Reconstruction DBQ

Name________________________________Date______Class Period____

Reconstruction

Directions:
The following question is based on six documents (A, B, C, D, E & F). This question is designed to test
your ability to work with historical documents by analyzing and explaining them, to create an
argument, and finally to use those documents as evidence to support your thesis.

Using the documents that follow and your knowledge of Reconstruction, write an essay
to the following question:

To what extent was Reconstruction successful in solving the nations social,

political and economic problems?

Documents:

Document A: Black Codes

Document B: Sharecroppers Cycle of Poverty

Document C: Letter on Ku Klux Klan Activities

Document D: Excerpts from the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments

Document E: Military Districts in the South

Document F: Index of U.S. Industrial Production, 1860-1890

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Historical Background

After years of Civil War, the Union was victorious. The Union victory solidified the supremacy
of the Constitution over states rights and demonstrated that states did not have the right to secede.
The country now had the task of rebuilding the country and healing the wounds of war. A new era
known as Reconstruction emerged. The Reconstruction Era refers to the period after the Civil War,
especially in the South. It was a time when the United States would have to find a way to bring the
Southern states in the Union and define the status of African Americans in the South.

In 1865, former Confederate states began creating new governments based on President
Johnsons plan. The Southern states elected new leaders to Congress, but Radical Republicans would
not seat them. Radical Republicans were a small faction of Northern Congressmen who wanted the
Southern rebels to receive harsh punishments for their actions during the war. Radical Republicans
also fought for equality for newly freed slaves.

Efforts by Radical Republicans, and other members of Congress, led to the eventual passing of
the Reconstruction Acts which established direct military rule of the South. Other legislation passed,
including the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which gave citizenship to African Americans. Furthermore, the
creation of the Freedmans Bureau tried to provide social services to freedmen and protect their rights.
In order to constitutionally protect these rights, Congress would eventually pass the Reconstruction
amendments which included the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.

Reconstruction marked the first time that African Americans played a role in government, both
as voters and elected officials. A small number of African Americans held top positions in Southern
states during Reconstruction and some served at the national level. In 1870, Hiram Rhode Revels
became the first African American to serve in the United States Senate.

Reconstruction lasted until 1877 when Northern troops withdrew from the South. This
withdrawal left Southern states free to run their government with less interference from the federal
government. Former Confederate leaders quickly gained back their public offices and began creating
political barriers to make it difficult for African Americans to participate in state and local
government. Out of Reconstruction, a new South emerged.

Background Essay Questions:

1. What impact did the Civil War have on defining the role of the federal government?

2. What were some goals of Reconstruction?

3. Who were the Radical Republicans and what were they fighting for?

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Document A

Note: In the years following the Civil War Southern state, city, and town governments passed laws to
restrict the rights of free African-American men and women. These laws were often called Black
Codes. The example below of Black Codes comes from laws passed in Opelousas, Louisiana
immediately after the Civil War.

1. "No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas
without special permission from his employers. Whoever breaks this law will go to jail and work
for two days on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars.

2. No negro or freedman shall be permitted to rent or keep a house in town under any
circumstances. No negro or freedman shall live within the town who does not work for some
white person or former owner.

3. No public meetings of negroes or freedmen shall be allowed within the town.

4. No freedman shall be allowed to carry firearms, or any kind of weapons. No freedman shall
sell or exchange any article of merchandise within the limits of Opelousas without permission in
writing from his employer.

5. Every negro is to be in the service of (work for) some white person, or former owner.

Document Analysis

How did black codes limit freedoms granted by the three Reconstruction amendments?

Document B

Note: Sharecropping was an economic system that replaced slavery in the South. Landowners
provided land, tools, and supplies in exchange for a share of the crop.

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Document Analysis

What was the impact of the sharecropping

system on the following groups?

Landowners:

Sharecroppers:

Document C

Source: Albion Tourgee, Letter on Ku Klux Klan Activities. New York Tribune, May 1870.

Note: Tourgee was a white, Northern soldier who settled in North Carolina after the War. He
served as a judge during Reconstruction and wrote this letter to the North Carolina
Republican Senator, Joseph Carter Abbott.

It is my mournful duty to inform you that our friend John W. Stephens, State Senator from
Caswell, is dead. He was foully murdered by the Ku-Klux in the Grand Jury room of the Court House
on Saturday He was stabbed five or six times, and then hanged on a hook in the Grand Jury room
Another brave, honest Republican citizen has met his fate at the hands of these fiends
I have very little doubt that I shall be one of the next victims. My steps have been dogged for
months, and only a good opportunity has been wanting to secure to me the fate which Stephens has
just met I say to you plainly that any member of Congress who, especially if from the South, does not
support, advocate, and urge immediate, active, and thorough measures to put an end to these
outragesis a coward, a traitor, or a fool.

Document Analysis

According to Tourgee, what types of people are being attacked by the KKK? Why would the KKK
attack these people?

Why would the Ku Klux Klan target this specific group of people?

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Thirteenth Amendment
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

What conclusion can you make about the Ku Klux Klans actions?

Document D

Note: The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are known as the Reconstruction Amendments and
constitutionally protected the rights of newly freed slaves.

Document Analysis

What was the relationship between the Emancipation Proclamation and 13 th Amendment?

What does the 13th Amendment do? Does it represent a positive or negative change in the U.S.?

Fourteenth Amendment
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Why was it necessary to pass the 14th Amendment and clearly define citizenship?

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Fifteenth Amendment
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

How do you think White women would feel about the 15th Amendment being ratified?

Considering all three amendments, why did many Southern lawmakers despise the Reconstruction
Amendments?

Document E

Source: Bailey, Thomas A., The American Pageant

Note: Soon after Reconstruction, the South was divided into five military districts under the
Reconstruction Acts.

Against a backdrop of vicious and bloody race riots that had erupted in several Southern
cities, Congress passed the Military Reconstruction Act on March 2, 1867. Supplemented by
later measures, this drastic legislation divided the South into five military districts, each
commanded by a Union general and policed by blue-clad soldiers, about twenty thousand
all told. The act also temporarily disfranchised tens of thousands of former Confederates. . .
Congress additionally laid down stringent conditions for the readmission of the seceded
states. The wayward states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, giving the
former slaves their rights as citizens. The bitterest pill of all to white Southerners was the
stipulation that they guarantee in their state constitutions full suffrage for their former
adult male slaves.

Document Analysis

What actions by Southerners made it necessary to create five military districts controlled by Union
generals in the South?

What legislation was the military enforcing in the South?

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Document F

Note: After Reconstruction, the South had to rebuild an economy without the use of slavery. While
some relied on different agricultural practices such as sharecropping others looked to new markets for
wealth.

Document Analysis

What trend does the chart reflect?

How did Reconstruction help ended sectionalism?