vision
B) The industrialization vision
C) The reconciliationist vision
D) The white supremacist vision
  • 33. What happened to the value of the Confederate dollar by early 1865?
A) It remained stable
B) It had nearly zero value
C) It doubled in purchasing power
D) It increased in value due to gold backing
  • 34. How many cities in the Confederate States were occupied by Union forces at some point?
A) 297
B) 162
C) 11
D) 835
  • 35. Which of these cities was noted for being destroyed or severely damaged by military action?
A) Savannah
B) Atlanta
C) New Orleans
D) Montgomery
  • 36. What percentage of Southern livestock had been killed by the end of the war?
A) 10%
B) 25%
C) 60%
D) 40%
  • 37. What became a high priority for Reconstruction state governments?
A) Building new military forts
B) Restoring the infrastructure
C) Increasing farm mechanization
D) Expanding the banking system
  • 38. How much of the South's railroad infrastructure was in areas reached by Union armies?
A) Less than one-quarter
B) Nearly all
C) Over two-thirds
D) Exactly half
  • 39. What fraction of Southern White men of military age died during the Civil War?
A) Over a quarter
B) One-tenth
C) One-half
D) One-third
  • 40. To what amount did the per capita income for White Southerners decline by 1879?
A) $100
B) $80
C) $125
D) $50
  • 41. Who led the unionist government in Virginia that was recognized by the United States during the Civil War?
A) Francis Harrison Pierpont
B) Wade Davis
C) Abraham Lincoln
D) Andrew Johnson
  • 42. Which state was formed after the Pierpont government separated the northwestern counties of Virginia?
A) West Virginia
B) Tennessee
C) Arkansas
D) Louisiana
  • 43. On what date did Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
A) April 14, 1865
B) January 1, 1863
C) December 8, 1863
D) January 16, 1865
  • 44. Who issued Special Field Orders No. 15 on January 16, 1865?
A) Ulysses S. Grant
B) Andrew Johnson
C) Robert E. Lee
D) William Tecumseh Sherman
  • 45. Who did Robert E. Lee surrender to on April 9, 1865?
A) Andrew Johnson
B) Abraham Lincoln
C) William Tecumseh Sherman
D) Ulysses S. Grant
  • 46. Who assassinated President Lincoln on April 14, 1865?
A) Robert E. Lee
B) John Wilkes Booth
C) Edwin Stanton
D) Andrew Johnson
  • 47. Which state was the first to be readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866?
A) Tennessee
B) Georgia
C) South Carolina
D) Louisiana
  • 48. What event took place in New Orleans on July 30, 1866?
A) The impeachment of Andrew Johnson
B) The surrender of Robert E. Lee
C) A riot at a constitutional convention
D) The passing of the Enforcement Act
  • 49. When was the Fourteenth Amendment ratified?
A) February 3, 1870
B) December 6, 1865
C) July 9, 1868
D) May 31, 1870
  • 50. What was the final Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union?
A) Georgia
B) Tennessee
C) Louisiana
D) South Carolina
  • 51. When did the Ku Klux Klan Act become law?
A) May 22, 1872
B) May 31, 1870
C) February 28, 1871
D) April 20, 1871
  • 52. What was the required percentage of White males needed to take the Ironclad Oath in the Wade–Davis Bill?
A) 25%
B) 75%
C) 10%
D) 51%
  • 53. What policy did Lincoln announce in his second inaugural address?
A) Punishment for all Confederates
B) Immediate enfranchisement of all freedmen
C) Malice toward none
D) Total revolution of Southern institutions
  • 54. Who insisted that Reconstruction must revolutionize Southern institutions, habits, and manners?
A) Thaddeus Stevens
B) Abraham Lincoln
C) Andrew Johnson
D) The Copperheads
  • 55. On what date did Andrew Johnson veto the Civil Rights Act?
A) March 27, 1866
B) December 1, 1865
C) April 15, 1865
D) January 1, 1866
  • 56. Which group did Johnson align himself with during the political warfare with Congress?
A) The Democrats
B) The Radical Republicans
C) The Whigs
D) The Unionists
  • 57. Which 1866 event was used as evidence of violence against Black people?
A) The Kansas-Nebraska uprising
B) Memphis riots
C) The Boston Tea Party
D) The Civil War draft riots
  • 58. How did Stevens view the status of Southern states after secession?
A) Like new territories
B) As unaffected entities
C) As sovereign nations
D) As fully restored Union members
  • 59. In what year were the Reconstruction Acts passed by Congress?
A) 1867
B) 1869
C) 1877
D) 1865
  • 60. Which amendment were Southern governments required to accept to be readmitted?
A) Fifteenth Amendment
B) Thirteenth Amendment
C) Twelfth Amendment
D) Fourteenth Amendment
  • 61. What status did constitutional amendments grant to all African Americans?
A) Tax immunity
B) Full citizenship
C) Land ownership
D) Military exemption
  • 62. Who were the primary individuals moving from the North to aid freedmen?
A) Educated Blacks
B) Confederate refugees
C) European immigrants
D) Southern plantation owners
  • 63. What was the derogatory term used by White Democrats for Southerners supportive of the Union?
A) Loyalists
B) Mugwumps
C) Carpetbaggers
D) Scalawags
  • 64. What was the derogatory term used by White Democrats for Northerners who migrated to the South?
A) Scalawags
B) Unionists
C) Freedmen
D) Carpetbaggers
  • 65. What tool did Radical Republicans repeatedly use to try to prevent former Confederates from voting?
A) The Reconstruction Act of 1867
B) The Bill of Rights
C) The Emancipation Proclamation
D) The Ironclad Oath
  • 66. How many freedmen were to be counted as citizens according to the census debates?
