The Black Codes

In the Summer and Fall of 1865, the former states of the Confederacy held constitutional conventions. Under Presidential Reconstruction, only white men were allowed to vote for delegates. The Southern states took advantage of President Johnson’s lax Reconstruction policies to elect ex-Confederate leaders. By the end of the year, most of the Southern states had Confederate legislatures in place that began to pass laws restricting the rights of the freedmen. “Regardless of how they voted on the [thirteenth] amendment,” notes Michael Bellesiles in Inventing Black Equity: Reconstructing the Constitution in the Aftermath of the South, “every one of the former Confederate states quickly passed Black Codes controlling their freed black population, clearly violating freedom of contract, one of the minimal rights all Republicans felt essential to their formation of equality.”

The Black Codes guaranteed some rights to the freedmen. Most Southern states now recognized freedmen marriages, the right to testify in court (although not against white defendants), and the limited ownership of property (except in Mississippi, with outlawed black land ownership).

The new governments of the South (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, and Florida) believed the blacks would never voluntarily return to work the plantations. As Wilson asserts in Class Conflict and the Jim Crow Segregation of the Postbellum South, “the ruling economic elite was frightened because the Southern economy was on the verge of total collapse without slave labor.” The Black Codes passed by state legislatures were put in place to ensure an abundant and cheap plantation labor supply.

The Black Codes were seen by the South as necessary to control their former slaves, whom it was believed had no understanding of the privileges of freedom or how to take care of themselves.

By not including a racial component to the Black Codes, it was hoped by the states that they could skate by the restrictions of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, the main goals of the Black Codes were to put blacks into at least semi-slavery while beginning the initial moves towards segregation, and later Jim Crow.

In some states, the Black Codes were used to control the movement of blacks into and out of a region. These laws were intended to force as many blacks as possible to stay where they were and work the plantations. The new South Carolina constitution of 1865 allowed the legislature to regulate immigration, stating ‘that no person of color shall migrate into and reside in the State, unless, within twenty days after his arrival within the same, he shall enter into a bond, with two freeholders as sureties…in a penalty of one thousand dollars, conditioned for his behavior, and for his support.’

The core of the Black Codes centered on vagrancy, labor, and apprenticing laws.

Vagrancy Laws

Mississippi defined a vagrant as someone idle, disorderly, or 'misspent what they had earned,' all acts that could be punished by fines or involuntary plantation labor. Texas declared someone a vagrant who was ‘an idle person without any means of support, and making no exertions to obtain a livelihood by honest employment.’ Fortune tellers, prostitutes, professional gamblers, beggars, and drunkards, fell into this category. In North Carolina, a vagrant was someone who ‘did not work to support himself or his family.’ A vagrant could face a prison sentence (one year in Florida), a fine if convicted, and a sentence of public labor if unable to pay ‘within a reasonable period of time.’

Even though most freedmen were back on plantations by 1866, white Floridians still felt the need to force them to work. Florida’s Provisional Governor Martin R. Delany proposed, and the legislature passed, strict vagrancy laws. Florida created a county court system that would ‘fine’ a freedmen for an offense such as vagrancy, then sell them to anyone who would pay the ‘fine.’

Louisiana’s vagrancy laws were simple: any blacks who were not employed by a white person was a vagrant, subject to arrest by the Sheriff and ‘rented out’ as convict labor.

Labor Contracts

Labor contracts were deemed essential to limit the opportunities of the freedmen and to force them back to the plantation.

Louisiana, like most Southern states, required blacks 'to be in the service of some white person, and to carry passes approved by a white while traveling. Blacks were not allowed to own farms or small businesses: they had to be in the employ of a white by 1 January of that year or face arrest for vagrancy.

In Texas, a contract, necessary for anyone who wanted work for more than one month, was a written agreement read aloud to the laborer and signed in triplicate in the presence of a Justice of the Peace, County Judge or Clerk, Notary Public, or two ‘disinterested persons.’ Once signed, the laborer had to fulfill the exact terms of the contract or risk harsh penalties (such as forfeiture of wages). Only the employer could void a contract. In Texas, as in Louisiana, the labor contract applied to every member of the family.

In most Southern states the employer could restrict every aspect of the laborer’s life, such as forbidding the owning of livestock or having visitors during working hours. Laborers could be fired for ‘gross misconduct,’ such as being disobedient, habitual laziness, or frequently violating the contract in the employer’s eyes. The employer imposed all fines and punishments, often without appeal, and if furnished anything for sharecropping (such as seeds or equipment) the laborer had to sign a lien against the crop for repayment.

One of the goals of the 131 members of the Mississippi legislature that met in October of 1865 was to get the freedmen back to work on the plantation, whether by force or not. All blacks in Mississippi had to have on 1 January written evidence of employment for the upcoming year. If a black quit their job during the year, they would lose all their wages for that year as well as facing arrest and selling into forced labor. Jail and a $500 fine kept anyone from offering a job to someone already under contract. Black people could not own land in urban areas (leaving them with few options except plantation work).

Forced Apprenticeships

Apprenticeship laws were passed in the Southern states that gave whites the right to force minor blacks, whether orphans or not, to work for their former owners without wages, but for just food clothing.

On 18 November 1865, the day after the Mississippi legislature passed their Vagrancy Laws 81-6, the first apprenticeship laws were also passed. There was such overwhelming support that no one bothered to count the votes.

Apprenticeship laws in Mississippi and other states forced freed blacks, especially minors, into bonded labor to former owners. In North Carolina, the law was explicit on who would get the first choice of apprentices:

In North Carolina, apprentices were provided with food, clothing, and lodgings. They would be taught to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. At the end of their apprenticeship, they were given $6, a new suit of clothes, and a new Bible.

South Carolina’s apprenticeship laws were used against black orphans and children of those whose families were declared vagrants, even against their will. They would be apprenticed until the age of 18 for women and 21 for men. The state gave their new masters the right to inflict ‘moderate’ punishment if necessary.

Texas' apprenticeship laws applied to any black child fourteen years or younger. The country judge required the master or mistress to post a bond before making the indenture. Like North Carolina (and most of the Southern states), apprentices were provided with food and clothing, got relatively good treatment and medical care, and learned a trade or occupation.

End of the Black Codes

The congressional election of 1866 brought Republicans to Washington who were furious over Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Incensed at the President and the Southern states for allowing the escalation of violence and the implementation of Black Codes, the new Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867-1868, marking the beginnings of Congressional Reconstruction.

Under the Reconstruction Acts, the states were divided into five military districts, each administered by a general. They would have to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and draw up new constitutions that would meet Congressional approval. But most importantly, the states would have to enfranchise the freedmen and abolish their Black Codes.

A vengeful Republican Congress put an end to Presidential Reconstruction and Black Codes. But what took their place was more insidious; for the next half century so-called ‘Jim Crow’ laws governed every aspect of life in the South. It was not until the 1960s that Jim Crow was officially gone for good.