Black Codes

United States 1865-1877

Synopsis

With the end of the Civil War in 1865, conservative white politicians were concerned about how they would control the southern black population without the institution of slavery. Specifically, they wondered how they could keep blacks continuing to work the plantation system after slavery ended. Although all southern states eventually ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, many southern states and local communities passed laws attempting to control the behavior of African Americans and their ability to engage in gainful employment and earn wages. Collectively these laws became known as the Black Codes, and they were the embodiment of white attempts to curb the civil rights of the former slaves. These laws made it hard for blacks to purchase land in certain areas, move from job to job, assemble even in small groups, or terminate labor contracts. Moreover, the Black Codes restricted blacks from testifying in court. The laws essentially violated the individual rights of African Americans as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Radical Republicans in Congress reacted to the Black Codes by passing the Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship rights to African Americans, and passing the 1866 Civil Rights Act. The Black Codes helped inspire Republicans in Congress to intervene in the reconstruction of southern lives and institutions following the Civil War.

Timeline

• 1851: China's T'ai P'ing ("Great Peace") Rebellion begins under the leadership of schoolmaster Hong Xiuquan, who believes himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ. He mobilizes the peasantry against the Manchu emperors in a civil war that will take 20 to 30 million lives over the next 14 years.
• 1857: The Sepoy Mutiny, an unsuccessful revolt by Indian troops against the British East India Company, begins. As a result of the rebellion, which lasts into 1858, England places India under direct crown rule.
• 1863: The world's first subway opens, in London.
• 1867: Dual monarchy is established in Austria-Hungary.
• 1867: Maximilian surrenders to Mexican forces under Benito Juarez and is executed. Thus ends Napoleon III's dreams for a new French empire in the New World.
• 1867: The Dominion of Canada is established.
• 1867: United States purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million.
• 1867: Meiji Restoration in Japan ends 675 years of rule by the shoguns.
• 1867: Karl Marx publishes the first volume of Das Kapital.
• 1871: U.S. troops in the West begin fighting the Apache nation.
• 1874: As farm wages in Britain plummet, agricultural workers go on strike.
• 1877: Great Britain's Queen Victoria is proclaimed the empress of India.
• 1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act, a treaty between the United States and China, provides for restrictions on immigration of Chinese workers.
• 1884: Chicago's Home Life Insurance Building, designed by William LeBaron Jenney, becomes the world's first sky scraper.

Event and Its Context

Origins

At the close of the Civil War, the status of former slaves was in question on the national, state, and local level. Economically, the South was in disastrous shape, in part because for four years the war had prevented the normal planting, cultivation, and harvesting of crops. Many southerners questioned whether freedmen would return to the plantations to cultivate the land. White southern politicians wanted no interference from Congress regarding how they addressed the status of African Americans during this time. In fact, many southern states passed the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery under the assumption that the federal government would not attempt to create laws pertaining to the social status of former slaves. President Andrew Johnson, himself a southern politician, was sympathetic to this view and considered Reconstruction and the status of African Americans in the South a matter best settled by the southern states and communities themselves.

Without slavery, white southerners feared that a free black population would reject their authority, especially where labor was concerned. Freedom of movement also posed a problem to southern white politicians during this time. They feared that the black population in the South would be drawn to work in cities and not stay in the rural South, so they looked to legislative measures to force the black population to work on the plantations.

African Americans, however, wanted to negotiate their labor. They did not want to continue to work 16-hour days during harvest season, and they expected southern planters to treat them with dignity and respect. Many other blacks wanted to leave the rural South altogether and try to find employment opportunities in both southern and northern cities. Whites, however, viewed blacks in paternalistic terms, considering them little more than children. While blacks wanted to test their occupational opportunities in the urban centers of the nation, whites demanded that they stay in the rural South where they had always worked. Whites did not believe blacks were capable of making informed decisions as to how best to exercise their labor. Many whites believed that blacks were naturally lazy and shiftless, and they feared that blacks would avoid work without the structure of the slave system. In sum, freed blacks and politically powerful whites in the South shared conflicting perceptions of the place of black labor in the South following the Civil War.

