Limitations Of Black Codes Before The Civil War

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.

     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.

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.

Soon after the war, and after slavery was ended, there was a shortage of people to work for those who once had slaves as their main workforce. This posed a challenge for the southern economy. So during the constitutional convention of 1865 various states including South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi included language in their state constitutions that regulated and managed the now free slaves. This served at the basis for the Black Codes -- a series of codes that restricted the rights of African Americans. These Black Codes made it difficult for former slaves to work in a labor economy that wasn’t based on low wages and debt tactics, as well as restricted them from owning property, conduct business, and move freely through public spaces.

The purpose of the black codes was to keep black people from voting. The result was the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which prohibited using race as a reason to prevent people from voting. The emancipation of black slaves in post Civil War America did not run smoothly. Though the slaves had been freed in name, many did not feel secure about giving black people rights. The black codes prevented black Americans from voting and restricted their

Slavery was not a word that was unknown in the United States of America; the word was at the tip of almost everyone’s tongue, only it came with many names. After the civil war, slavery became more pronounced for the black people. The south then thought something ought to be done and passed laws called the black codes which begun the limitation of blacks’ rights and separated them from the whites; white supremacy began. Before, these laws would have been unnecessary because most of the black people were slaves and they were already segregated in public places like schools and theatres. In 1866, Congress did not like this and they responded to these laws by putting a stop to it. Republicans had managed to begin reconstruction on the society and understand the black community. But in 1877 things took a turn for the worse when the Democratic parties recovered control and stopped the progress of reconstruction. This in turn caused the reverse of all the progress made in the past few years to understand the black community; they lost their rights to hold political seats, vote and generally participate as though they were members of the community. Slowly but surely, the south started to restore their racially unfair laws. The aim of the laws? To ensure segregation and alienation of the black community. One of the main powers taken away was the right to vote and they did this by imposing poll taxes, having expensive fees to be paid at the voting booths and

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

Even after the hurdle of being enslaved was passed, there were many more and difficult hurdles ahead. For example, the black codes were an earlier major hurdle. The codes prevented African Americans from owning weapons, votes, and land. While the Black Codes were quickly abolish; a group emerged called the Ku Klux Klan which aimed to bring down African Americans to be seen as less than then human. However, the Jim Crow laws caused separation, and that separation led to African Americans having unequal opportunities. These laws were claimed to be constitutional, because they didn't deprive any person of life, liberty, or property; or trying to include slavery. From the Black codes to Jim Crow laws, African Americans had, and have many hurdles to overcome.

These laws were passed between 1865 and 1866. Black Codes were “laws passed by Southern state legislatures that restricted African American’s rights to testify against whites, serve on juries or in state militias, or vote” (Class Notes, 9/18/17). This gave African Americans no freedom to accuse whether a white person did a crime and no right to vote. On some states, these laws also prevented blacks to own their land (Class Notes, 9/20/17). Having no freedom of owning a land prevented African Americans on having a stable and prosperous life.

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.

Black Codes enforced in the South severely restricted African Americans rights. Black Codes made harsh labor contracts and made it so blacks could only practice being a farmer or a servant. When an African American committed a crime the penalties were much more severe than whites. These penalties often ended in death. Any white farmer could force a black man under 21 or a woman under 18 into an apprenticeship. No colored person could carry any firearms or make and sell liquor.(Doc,K)

The Southern Black Codes characterized the privileges of freedmen. They predominantly confined their rights. However, the codes granted dark people a couple of more social liberties than they had before the Civil War. South Carolina's code pronounced that "people of shading" now had the right "to get, claim and discard property; to influence contracts; to appreciate the their rewards for all the hard work; to sue to and be sued; and to get assurance under the law in their people and property."

After the Thirteenth Amendment,The people created black codes in order to degrade blacks, and they made these codes in replace of slavery since it was abolished, they felt good in themselves because it was basically like bringing back slavery in another form. First, “Adding to the controversy the new southern legislators began passing repressive “Black codes”. Mississippi pass the first of these laws designed to restrict

In Mississippi and elsewhere, vagrancy laws were another tool used by southern whites to maintain power over free blacks. In Mississippi these laws defined any black not having employment, meeting with other blacks or whites unlawfully, or being intimately involved with a member of the opposite race as vagrants. Consequently, they could then be fined and/or jailed. These laws also allowed for any free Negro who could not pay his fine to be hired out to any white man who was willing to pay the debt. This set up a system in which a free black was confined to working for a white employer who could dictate control over most of their lives, or be declared a vagrant and then hired out into a similar position.

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