Freed Blacks rights after the Civil War Essay

Despite the black codes had provided rights such as the marriage legalization and the ownership of property, they violated the free labor principle and denied the African-Americans the right to vote, and sue any white man. Foner (2014) found “In response to planter’s demands that freed people be required to work on the plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be arrested and hired out to white landowners” (p. 570) . In fact, it was a totally failure of what freedom was supposed to be.

     Certain black codes pertained to whites as well. It was unlawful for a black to marry a white, or vice versa. Anyone found convicted of the crime could be sent to prison for life. Many contracts were drawn up as ‘permissions’ for certain blacks. If a freedman ever broke a work contract, he would be forced to forfeit his wages for one full year. Any civilian was permitted to capture and return freedmen who broke their contract. They were rewarded five dollars plus ten cents for every mile he was captured from his owner. However, if anyone was found attempting to persuade a black to break his contract, or give a deserting black any aid, he/she could be convicted of a misdemeanor and forced to pay a fine.

With the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, millions of slaves were given their freedom. Although these millions of slaves are now free, the rebuilding on the South during the Reconstruction introduced many obstacles. These obstacles include sharecropping, tenant farming, the “black codes”, and not to forget the lack of education and rights African Americans had at the time. Sharecropping is consisted of a slave renting land from a white man and having to give up a portion of their crops at the end of each year. The black codes were basically laws against what type of labor African Americans can be given. In the state of South Carolina, blacks were only able to work as farmers or servants; the same jobs these free people worked as slaves. After decades of slavery, blacks were still under the control of the white people due to lack of education and rights.

During the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) in the Southern United States local government positions had been taken over by the Republican Party. Through local militants and, what can be deemed by today standards, terrorist by the mid 1870’s many of these Republican office holders had been run out of town. These local militants also used intimidation to keep blacks from voting in the south. By doing these acts the Southern Democrats soon regained control of political power in the south and would start striping away rights of the black community. Once Democrats were back in power intimidation was no longer needed to keep blacks from voting, they set up some of the first laws that were specifically deemed to restrict the civil liberties of

Thus, the Black Codes were created to keep former Slaves tied to the land so that the crop could be harvested. A look at section four of the Black Codes of Mississippi is an example of a law that aimed to keep former African American slaves tied to the land so that the crop could be harvested. In section four it says that, if the worker left the Master without his or her approval that they the master had the right to not only go after the worker but to capture the worker. The master then would bring him before the courts who then remand the worker back into the employment of the master. however, if the worker refuses to go back to work for the master then worker is place in jail. And if it is found that the worker left the master without good cause to then order him to be punished. But if the court finds that the worker had good cause to leave the master then the judgment shall be against the master and then the worker is let go of his employment from the

Fortunately, those in the Northern States disapproved of the “Black Codes” and wanted them to be abolished (“Reconstruction”, 2009/”Black Codes”, 2010). The United States Congress agreed with the public and quickly introduced the “Civil Rights Act” (“Reconstruction”, 2009/”Black Codes”, 2010). Despite President Andrew Johnson vetoing the bill, Congress managed to override the veto and put the bill into law (“Reconstruction”, 2009/”Black Codes”, 2010). As soon as the bill was officially signed, the US government took control of the Southern Reconstruction. As a result of the government intervening in the Reconstruction Era, Southern Blacks were soon elected into government offices, including Congressional Seats (“Reconstruction”, 2009/”Black Codes”, 2010).

“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pockets, and there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States."

Johnson’s Plan had nothing to say about the rights of blacks after the war. Most Northern Democrats favored Johnson’s Plan. However Southerners were not so impressed. Many of the southern states accepted Johnson’s plan but some of them attacked the black rights issue. Some states would not ratify the thirteenth amendment. None of the southern states would allow blacks to vote. In late 1865 the southern states revised their slave codes into what became know as the black codes. This basically stripped blacks of every right and justice that was due to them. Since Johnson’s plan did not address the rights and liberties of blacks, the southern states took it into their own hands to create their own laws regarding blacks. When Congress met again they began to fight for the rights of blacks. They responded to the black codes by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1866. President Johnson vetoed the bill but Congress overruled his veto with a 2/3 majority vote. Congress’ view of President Johnson began to deteriorate.