Fearful of a future they could neither accurately predict nor effectively control, local communities in the South passed a number of laws in 1865 restricting the movement of African Americans, penalizing them for vagrancy, and limiting their opportunities for land ownership and for participation in skilled urban professions. These laws were intended to keep blacks tied to southern plantations as a source of labor.

Creating the Black Codes

Local laws regarding governance of the newly freed slaves were not widespread, and soon white southerners began to clamor for solutions from their state legislatures. Mississippi and South Carolina were the first states to respond with a series of laws known as Black Codes. Mississippi required all African Americans to carry with them at all times evidence that they were gainfully employed and married, if they were living with a person of the opposite sex. They were also required to prove they had a place to live. If black workers quit their jobs, they could be forced to pay back wages already earned or suffer arrest. White politicians who drafted these measures admitted that they wanted to create laws that were as close to slavery as possible. Most white southerners agreed with these measures. Armistead Burt, a moderate constitutional lawyer from South Carolina, helped draft his state's Black Codes. Ironically, Burt was eventually appointed to the judiciary by Republican administrations later in the 1860s.

In sharp contrast to how vagrancy was interpreted and defined in other parts of the United States, the Black Codes legally defined unemployed blacks as vagrants and thus subjected them to punishment under the law. Northerners rarely directed vagrancy statutes against the unemployed; instead, they typically punished prostitutes and criminals as vagrants. In Mississippi, if African Americans were convicted of vagrancy, they were charged with a fine. However, if they were unable to pay that fine, an employer could pay the fine for them and force the individual to work off the debt, with interest. In other places, reminiscent of the antebellum slave auctions, local law enforcement officials auctioned off blacks who were convicted of vagrancy to employers who placed bids on their labor. Sometimes these prosecutions became festivals. In fact in many places, like Lynchburg, Virginia, and Macon, Georgia, the mayor of the town was the person in charge of arresting the "vagrant," placing him in irons, parading him through the center of town, and then locking him in jail. Louisiana, however, was an exception to this rule. Louisiana law never specified that vagrancy laws were to be applied to blacks; however, in practice the vagrancy law applied only to them. Black Codes also made it illegal for an African American laborer to break a labor contract. Both blacks and whites frequently entered into time-specific contracts, but African Americans, unlike whites, were prevented by law from breaking or renegotiating their contracts. If they did not work their full contract, law enforcement could legally force black workers to complete the work in question or place them in custody.

In cases of legal disputes, blacks could testify in court, but only against other African Americans, and they had to have their case tried before all-white juries. According to some Black Codes, African Americans could not serve on juries at all. In Alabama the law required that black children work for their parents' former masters as apprentices or give their family's former master the option to refuse such work.

The Black Codes also made it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for African Americans to purchase property. In fact, the restrictions were so severe in some areas that blacks were effectively tied to the plantation system as cheap labor.

All aspects of the relationship between employer and employee were detailed in the Black Codes. In South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi, politicians went to great lengths to define the obligations servants owed masters and masters owed servants. According to Dan T. Carter, black workers were mandated by law to be "honest, truthful, sober, civil, and diligent." If blacks did not display these virtues when interacting with their employers, they could be prosecuted. Employers also had to be honest and committed to the best interests of their black employees. Technically, employers could also be prosecuted if they committed moral or social transgressions with black employees, yet legal reprisals against white employers rarely occurred. Within these codes, employers were designated as the sole authority in times of disputes between black employees. In South Carolina working conduct was meticulously spelled out. Employers had to specify in contracts how long black workers were to work each day, the amount of pay they were to receive, and the conditions under which they were to work. In fact, the South Carolina legislature went so far as to legislate that employers could not force their black workers to work in the rain, snow, or other poor environmental conditions, and employers could not terminate old or infirm African Americans. Employers had to continue to assist aged and sick blacks under their supervision.

