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15 multiple-choice questions and 5 flashcards on Reconstruction and the New South (1865-1877), about 6% of the High School U.S. History bank. Every one carries a written rationale.
Reconstruction and the New South (1865-1877) is one of 13 chapters in CoStudy's High School U.S. History bank, and it holds 15 of the bank's 270 multiple-choice questions — roughly 6% of the total. That proportion is not arbitrary: chapters follow the certifying body's published exam outline, and the number of questions in each is set by that domain's published weight, so the share of your practice time this chapter takes matches the share of the real exam it accounts for.
Studying by chapter is worth doing once you have a diagnostic score. A single overall percentage tells you whether you are close; it does not tell you which domain is dragging. Working a weak chapter in isolation, and re-testing it in isolation, is the fastest way to move a score that has stalled — and it is why the mock exams in CoStudy report by domain rather than as one number.
8 questions drawn from this chapter, with the full rationale shown — the controlling principle behind the right answer, and why each wrong option tempts and fails.
The 15th Amendment (1870):
Answer: A — Guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude
15th = race-based voting rights (though enforcement collapsed with Jim Crow). Literacy tests were finally banned by the Voting Rights Act (1965), women got the vote in 1920 (19th), and direct election of senators came in 1913 (17th).
Sharecropping in the postwar South is best described as:
Answer: A — A system in which laborers worked for a share of the crop, often trapping them in cycles of debt to landowners and merchants
Sharecropping and debt peonage largely replaced slavery as a labor system for many Black and poor white Southerners. The other options misdescribe the arrangement.
President Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House in 1868 primarily for:
Answer: B — Violating the Tenure of Office Act by removing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
The Tenure of Office Act violation was the formal charge. Johnson was acquitted by one vote in the Senate. Students often think impeachment is for treason — but the constitutional standard is 'high crimes and misdemeanors,' broadly construed.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964:
Answer: B — Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations and employment
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was landmark legislation banning discrimination in public accommodations, schools, and employment.
The Ku Klux Klan, founded in Tennessee in 1866, initially sought to:
Answer: D — Terrorize African Americans and white Republicans to reverse Reconstruction and restore white political control in the South
The first Klan used violence to break Republican political organization. Federal Enforcement Acts (1870-71) suppressed it temporarily. Options A, C, D invert or misdescribe the Klan's purpose.
The 'Radical Republicans' during Reconstruction sought primarily to:
Answer: D — Impose stringent conditions on former Confederate states and protect the political and civil rights of freed African Americans
Radicals like Stevens and Sumner pushed the Reconstruction Amendments and the Freedmen's Bureau. A describes Andrew Johnson's approach, C is chronologically wrong, and D contradicts the Radicals' whole program.
The Freedmen's Bureau, established in 1865, primarily:
Answer: C — Provided food, medical care, education, and legal aid to freed people and displaced Southerners
The Bureau's main achievement was in education (founding many HBCUs) and short-term relief. The '40 acres' promise came from Sherman's Special Field Order 15 and was largely reversed by Johnson.
The U.S. policy of 'containment' during the Cold War aimed to:
Answer: B — Prevent the spread of communism to new countries
Containment, articulated by George Kennan, sought to halt communist expansion through diplomatic, economic, and military means — driving Cold War policy from Truman onward.
3 cards from the 5 in this chapter.
What was the Freedmen's Bureau?
A federal agency (1865–72) that aided freed African Americans with food, schools, jobs, and legal aid.
What did Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) establish?
The 'separate but equal' doctrine, legalizing racial segregation.
What was sharecropping?
A post-Civil War labor system in which workers farmed land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crop — often trapped African Americans and poor whites in cycles of debt.
These are a sample. The full Reconstruction and the New South (1865-1877) chapter runs 20 items with per-chapter progress tracking, on the web and in the iOS app.
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