Reconstruction & westward expansion

1. Reconstruction & westward expansion Vocab

2. Centralized Government: organized government of a country or territory where power is consolidated into one body, group, or city. • Impeachment: the process of accusing a public official of wrongdoing • Reconstruction: the period of rebuilding that followed the Civil War, during which the defeated Confederate states were readmitted to the Union

3. Amendment: changing or correcting • 13th Amendment: an amendment to the US Constitution that has abolished slavery and involuntary servitude • 14th Amendment: an amendment to the US Constitution that makes all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves, citizens of the country and guarantees equal protection under the law • 15th Amendment: an amendment to the US Constitution that prohibits the denial of voting rights to people because of their race or color or because they have previously been slaves

4. Due Process: a course of formal proceedings carried out regularly and in accordance with established rules and principals • Sharecropping: a system in which landowners give farm workers land, seed, and tools in return for part of the crops they raise • Poll Tax: an annual tax that formerly had to be paid in some Southern states by anyone wishing to vote • Literacy Test: tests that potential voters were required to pass in some Southern states

5. Grandfather Clause: Clause used formerly in some Southern states that exempted whites from the strict voting requirements used to keep African Americans from the polls • Separate but Equal: Agreement that came from Plessyv. Ferguson case that allowed Southern states to have separate facilities for African Americans as long as the facilities were equal in quality • Segregation: Separation of the races

6. Manifest Destiny: 19th century belief that the United States would inevitably expand westward to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican Territory • Annex: to incorporate (a country or other territory) within the domain of the state • Land Grant: land given to railroad companies by the federal government to motivate settlers to move west

7. Sovereign: one possessing or held to possess supreme political power (country or territory) • Reservation: a piece of public land set aside by the federal government for Native American tribes • Assimilation: a minority group’s adoption of the beliefs and way of life of the dominant culture