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AP U.S. History Diagnostic 1. Relationships like the one shown in the image resulted in the development of...what?
AP U.S. History Diagnostic 15. How did groups like the ones represented by the image influence industry in America?
AP U.S. History Diagnostic 10. What led to the splintering of the political parties shown in the image?
AP U.S. History Diagnostic 12 205 Views
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AP U.S. History Diagnostic 12. How did the Reconstruction Acts open up political opportunities for former slaves?
Transcript
- 00:00
[ musical flourish ]
- 00:03
And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Reconstruction,
- 00:07
the nips and tucks needed to restore a nation to its former glory.
- 00:11
All right, first up, the excerpt.
- 00:13
[ mumbles ]
Full Transcript
- 00:16
[ mumbling continues ]
- 00:21
[ further mumbling ] 1867.
- 00:24
All right, and now the question:
- 00:26
How did the Reconstruction Acts
- 00:28
open up political opportunities for former slaves?
- 00:31
And here are your potential answers.
- 00:33
[ buzzing ] [ mumbling ]
- 00:36
[ mumbling continues ] All right.
- 00:39
Well, after Lincoln's assassination, a group of radical Republicans
- 00:42
grabbed the reigns of Reconstruction,
- 00:44
laying in place some pretty,
- 00:46
well, radical ideas about how a country would rebuild itself.
- 00:50
So let's see which answer best describes how the
- 00:52
newly restored Union got its act together.
- 00:55
Did the Reconstruction Acts open up
- 00:57
political opportunities for former slaves
- 01:00
A - by offering former slaves equal representation in Congress?
- 01:05
Hmm.
- 01:07
Well, the 13th Amendment - the one that abolished slavery -
- 01:10
that's what gave former slaves equal representation in Congress,
- 01:14
not the Reconstruction Acts.
- 01:16
And while we're on the subject, the 15th Amendment
- 01:19
granted slaves the right to vote, so that knocks out both A and D.
- 01:23
Could the Reconstruction Acts have opened up
- 01:25
political opportunities for former slaves
- 01:27
B - by requiring states in the South
- 01:30
to write new state constitutions?
- 01:33
Well, the Reconstruction Acts did, in fact, require
- 01:35
Southern states to write new state constitutions,
- 01:38
but this had more of an indirect effect on the political options
- 01:41
of former slaves. So it's not B, either.
- 01:45
That means the Reconstruction Acts
- 01:47
opened up political opportunities for former slaves
- 01:50
C - by requiring Southern states
- 01:53
to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
- 01:55
That's right. A major requirement for rejoining the Union
- 01:58
was that Southern states ratify the 14th Amendment,
- 02:01
which gave citizenship, and thus political opportunities,
- 02:05
to former slaves. So the answer is C.
- 02:08
In general, Southern leaders weren't huge fans of the Reconstruction Acts,
- 02:11
but when you lose a war, well, you don't really have much of a choice.
- 02:14
[ fan blows ]
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