Name: ______Date: ______Period: ______
Georgia’s Response to Reconstruction
Instructions: Read pages 302-309 and answer the following questions.
1. The purpose of the Constitutional Convention of 1865 was to take steps that would gain Georgia re-admission into the United States. Describe the steps it took.
-Repealed the ordinance of secession, voted to abolish slavery, and wrote a new constitution.
-December 1865, they ratified the 13th amendment
2. Black codes were laws that restricted the rights of freed slaves. Describe how the rights of the freed slaves were restricted.
-controlled employment freedmen could have, permitted whipping as punishment, and established labor periods of sunrise to sunset six days a week. The codes also permitted the imprisonment of jobless men of color.
3. Describe Congress’s response to the Black Codes. Explain the steps Congress took in an effort to provide equal treatment for the freed slaves.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 saying that African Americans were U.S. citizens and giving the federal government the right and responsibility to intervene any time civil rights were taken away from the newly freed men and women.
-They passed the 14th amendment granting citizenship to freedmen and required all states to provide “equal protection of the law”
4. Explain why Military Districts were necessary in the South.
-All southern states, except Tennessee, refused to ratify the 14th amendment, so they would remain under military supervision until they wrote a new constitution extended the right to vote to African American men.
5. Explain why you think the debates during the Constitutional Convention of 1867 were so heated. What were the three major outcomes of the convention?
-Racial tensions between white and black delegate and varying political views between norther and southern delegates.
6. What were the grounds (reasons) why African-American politicians were expelled from their offices in 1868? Who was one of the first African Americans elected to Georgia Assembly?
-It was stated that they were given the right to vote, NOT hold political office. Henry McNeal Turner who gave a speech to the assembly about the expulsion of the black legislators.
7. Describe the Ku Klux Klan. What was their main purpose?
-Secret organization that tried to keep freedmen from excising their new civil rights.
8. Explain why the Georgia Act was passed.
-KKK kept many African Americans from voting in the 1868 election, so it was placed under military control for the third time. It required the state of Georgia to ratify the 15th amendment
9. What was the purpose of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
-Gave all male citizens the right to vote.
10. Describe the steps that Georgia took in order to be readmitted into the Union.
-Ruled that black males could hold office and reseated those who had been expelled from the General Assembly, ratified the 14th and 15th amendment.
11. Explain why there was such a need for sharecroppers and tenant farmers in the South after the Civil War.
-land owners need someone to work on their land and landless whites and freedman needed jobs.
12. Explain how a sharecropper was more likely to go into debt (owe money) than a tenant farmer.
-Landowners provided land, a house, tools, and seed for a “share’ of the farmer’s crop. Until the crop was harvested, landowners would “loan” farmers supplies at high prices on credit, leading to HUGE debts owed. This left farmers with little to no profit when crops were sold.
13. What were some of the major differences between a sharecropper and a tenant farmer?
-tenants usually owned more some of their own equipment and animals and bought their own seed and fertilizer. At the end of the year, they paid a set amount of cash or portion of their crop allowing them to make a small profit.
14. How did cotton once again play an important role in Georgia’s economic development after the Civil War?
-Cotton became the most important crop again bringing industry to Georgia. Northern investors built textile mills.
15. In your opinion, do you believe that the Civil War solved any of the problems it was supposed to fix (state’s rights, secession, slavery, etc.) or do you believe that it created new problems for Georgia and the entire country?
-It may not have solved the problems, but it propelled the South in the direction of change even if they were stubborn and resistant to make necessary changes….often by force.