Chapter 15: “What Is Freedom - Chapter 15: “What Is...

Chapter 15: “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction, 1865–1877
1. How did the Black Codes attempt to regulate the lives of former slaves?
2. What arguments did the black petitioners make when urging President Johnson to
allocate land to them?
Wrong answer
- The rights of southern secessionists, as white citizens, should take priority over those of
freedmen.
- The federal government had no obligation to maintaining the status of freedmen.
3. Whites feared that Reconstruction would result in integrated schools and blacks having
representation in the court system , including sitting on juries.
4. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying any
citizens the right to vote because of race.
5. The Fifteenth Amendment divided the women’s movement. Some of its leaders were
disappointed that it didn’t include women, while other leaders acknowledged the
amendment’s limitations but believed it represented an important step toward national
suffrage.
6. According to the video, why was Frederick Douglass’s perspective on the question, “Who
is an American?” considered radical for the time?
- He believed people of all races and national origins could become good Americans.
Wrong
- He believed only those born in the United States should be afforded the rights of
American citizenship.
- His views foreshadowed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
- He supported the deliberate exclusion of Chinese immigrants from American society.
7. Former slaves believed that their political freedom should include the right to vote.