Glossary

Black Codes

Laws enacted by former Confederate states that attempted to subvert the abolition of slavery provided a means of racial control over African Americans and fashioned a labor system as close to slavery as possible.

carpetbaggers

Northerners who came to the South during or after the war and became engaged in politics were called "carpetbaggers" by their opponents.

Enforcement Acts

The Enforcement Acts (1870-1871) broke up the Ku Klux Klan by authorizing the president to suspend habeas corpus against armed groups who interfered with any citizen's right to vote.

Ku Klux Klan

Formed by some bored young men in 1866, this social club adopted the trappings of a fraternal order with secret rituals, costumes, and practical jokes. It soon developed into a political terrorist organization whose victims were African Americans and Republicans. It was part of the violent white resistance to Reconstruction.

National Woman Suffrage Association

Frustrated by their exclusion from the Fifteenth Amendment, women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony founded this organization to battle for a constitutional amendment granting women suffrage.

scalawags

White Southerners who voted for Republicans during Reconstruction were called "scalawags".

Tenure of Office Act

To limit President Johnson's ability to interfere with congressional Reconstruction, Congress passed this act, which required Senate consent for the removal of any official whose appointment had required the Senate's confirmation.

Texas v. White

This Supreme Court decision in 1869 acknowledged the authority of Congress to limit the Court's power to review cases and to reframe state governments.

Wade-Davis Bill

The first plan of Reconstruction drawn up by Congress. Lincoln's pocket veto of the bill postponed a constitutional clash between him and Congress over Reconstruction policies.

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