Additionally, in Mississippi and Florida, the Black Codes defined racial status. Anyone with any black blood was considered black according to the law and subject to the provisions of the Black Codes. Since these laws were targeted at blacks, southern legislators wanted to be sure that no African Americans would try to claim white parentage. These laws also sought to outlaw interracial marriage. In North Carolina a person who performed a marriage for a white and black couple could be fined $500. In Georgia they could not only be fined but could also suffer incarceration. In North Carolina a black man convicted of raping a woman of any race could be hanged, while a white man convicted of rape would be fined and suffer a lashing. In other states the Black Codes restricted African Americans from buying liquor and firearms.

These types of discriminatory laws created constitutional problems for federal officials in the South. Daniel E. Sickles and Alfred H. Terry, military officials serving in the South during this time, voided these laws because they violated the right of equal protection under the law. Southern lawmakers maneuvered around these constitutional problems by voiding the specific legislation that applied to African Americans only. In order to keep the spirit of the legislation, southern politicians rewrote many of the Black Codes to remove the specific references to blacks and replaced them with racially neutral language. Yet in application, these laws strictly applied only to African Americans. In turn, southern courts upheld many of these laws without ever mentioning them as race legislation.

Black Reaction

Even with these laws in place, many southern whites found it difficult to force blacks to abide by them and maintain strict labor discipline. Many southern planters noted that they could pass legislation, but they could not convince blacks to remain on the land and work the plantations. Some African Americans who objected to the laws simply refused to abide by them. Many blacks in Mississippi signed agreements to work on the land in return for removal of the Black Codes. Black politicians of the time frequently made references to the Black Codes as evidence that for all practical purposes, blacks were still not free in the South. Black congressman Josiah Walls observed that these actions by southern whites forced black voters away from identifying with the Democratic Party. As a result, blacks in the South drifted to the Republican Party for solutions and expected the federal government to intervene against state interference in civil liberties.

Republican Reaction

For Republicans in Congress, the Black Codes represented a turning back of the clock on the progress made during the Civil War. Northerners believed that the Civil War was fought in part to establish a system of freed labor in the South. Since the Black Codes were aimed to restrict the labor of African Americans, Republicans felt that this betrayed the true mission of the Civil War.

In reaction to the proliferation of the Black Codes throughout the South, Senator Lyman Trumbull, chair of the Judiciary Committee, drafted two bills, one to create the Freedman's Bureau, and the other, the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Both measures were meant to undo the damage of the Black Codes. The Freedman's Bureau was charged with assisting former slaves in their adjustment to freedom. While handling a myriad of responsibilities, the Freedman's Bureau had the authority to arbitrate labor disputes between blacks and their white employers as well as to negotiate labor contracts on behalf of black workers in the South. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was meant to nullify the Black Codes and guarantee individual rights and protection to blacks in the South.

President Johnson consistently and emphatically believed that issues of black status were best arbitrated by southern legislatures and were not the responsibility of the federal government. He vetoed both of the measures sponsored by Trumbull. Republicans were shocked by Johnson's reaction and as a result of his vetoes, Republicans in Congress moved to wrest power over Reconstruction away from Johnson and into the hands of Congress. This struggle culminated in Johnson's impeachment trial, which was spearheaded by radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner.

Impact and Legacy

Although the Black Codes were a product of southern fears that blacks would refuse to work the land in the South, they also had a national impact. Because of the bitterness of this Reconstruction experience, southern blacks learned to be suspicious of local and state governments and looked to the federal government to offer aid and assistance in disputes with local and regional authorities. Additionally, the Black Codes helped to redefine the national applications of vagrancy laws. Prior to this period, vagrancy laws were primarily used against petty criminals or prostitutes. However, after Reconstruction, northern communities and states began to apply vagrancy laws to workers who organized strikes or union leaders who demanded high wages and better working conditions. Within the South, although many of the Black Codes disappeared, vagrancy laws targeted at blacks were still a very real problem for African Americans well into the twentieth century. The system of convict leasing had its foundation in the Black Codes. Many legal and criminal justice scholars argue that the strained relationship between blacks and the law today has its foundation in these Black Codes, a sad legacy of Reconstruction.

