Student Reconstruction Quizizz Lesson- LT Questions 63-83

Quizizz Lesson
Reconstruction Learning Target Questions 63-83

By Sherry Helms

I Can Statement

Use the information on the next slide to answer the learning target guided question (s) that address the following I Can Statement.

I can identify the beliefs/ideals of the Conservative Democrats (also known as the "Redeemers" and "Bourbons") and explain why they called the Civil War the "lost cause".

The end of the Reconstruction period came in 1877 with the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes.

At that time, the government of South Carolina changed control from the Radical Republicans to the Conservative Democrats (also known as the "Redeemers" because they had redeemed [taken back] South Carolina from the Republicans). (#63)

The antebellum (pre-Civil War) political elite regained control of the government. (#64)

Wade Hampton III became governor in 1877, and the new government tried to bring the state back to what it had been in the pre-Civil War era. (#63)

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​South Carolina Has Been Redeemed

The followers of Wade Hampton III were also often referred to as Bourbons.
- The name came from the French royal family that ruled before the
French Revolution.
- The Bourbons had returned to power in the 1800s after the
Revolution, and it is commonly agreed that they repeated the same
mistakes they had made during their first rule.
- Some South Carolinians accused Hampton's followers of the same
thing...returning to power and making the same mistakes.
- Whether called Redeemers or Bourbons, Hampton's supporters
were older, part of the pre-Civil War society, and former
Confederate soldiers. They wanted to restore South Carolina's
government and society as nearly as possible to its condition
before the war. (#64, 66)​

The Conservative Democrats...
the Redeemers...the Bourbons

I Can Statement

Use the information on the next slide to answer the learning target guided question (s) that address the following I Can Statement.

I can describe Wade Hampton III's political agenda.

I can explain the ways African Americans were disenfranchised during the postbellum era.

Although Governor Wade Hampton was willing to maintain the status quo established during Reconstruction on race relations and recognized the rights of African Americans to vote and hold office, other members of the Democratic Party soon moved to disenfranchise the African American vote. (#67)

Disenfranchise means to take the right to vote away.

Taking advantage of the still-high rates of illiteracy among the impoverished [poor] former slaves, Democrats adopted the Eight Box Law and the poll tax. (#68)

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​Disenfranchising African Americans

Disenfranchising African Americans

Eight Box Law: (#68)
- Required voter to be able to read
- Voters had to read the ballot and place it in the labeled box.
- There was a separate box for each office that was being decided.
- The box positions were oftenchanged after each vote, which made it impossible for voters who could
read to coach those who could not.
- Voters could ask for help, but it was likely that a white poll worker would point to the wrong box.
- A misplaced ballot was not counted.
- This law did not prevent anyone from voting based on race; therefore, it was not illegal.
Poll Tax: (#68)
- A tax that had to be paid in order to vote.
These measures worked. In 1876, over 90,000 people voted Republican in the state. In 1888, less than 14,000 did.

The poll tax and the Eight Box Law also discriminated against poor whites, but the Conservative Democrats were willing to keep the poor whites from voting if they could also keep blacks from voting. (#69)


Because these laws could hurt poor, uneducated white voters, South Carolina and other southern states instituted the Grandfather Clause. (#68)
- Law passed to give the vote back to poor whites.
- Restored the right to vote to men who were unable to pay the poll
tax or read/write IF the man's grandfather or father could vote
before the Civil War.
- Since blacks had not been able to vote before the Civil War, the law
was another way to keep them from voting.

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​Disenfranchising African Americans

The Conservative Democrats went a step further in their efforts to eliminate the political influence of blacks in the state.

In 1882, the state legislature passed the Dibble Plan.
- The purpose of this plan was to reduce the number of
black representatives sent to Washington, D.C. from South
Carolina. (#70)
- Redrew the lines of the congressional districts so that
there was one large district with a black majority. This
process is called gerrymandering. (#70)
- The Conservative Democrats agreed not to run any white
candidates in the district, thereby assuring South Carolina
one- but only one-black representative.

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​Disenfranchising African Americans

I Can Statement

Use the information on the next slide to answer the learning target guided question (s) that address the following I Can Statement.


I can describe Benjamin Tillman's political agenda and lasting legacy.