A) 2 million
B) 1 million
C) 4 million
D) 8 million
  • 67. What was the approximate White illiteracy rate in North Carolina in 1880?
A) 25%
B) 33%
C) 70%
D) 9%
  • 68. When did women finally gain the right to vote through a Constitutional amendment?
A) 1867
B) 1890
C) 1920
D) 1908
  • 69. What mechanism did some Southern states use to allow illiterate Whites to vote while disenfranchising Blacks?
A) Grandfather clauses
B) Wealth requirements for Blacks only
C) Poll taxes
D) Literacy tests administered in private
  • 70. Which department ordered the meeting of the Southern Treaty Commission?
A) Interior Department
B) Department of War
C) State Department
D) Treasury Department
  • 71. What did the Congress statute allow the president to suspend if a tribe was in hostility to the U.S. government?
A) Sovereign rights
B) Trade routes
C) Appropriations
D) Migration patterns
  • 72. Who was the Attorney General responsible for the poor enforcement of the Confiscation Acts?
A) Abraham Lincoln
B) Edward Bates
C) John C. Frémont
D) David Hunter
  • 73. What happened to Major General John C. Frémont after refusing to rescind his emancipation order?
A) Sent to negotiate with Native Americans
B) Promoted to commander in Washington
C) Terminated from active duty
D) Given a formal reprimand but kept his post
  • 74. What territory was created as a de facto result of the treaties negotiated by the Southern Treaty Commission?
A) The Arkansas District
B) The Western Reconstruction Zone
C) The Missouri Territory
D) Unorganized Oklahoma Territory
  • 75. Where did Lincoln advocate for compensated emancipation in a conference?
A) Appomattox
B) Gettysburg
C) Hampton Roads
D) Washington D.C.
  • 76. Where did Lincoln urge African American leaders to colonize in August 1862?
A) Central America
B) Canada
C) Australia
D) Europe
  • 77. Which prominent activist criticized Lincoln's colonization plans?
A) Andrew Johnson
B) Benjamin Flanders
C) Edward Stanly
D) Frederick Douglass
  • 78. How many Black colonists were sent to Chiriqui?
A) 50
B) 453
C) 1000
D) 2000
  • 79. Who did Lincoln appoint as military governor of Louisiana?
A) George Foster Shepley
B) Edward Stanly
C) John S. Phelps
D) Andrew Johnson
  • 80. What reason did Lincoln give for his authority to strike at slavery in July 1862?
A) A military necessity
B) Public opinion polls
C) International pressure
D) Congressional mandate
  • 81. How many days did the preliminary proclamation give the rebels to return to the Union?
A) 100 days
B) 60 days
C) 30 days
D) 120 days
  • 82. Which of these states was not included in the Emancipation Proclamation because it had not seceded?
A) South Carolina
B) Kentucky
C) Mississippi
D) Alabama
  • 83. What prevented Lincoln from appointing a commissioner for the Freedmen's Bureau?
A) Lack of qualified candidates
B) The end of the war
C) His assassination
D) Congressional opposition
  • 84. Which specific area of Washington, D.C. transport did Lincoln outlaw discrimination in?
A) Horse-drawn carriages
B) Public railroads
C) Public ferries
D) Public street cars
  • 85. Which Confederate official attended the Hampton Roads conference?
A) Robert E. Lee
B) Jefferson Davis
C) Stonewall Jackson
D) Alexander H. Stephens
  • 86. What country did the Southern delegation suggest a joint attack on?
A) France
B) Great Britain
C) Canada
D) Mexico
  • 87. Who was the Emperor of Mexico at the time of the Hampton Roads conference?
A) Maximilian I
B) Porfirio Diaz
C) Benito Juarez
D) Napoleon III
  • 88. What did Lincoln propose regarding the costs of freedom for slaves?
A) Foreign loans
B) Taxation of the South
C) Confiscation of Southern property
D) Compensated emancipation
  • 89. How did Lincoln characterize the future of slavery during the conference?
A) Slavery is a state issue
B) Slavery is essential
C) Slavery is doomed
D) Slavery must continue
  • 90. What was the final outcome of the Hampton Roads peace conference?
A) A truce was signed
B) No agreements were settled
C) A joint attack on Mexico was planned
D) The Confederacy surrendered
  • 91. What was the tone of the meeting at Hampton Roads?
A) Hostile
B) Cordial
C) Secretive
D) Violent
  • 92. Which individual was the commandant of the Andersonville prison camp?
A) Benjamin Franklin Perry
B) Henry Wirz
C) Champ Ferguson
D) Jefferson Davis
  • 93. What labor system did freed people prefer over gang labor?
A) Plantation slavery
B) Industrial factory work
C) Family-based labor groups
D) State-run labor camps
  • 94. Who provided a harsh assessment of the conditions for freedmen along the Gulf Coast?
A) Benjamin Franklin Perry
B) Henry Wirz
C) Andrew Johnson
D) Carl Schurz
  • 95. What was the primary goal of the county courts regarding Black defendants?
A) Fair trial
B) Fast conviction
C) Legal education
D) Rehabilitation
  • 96. Who was the provisional governor of South Carolina appointed by Johnson?
A) Henry C. Magruder
B) Carl Schurz
C) Benjamin Franklin Perry
D) Jefferson Davis
  • 97. Who was the Senate leader of the Radical Republicans?
A) Thaddeus Stevens
B) James Schouler
C) Charles Sumner
D) Lyman Trumbull
  • 98. How many members were on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction?
A) 12
B) 20
C) 10
D) 15
  • 99. Who led the moderate Republicans in the Senate?
A) Andrew Johnson
B) Lyman Trumbull
C) Charles Sumner
D) Thaddeus Stevens
  • 100. What was the House vote count for the Civil Rights Bill?
A) 33–12
B) 111–38
C) 15–0
D) 50–50
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