Key Players

Burt, Armistead (1802-1883): Burt was a lawyer and politician from South Carolina and represented his state in Congress from 1843 to 1853. He drafted South Carolina's Black Codes during Reconstruction.

Johnson, Andrew (1808-1875): Johnson was a politician from Tennessee who supported the Union during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln selected him as his running mate in 1864, and he succeeded to the presidency upon Lincoln's death in 1865. Since Johnson was a long-time Democrat, he frequently clashed with Republicans in Congress and even with his own cabinet. He believed that Reconstruction was a "states' rights" issue, so he refused to interfere with the way southern states treated their black populations. He staunchly refused to use the power of the federal government to rescind the Black Codes.

Kenner, Duncan F. (1813-1887): Kenner was a sugar plantation owner and politician from Louisiana. He served in the Louisiana legislature and the Confederate Congress. He was responsible for drafting Louisiana's Black Codes during Reconstruction.

Sickles, Daniel E. (1825-1914): Sickles was a northern Democrat and served in the Civil War as a general. He periodically served as a representative in Congress for the state of New York both before and after the Civil War. As a federal official during Reconstruction, he suspended the Black Codes of South Carolina.

Stevens, Thaddeus (1792-1868): Stevens was a lawyer and politician. He was a representative from Pennsylvania, first as a Whig and later as a Republican. He was a member of the Radical Republicans who wanted to wrest control of Reconstruction away from the president. Because of issues such as the Black Codes, Stevens spearheaded the attempt to impeach and remove Andrew Johnson from office.

Sumner, Charles (1811-1874): Sumner was a senator from Massachusetts. He was one of the founders of the Free Soil Party and later the Republican Party. He was part of the radical wing of the Republican Party who wanted to control Reconstruction and eliminate the Black Codes in the South.

Terry, Alfred H. (1827-1890): Terry was a Civil War general and lawyer. He overturned the Reconstruction Era vagrancy laws in Virginia because he believed they reinstituted slavery.

Trumbull, Lyman (1813-1896): Trumbull was a senator from Illinois. Although he switched back and forth from Democrat to Republican several times in his career, he was known as a moderate politician. As the chair of the Judiciary Committee, he drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as a way to protect African Americans from the Black Codes and affirm their equal protection under the law.

See also: Abolition of Slavery, United States.

Bibliography

Books

Carter, Dan T. When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1988.

Litwack, Leon F. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

Rabinowitz, Howard N. Race Relations in the Urban South,1865-1890. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Trefousse, Hans L. Andrew Johnson: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1989.

Wharton, Vernon Lane. The Negro in Mississippi: 1865-1890. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1947.

Periodicals

Carter, Dan T. "Fateful Legacy: White Southerners and the Dilemma of Emancipation." Proceeding of the South Carolina Historical Association (1977): 49-63.

Oakes, James. "A Failure of Vision: The Collapse of the Freedman's Bureau Courts." Civil War History 25 (fall 1979): 66-76.

Richardson, Joe M. "Florida Black Codes." Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (summer 1969): 365-379.

Sansing, David G. "The Failure of Johnsonian Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1865-1866." Journal of Mississippi History 34 (summer 1972): 373-390.

Sclomowitz, Ralph. "Planter Combinations and Black Labour in the American South, 1865-1880." Slavery and Abolition 9 (fall 1988): 72-84.

Sowle, Patrick. "The Abolition of Slavery." Georgia Historical Quarterly 52 (spring 1968): 237-255.

—Robert Cassanello