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formation of the ku klux klan
a terrorist organization by veterans of the Confederate Army. They named it after the Greek word kuklos, which means circle. The name means "Circle of Brothers." -
The Election of Abraham Lincoln
six weeks after voters of the United States elected Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president, South Carolina seceded from the union. Other Southern states soon followed, leading within little over five months to the outbreak of the American Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in US history, and ultimately to the freeing of four million slaves. -
the emancipation proclamation
"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress suc -
14th admendment
provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling by the Supreme Court (1857) that held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. -
15th admendment
This amendment prohibits the states and the federal government from using a citizen's race (this applies to all races) color or previous status as a slave as a voting qualification -
election of 1876
The United States presidential election of 1876 was one of the most disputed and controversial presidential elections in American history. Samuel J. Tilden of New York outpolled Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes uncounted. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute in three states: Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina; each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was declar -
civil rights cases
a group of five similar cases consolidated into one issue for the United States Supreme Court to review. The Court held that Congress lacked the constitutional authority under the enforcement provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals and organizations, rather than state and local governments. -
16th admendment
This amendment exempted income taxes from the constitutional requirements regarding direct taxes, after income taxes on rents, dividends, and interest were ruled to be direct taxes in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. -
Jim crow laws
included laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people. -
Succession
Andrew johnson became president after Lincoln was killed