In South Carolina, poor white farmers accepted the leadership of Ben Tillman because of his extraordinary oratorical and political skills. (#71)
Tillman was a Populist because he appealed to the values and needs of the common people against the Conservative elite. (#72a)
Unlike his Populist counterparts elsewhere in the nation, Tillman never supported the appeal for the vote of African-American farmers, who suffered as much or more from declining economic conditions as did the white farmer. (#72b)
This appeal led to an increase in violence and lynchings against African-Americans and opposition to the Populist Party in many parts of the South.

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​Benjamin Ryan Tillman and the Democratic Party

In South Carolina, Tillman ran on a platform of white superiority and later led the movement to further disenfranchise the African American voter. (#73)

Tillman's bigotry and racist rhetoric led to the reemergence of the terrorism of the Reconstruction era.

Soon violence and lynchings (hangings) increased and African Americans who dared to protest were intimidated into silence. (#74)

Race baiting increased during economic hard times as poor whites took out their frustrations on an easy target...African Americans. (#74)

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​Benjamin Ryan Tillman and the Democratic Party

I Can Statement

Use the information on the next slide to answer the learning target guided question (s) that address the following I Can Statement.


I can compare the Constitution of 1895 (post Reconstruction) to the 1868 (Reconstruction) Constitution.

South Carolina's Constitution of 1895

In 1895, Senator Benjamin Tillman urged his followers to call for a new state constitution to replace the Reconstruction constitution of 1868 (this was the constitution the Radical Republicans forced South Carolina to write in order to come back into the Union).
- The new constitution established a literacy test for voting by requiring that voters be able to read
and interpret the United States Constitution. (#75)
- It also required that the poll tax be paid six months before the election. Poor farmers had little
money so far ahead of harvest time. (#75)
- Poor, illiterate white voters were protected by the "grandfather clause" because they were able
to vote if their grandfathers had been able to vote in 1860. (#76)
- The new constitution also required that there be separate schools for black and white children.
(#77)

I Can Statement

Use the information on the next slide to answer the learning target guided question (s) that address the following I Can Statement.


I can explain the purpose of Jim Crow laws and their effect on South Carolina.

The Louisiana legislature in 1890 passed a law requiring all railway companies in the state to provide "separate but equal" accommodations for white and African American passengers.

A group of people who did not think the law was fair recruited a young man named Homer Plessy to get arrested on purpose in order to test the law.

Homer Plessy entered a train and took an empty seat in an all-white coach.

The conductor tried to make him move to an all-black coach.

When Plessy refused, he was arrested by a police officr and taken to jail.

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​The Rise of Jim Crow Laws

In his defense, he said that the 1890 law was
unconconstitutional.
This case eventually came to the United States Supreme Court and was decided in 1896.
The question before the Supreme Court was whether racially segregated facilities violate the "equal protection" clause of the 14th Amendment.
The 14th Amendment was one of several amendments that were passed soon after the Civil War to guarantee freedom to African Americans and to protect them from unfair treatment.
The wording of the equal protection clause is, "No state shall...deny to any person within its jurisdication the equal protection of the laws." But what does this wording forbid? (#80)

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The Rise of Jim Crow Laws

Louisiana authorities in Plessy v. Ferguson said that the 14th Amendment did not forbid racial segregation in railway carriages. (79)
They argued that separate railway carriages for African Americans and whites could be equal...equally clean and equally safe.
In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were equal.
Railroads, schools, theaters, hotels, restaurants, restrooms, water fountains, parks, public offices, and even cemetaries were segregated by the beginning of the 20th century. (#82)
The separate facilities for blacks were rarely equal to those available to whites.
Legal segregation allowed under Plessy v. Ferguson continued for 60 years, until 1954. This ruling paved the way for segregation laws throughout the South, commonly known as Jim Crow Laws. (#78, #79)

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The Rise of Jim Crow Laws

Nationally sanctioned Jim Crow Laws impacted, both directly and indirectly, every aspect of the African-American experience for most of the next six decades (60 years) by requiring segregation of whites and African Americans in public facilities. (#81)

Jim Crow laws brought back the social hierarchy (order) that existed before the Civil War.

Although African American South Carolinians protested their exclusion from public life, violence, intimidation, and lynchings by white terrorists effectively silenced them. (#83)

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​The Rise of Jim Crow Laws