Explain the effects of government policy during Reconstruction on society from 1865 to 1877. -
ANS_Reconstruction altered relationships between the states and the federal government and led to
debates over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans,
women, and other minorities.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th and 15th amendments granted African
Americans citizenship, equal protection under the laws, and voting rights (men only).
The women's rights movement was both emboldened and divided over the 14th and 15th amendments
to the Constitution.
Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to change the balance of power between Congress and the
presidency and to reorder race relations in the defeated South yielded some short-term successes.
Reconstruction opened up political opportunities and other leadership roles to former slaves, but it
ultimately failed, due both to determined Southern resistance and the North's waning resolve
Explain how and why Reconstruction resulted in continuity and change in regional and national
understandings of what it meant to be American. - ANS_Southern plantation owners continued to own
the majority of the region's land even after Reconstruction. Former slaves sought land ownership but
generally fell short of self-sufficiency, as an exploitative and soil-intensive sharecropping system limited
blacks' and poor whites' access to land in the South.
Segregation, violence, Supreme Court decisions (Civil Rights Cases, U.S. v. Cruishank), and local political
tactics progressively stripped away African American rights, but the 14th and 15th amendments
eventually became the basis for court decisions upholding civil rights in the 20th century.
ANS_Reconstruction altered relationships between the states and the federal government and led to
debates over new definitions of citizenship, particularly regarding the rights of African Americans,
women, and other minorities.
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, while the 14th and 15th amendments granted African
Americans citizenship, equal protection under the laws, and voting rights (men only).
The women's rights movement was both emboldened and divided over the 14th and 15th amendments
to the Constitution.
Efforts by radical and moderate Republicans to change the balance of power between Congress and the
presidency and to reorder race relations in the defeated South yielded some short-term successes.
Reconstruction opened up political opportunities and other leadership roles to former slaves, but it
ultimately failed, due both to determined Southern resistance and the North's waning resolve
Explain how and why Reconstruction resulted in continuity and change in regional and national
understandings of what it meant to be American. - ANS_Southern plantation owners continued to own
the majority of the region's land even after Reconstruction. Former slaves sought land ownership but
generally fell short of self-sufficiency, as an exploitative and soil-intensive sharecropping system limited
blacks' and poor whites' access to land in the South.
Segregation, violence, Supreme Court decisions (Civil Rights Cases, U.S. v. Cruishank), and local political
tactics progressively stripped away African American rights, but the 14th and 15th amendments
eventually became the basis for court decisions upholding civil rights in the 20th century.
