The Era of Reconstruction 1865-1877 - Black Codes

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877 Black Codes Following Johnson's announcement in 1865 and 1866 that Reconstruction would cease, the states in the South started enacting a number of laws that discriminated against people, known as "Black codes." Although the laws differed from state to state in terms of their text and harshness, their overall purpose was mostly the same. These laws were essentially created to preserve the social and economic framework of racial slavery in the event that slavery was abolished. The statutes, which denied liberated enslaved persons the ability to vote, serve on juries, possess or carry firearms, and, in some situations, even rent or lease property, effectively institutionalized White supremacist practices. One of the main goals of the Black codes was to help the South after World War II meet a critical economic demand. Before the conflict, slavery had been a key component of the region's economic stability. The South has relied on the slaves to labor the land in order to sustain agricultural output. The difficult task of switching from a slave economy to one where labor was bought on the open market now lay ahead of the region. Planters in the southern states were naturally hesitant to undergo such a change. Rather, they wrote Black laws that, under the guise of a free labor system, would replicate the antebellum economic framework. Black codes tied former slaves to the land through a number of strategies. The persons who had been slaves had to sign contracts with their employers in order to work. Black individuals were not allowed to work for more than one employer under these contracts. This meant that Black people could not choose to work for the employer who offered them the best terms, as they might in a free labor market, and so have a beneficial effect over pay and working conditions. It was inevitable that those who had been held as slaves would now have to labor for pitiful pay. Due to their extremely low pay and inability to take on more job to augment their income, employees were forced to rely on company loans. These workers' debt made it impossible for them to get out of their situation. If former slaves try to break these agreements, they risk being punished with fines or even worse, physical harm. In fact, anyone who refused to sign any contracts at all risked becoming the precise definition of an enslaved person—arrested for vagrancy and forced to work for no pay. The erstwhile breakaway Confederate governments' unwavering will to uphold White supremacy at all means was made abundantly clear by the Black laws. The federal Joint Committee on Reconstruction became formed as a result of this harsh state legislation. Its adherents believed that the Thirteenth Amendment's abolition of slavery did not go far enough. In order to counteract the Black codes, Congress prolonged the existence of the Freedmen's Bureau. In April 1866, they also approved the first Civil Rights Act, establishing African Americans' citizenship. This was a big move that went against the Dred Scott ruling of the Supreme Court in 1857, which said that Black people could never be citizens. In order to defend the rights of people, including African Americans, the bill also granted the federal government the authority to interfere in state matters. President Johnson vetoed the 1866 Civil Rights Act because he persisted in believing that the United States had already been restored. Nevertheless, Congress collected enough votes to overcome his veto. The Black codes persisted in spite of the Civil Rights Act, serving as the cornerstone of the Jim Crow segregation laws that deprived generations of African Americans of their rights.