Chapter 22: The Ordeal of Reconstruction, 1865-1877
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Amnesty
| general pardon, especially for political offenses (presidential pardons).
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black codes
| laws passed by the Southern states after the Civil War to define the status of freed people as subordinate to whites.
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Carpetbagger
| a Northern politician who came South to exploit the unsettled conditions after the Civil War; hence, any politician who relocates for political advantage.
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civil disabilities
| legally imposed restrictions of a person's civil rights or liberties.
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Confiscation
| legal government seizure of private property without compensation.
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Lease
| to enter into a contract by which one party gives another use of land, buildings, or other property for a fixed time and fee.
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Legalistically
| in accord with the exact letter of the law, sometimes with the intention of thwarting its broad intent.
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mutual aid societies
| nonprofit organizations designed to provide their members with financial and social benefits, often including medical aid, life insurance, funeral costs, and disaster relief.
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Peonage
| a system in which debtors are held in servitude, to labor for their creditors.
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pocket veto
| the presidential act of blocking a Congressionally passed law not by direct veto but by simply refusing to sign it at the end of a session.
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president pro tempore
| in the United States Senate, the officer who presides in the absence of the vice president.
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Scalawag
| a white Southerner who supported Republican Reconstruction after the Civil War.
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Sharecrop
| an agricultural system in which a tenant receives land, tools, and seed on credit and pledges in return a share of the crop to the creditor.
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Treason
| the crime of betrayal of one's country, involving some overt act violating an oath of allegiance or providing illegal aid to a foreign state. In the United States, treason is the only crime specified in the Constitution. |
