African Americans and Reconstruction Shayna Fink
Before the Civil War most African Americans were slaves. Slaves were people who were considered property and were sold to other plantation owners as a source of labor. They worked on plantations and were treated very poorly. Slaves had no rights. They couldn't vote, they couldn’t own property and they couldn’t become educated. Slavery was legal in the United States until the Civil War. The Civil War was fought because of the growing differences in the North and South, the opposing views on slavery, and the Union’s desire to preserve the United States. The North won and slavery was abolished. After the war, slaves were considered people and had achieved legal rights including the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments put in place by the Congress. The 13th amendment was a change in the Constitution stating that slavery was abolished. The 14th amendment stated that if you were born in the U.S. you were a citizen. The 15th amendment said that the right to vote cannot be denied. Although established in the Constitution, African Americans still felt restricted from these amendments for these 3 reasons: Black Codes were put in place by the Confederacy, slaves were poor and uneducated, and they felt threatened by different violent groups.
To start off, Black Codes were laws put in place by Southerners to limit the rights of slaves and to continue to keep them unequal from others. President Johnson believed that slaves should have rights
The 13th amendment abolished slavery. However the states made their own laws that still affected African Americans in a negative way. This caused for the making of the 14th amendment to be made. The 14th amendment gave a further blow on the fact that all persons born in the United States have The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This allowed for African Americans to get more rights within the states. However the states still made ways to retard the rights of the African American people. This can be seen in elections during reconstruction. The southern states found ways to block African Americans from voting. The 15th amendment is the amendment that allows for any citizen to vote and that this right can't be taken away By the federal government or the state
Imagine yourself wrongly convicted of a crime. You spent years in jail awaiting your release date. It finally comes, and when they let you out, they slap handcuffs around your wrists and tell you every single action you do. In a nutshell, that’s how the Black Codes worked. The southerners wanted control over the blacks after the Civil War, and states created their own Black Codes.
For the greater part of the nineteenth century, black people were slaves for white men. The Fourteenth Amendment was placed into effect to protect the rights of the black community after emancipation. It stated that, “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” would be supported under the doctrine. However, this article failed to uphold the rights of the newly freed slaves. The blacks, ridiculed and scorned by the public, were greatly suppressed by the white backlash. The states put into effect laws that would suppress the blacks even further, even though they were protected under the Amendment. The states made stipulations on rights the African Americans were granted, like the right to own land, vote, and even hold certain jobs. Voting was a major controversy for the newly freed slaves, they wanted the chance to be heard through politics. Nevertheless, they were still denied the simple right to vote in many of the states if they could not meet the prerequisites for reading or could not pay a voting tax. They made contracts for them to work for white men, just as if they were slaves and nothing changed. Black people were still waiting for their salvation under this new piece of legislation, but were unable to grasp it through the government. African Americans stood for their newly given rights under the Constitution and were denied by the people who put
Though the federal government created Amendments giving rights to slaves, opposers prevented them from benefitting from their rights. Within the 13th Amendment, the national government affirmed that slavery wouldn’t be accepted in our country “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”. The added exception allows states to determine what crime is appropriate for the punishment that is similar, if not identical, to slavery. The state governments used the exception to their advantage, creating minute laws with severe punishments. Then the national government establish the 15th Amendment, giving the freed black men the opportunity to vote, as the right to vote couldn’t be denied “on account of race, color,
When the Civil War ended and slaves were free, Black Codes were established by states. Black Codes were specifically made to limit the freedom of African Americans and forced them to work in poor conditions with low wages. As explained by
Black Codes is the mainstream name given to the statutes went by Southern slave states, before and instantly after the American Civil War. From the pioneer time frame, provinces and states had passed laws that oppressed free Blacks. In the South, these were for the most part incorporated into slave codes; the objective was to lessen impact of free blacks as a result of their potential impact on slaves. Restrictions included denying them from voting, remaining battle ready, and assembling in gatherings for love and figuring out how to read and write. A noteworthy reason for these laws was to save slavery. In the initial two years after the Civil War, white ruled southern legislatures passed Black Codes displayed after the before slave codes.