State governments across the confederacy had passed Black Codes to limit the opportunities of any Black person to rise in the social hierarchy of the South. The states had employed vagrancy laws, and apprenticeship laws, which had practically become the reinvention of slavery under a different name. African Americans were in positions where a “systematic effort was made by the owners to put the Negro to work, and equally determined effort by the poor whites to keep him from work which competed with them or threatened their future work and income” (DuBois 673). Owners had taken advantage of the vulnerability of enslaved people that did not have other immediate alternatives. This exploitation led to the widespread of approval of Northern Free Labor Ideology, where they could maintain a normal employee/employer relationships and earn real wages, among several African Americans in the

Despite the fact that African Americans were currently free of slavery, they were still not regarded as free, especially in the south of America. They were isolated from the white community through laws known as the Jim Crow laws. These were both state and neighborhood laws in power mainly in Southern states of the United States somewhere around 1876 and 1965. They upheld the isolation and division of blacks and whites in all public facilities (public schools, public places, public transportation, restrooms, restaurants and so forth) and prompted the inferior treatment of Blacks, despire the fact that in principle they were intended to make things “separate but equal”

Black people were said to be free after the Emancipation Proclamation, however, since then, they have been living in a society that is ingrained with racism. After the Civil War ended, elite white people were worried about the possibility of black people infringing on their power, so they created laws to oppress black people in order to maintain their own status. Black codes were implemented in attempt to limit black people’s freedom, by restricting their ability to move up the social ladder. During this time, it was a criminal offense not to work, and once in prison, these people could be forced to work for little to no pay. This was the beginning of the era of mass incarceration. Black Codes were eventually outlawed from the South, and the

After slavery, and to prevent idleness and Black insurrections, masterless black men were forced into involuntary servitude and convict leasing. Involuntary Servitude and convict leasing was a new form of racial profiling and slavery, where black men convicted of vagrancy or (not working or couldn’t find jobs) were leased out to work on plantations or for private corporations, coal mining companies or the railroad. E.g., Black Codes, which racially profiled black people were used as a means of asserting control over masterless blacks, while enriching whites who remained dependent on free Black labor they lost when slavery was abolished (Williams 67). Black Codes outlawed “vagrancy” which in 1865 was defined

Slavery and states’ rights were the most pressing issues in the 1860 presidential election. Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won the presidency on the basis of his promise to halt the spread of slavery (Hillstrom). However, not all African Americans lived in slavery. African Americans that lived in freed states had to deal with strict laws that limited their conduct and behavior. Children who lived in northern states were able to receive their education, convicts could serve their sentences, and people could have been buried in cemeteries but on major thing is that they all had to be segregated. African Americans that lived in the southern states lived their life in feared of violence and racism. Many endured mobs lynching, whipped and branded with hot iron. When the Reconstruction period started many Americans believed that everyone should have the same constitutional rights and experience the privileges of citizenship. Which resulted from the south to experience the Jim Crow. Jim Crow laws were a set of ideas, social norms, life ways, role-play symbols, sanctions, and devastations created after the Civil War by white politician’s intent on maintaining a system of oppressive control over African American life and economics (Mzama & Asante). Equal rights laws that had been passed during Reconstruction continued to be replaced with discriminatory Jim Crow laws across the South. Although Northerners and Republican lawmakers showed little interest in protecting the rights

After the Civil War Southern culture remained deeply racist and hostile against African Americans. Although the Union was victorious in the war and were able to abolish slavery due to the passage of the 13th Amendment, it was as if they had not succeeded at all as "There [was] a kind of innate feeling, a lingering hope among many in the South that slavery will be regalvanized in some shape or other. They tried by their laws to make a worse slavery than there was before, for the freedman has not the protection which the master from interest gave him before”(Du Bois). This was evident by the implementation of black codes which were intended to restrict the freedom that African Americans newly possessed. These laws which were passed immediately after the 13th amendment forced African American people to work as punishment for crimes that were selectively enforced against them. Furthermore, the enforcement of these laws allowed for southern white people to maintain their cultural views of black people serving only as labor workers in order to maintain and boost their economy. This perception of

After 1877, the economic stability in the South dropped drastically as “…the region as a whole sank deeper and deeper into poverty…” (Foner 645), despite the success of planters, merchants, and industrialists. While blacks and whites alike were in poverty, African Americans were at a greater disadvantage than whites, simply because of their race. Even when there were available jobs, “…the labor market was rigidly divided along racial lines” (Foner 647), meaning that a majority of jobs were sometimes only available for whites. For example, black men were barred “…from supervisory positions…and white-collar jobs” (Foner 647)