Black Codes were enacted in 1865 and 1866 by new southern state governments. Similar to the Slave Codes that existed before the Civil War, these Black Codes sought to regulate past slaves lives such as prohibiting freed slaves to serve on juries or to testify against a white person in court. Although the Black Codes granted African Americans to possess and sell property and legalized black marriages, interracial marriage between white and black Americans was outlawed. Unfortunately, some states even went further to control the lives of African Americans by limiting their economic freedoms such as, preventing any African Americans from purchasing or renting farmland in the state of Mississippi. As a result of decreeing the Black Codes, a division
Prior to the Reconstruction Era, African Americans had extremely little rights in society and politics. However, the Reconstruction Era granted several rights to African Americans that are still a part of The United States Constitution today. The Thirteenth Amendment
There were still acts in place to limit rights and a corrupt government. Some southern states set up black codes to restrict rights against the African Americans. Under these laws, no African American can own or rent a home, carry a weapon, and all must work for white (document A). These laws go around the 13th and 14th amendment of abolishing slavery and all have citizenship. White Americans believe that African Americans will bring disarray to the government. The freedoms of the African Americans were still confined during the reconstruction. African Americans are apparent to argue and be aggressive in the picture (document G). This shows that African Americans were unfit for government and were not capable to be a part of it. Restricting the
1: Black Codes: A body of laws, statutes, and rules enacted by southern states immediately after the Civil War to regain control over the freed slaves, maintain white supremacy, and ensure the continued supply of cheap labor.
The first reason for why blacks were considered free during Reconstruction was because of amendments that were passed between the years of 1865 and 1870. The 14th amendment of Document A gave blacks citizenship. It was passed so that anyone born in the United States are considered as citizens. Also that no state should limit the rights of any of those citizens, without the right from the law. This shows that the black community had equal representation as the whites. Under no circumstances of the law could the black community be identified any differently to the whites. They had their right to life, liberty, and property,
"black codes" were a set of laws passed by former confederate states after civil war during reconstruction. The laws were made in 1865-1866 that act out by the Southern State to give whites power over blacks. These laws were designed to restrict "freed" black's and ensure their availability as a workforce, now that slavery had been abolished. " Black codes" in the antebellum stiffly regulated the hustle and behavior of blacks.
These amendments were ratified to help and support equal Rights between the African-American citizens and the White citizens. The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution officially got rid of, and continues to enforce the end of slavery to this day. The Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution declared that all people born in the United States are American citizens, which includes African Americans. The Fifteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race or color. Together, these three very important amendments help keep rights "equal" for every citizen. Many slave owners and small cities where segregation was valued tried to find loopholes for these amendments. One included using the saying, as touched upon above, "Separate but Equal" declared fair in a previous court case brought to the Supreme Court. This saying meant that every race or color got their own rights, but still had to be segregated. This would include the white children at a public school drinking out of a clean, sanitized water fountain and African-American children drinking out of a gross, unkept water fountain flooded with germs and diseases. See, but since everyone had water, it was considered fair and equal. Changes were made both politically and socially including Supreme Court cases overruling previous ones (Brown vs. Board) and protests wanting equal rights without loopholes. These amendments caused a huge impact on the reform of the Civil Rights
African Americans were a very important addition to the American Civil War such as fighting and spying for both the north and the south sides. The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States between the North and South states. The war was from 1861-1865 and was because the South wanted to establish itself as a separate nation. The northern states were called the Union and the southern states were called the Confederate. Between the north and south states were the Border States, which did not belong to either of the sides. The Border States included Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. In the north, slavery did not exist but the south was the opposite. In the war, the north and south states fought against each other while the Border States were neutral. Before the war and during the war, African Americans were treated very unfairly compared to white people. This essay will examine how African Americans were treated before, during and after the Civil War.
The Black Codes was masked slavery. Other than some new, small leniencies, Mississippi succeeded in making laws that that still controlled African Americans. These Sections were created for the South to bend the rules by exploiting children. These laws were aimed at minors under the age of 18 that were orphans or whose parents were unable to financially provide for them. At this point, the child would be placed back in the “care” of their former master or mistress. These codes stated that the best interest of the minor was to be protected, that they were to be fed, clothed, treated humanely; taught to read if under the age of fifteen and to receive medical attention when sick. In return, the minor, or apprentice would be bounded by indenture until the age of eighteen for a female and twenty one for a male. It was also acceptable for the former owner to chastise under what was allowed for punishment by the common law. If the child were to escape, it was permitted to place the child in jail if refused to return. That only discharge from a master/mistress would be possible if the courts believed the apprentice had a good cause to quit. Those are just few examples to begin with. These codes essentially worked to separate the races in all aspects of life from children to adults, such as marriage, which would result in life in prison if wedded to a white person. They also were not allowed to own any type of weapon unless they served in the United States military, and were to be fined and possibly imprisoned to even drinking liquor to a level of intoxication. Over all, these are just a few of the examples that were laws to “freed” men to be kept