Black Codes Essay

‘Black~Codes’ were legal statutes and constitutional amendments enacted by the ex~Confederate states following the Civil War that sought to restrict the liberties of newly freed sIaves, to ensure a supply of inexpensive agriculturaI Iabor; and maintain a white dominated hierarchy. However; the history of Black Codes did not begin wIth the coIIapse of the Confederacy. Prior to the Civil War, $tates in the south enacted Slave Codes to regulate the institution of slavery. Furthermore, northern, non~slave holding states enacted laws to limit the bl@ck political power and social mobility. For example~ in 1804, Ohio enacted Iaws prohibitin black people from immigrating into states. In 1813, the State of lllinois enacted a law banning free BIacks outright from immigrating into the $tate. Black Codes adopted after the Civil War borrowed elements from the antebellum slave laws and from the laws of the northern states used to regulate free blacks. Some Black Codes incorporated morality clauses based on antebellum slave laws into Back Code labor laws. For example, in Texas, a morality clause was used to make it crime for laborers to use offensive language in the presence of their employers, his agents, or his family members. Borrowing from the Ohio and Illinois codes, Arkansas enacted an ordinance banning free blacks from immigrating into the state. In the end, the Black Codes were largely extinguished when Radical Republican Reconstruction efforts began in 1866-67, and with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights legislation. Though the statutory lives of the Black Codes were short-lived, they are significant in that they served as precursors to the Jim Crow laws and social segregation among whites and blacks. For example, Arkansas passed a law prohibiting black children from 1attending school with children. The Texas legislature enacted a law requiring railroad companies to set aside a passenger car for black passengers. While each ex-Confederate state enacted its own set of Black Codes, all of them shared certain features. First, they defined the term â€Å"person of color. † Second, they prevented blacks from voting, holding office, or serving on juries. Third, they prevented blacks from serving in state militias. Fourth, they mandated for poor, unemployed persons (usually blacks) be arrested for vagrancy or bound as apprentices. Fifth, they mandated and regulated labor contracts between whites and free blacks. Sixth, they prohibited interracial marriages between whites and blacks. All of the Black Codes defined what it meant to be a â€Å"person of color. † However, these definitions were far from consistent. The Virginia legislature decreed that any person with onefourth Negro blood in their veins was a person of color. Georgia set the limit at one-eighth. Still yet, the Tennessee legislature declared anyone having any Negro blood at all made an individual a person of color. The leaders of the ex-Confederacy made no qualms about their desire to keep blacks out of the political process. To this end, all of the ex-Confederate states prevented blacks from voting, holding political office, or serving in the state militias. This view had some measure of support in the North. In an article appearing in the New York Times, an author wrote, â€Å"The denial of suffrage to the freedmen, we believe, cannot be made a bar to admission of the Southern representatives, for the reason is that it is no real denial of justice. No man, white or black, has title to a civil power which he has not the intelligence to exercise. † The Black Codes also prohibited blacks from serving in state militias. A principle reasons for these laws was probably a concern for insurrections and armed violence. However, a 2corollary concern was that the presence of armed black soldiers encouraged undesirable attitudes in blacks. For example, in Florida, the state legislature drafted resolution requesting that black Union Army troops be withdrawn from their lands because their presence alarmed whites and encouraged insubordination among blacks. Florida also passed laws prohibiting blacks from carry fire-arms or weapons. If blacks wanted to own a gun, these laws often required blacks to obtain a license from the county judge and to have witnesses, usually white, vouch for their nonviolent temperament. The vagrancy statutes were particularly harsh on freed blacks. While these statutes did not specifically target blacks in their language, they were predominately applied to blacks because of their impoverished condition. In general, vagrancy statutes stipulated that any person a law enforcement officer or judge deemed to be unemployed and not owning property could be arrested and charged as a vagrant. It was easy to arrest blacks for violating vagrancy laws because the freed blacks lacked wealth and land owning to their previous condition of servitude, and to a lesser extent because the federal government reneged on its promise to deliver forty acres and a mule to 40,000 freed slaves. Once arrested and convicted of vagrancy, a person would be forced into conditions nearly identical to slavery. They were either hired out to private individuals or forced to work public projects. They were not paid for their labor. In Florida, disobedience, tardiness, or running away could be punished by imprisonment, standing in the pillory or stockade, or flogging. Punishment by flogging usually consisted of receiving 39 lashes, a number frequently used when flogging slaves. Apprentice statutes functioned along with vagrancy statutes to ensure a steady supply of inexpensive labor. Under apprentice laws, minors of poor parents, or parents deemed to be 3vagrants, could be taken as wards of the court and bound out to a master for varying lengths of time. Males were usually bound until the age of twenty-one, females until the age of eighteen. Apprentices frequently had no choice in the trade they would be required to learn, however, masters were required to teach the apprentice a trade, provide for the apprentice’s living expenses, and provide the apprentice with a basic elementary level education. Some states even required the master to provide the apprentice with a monetary gift when the apprenticeship expired. Apprentices who violated apprentice laws by running away being disobedient to their master could be imprisoned, flogged, or forced to pay damages. The regulation of labor contracts with blacks was another hallmark of the Black Codes. In article appearing in a popular magazine of the time, a Southern author wrote of black people, â€Å"We should be satisfied to compel them to engage in coarse, common manual labor, and to punish them for dereliction of duty or non fulfillment of their contracts with such severity, as to make them useful, productive laborers. † Under the Black Code labor regime, blacks were free to work for any one they chose, but they were required to sign contracts that bound them to the employer at least a year. Once the contract was signed, blacks could not get out of the contract unless a court first declared the master violated the contract first. This deprived blacks of the opportunity to accept better paying jobs if they arose, and insured landowners had a steady supply of cheap labor. Punishment for blacks who broke their labor contracts included payment of damages, imprisonment. In states like Florida, it also included standing in the stockade or floggings. In Florida, behavior that constituted a breach of the contract included laziness, failure to appear for work, using offensive language with the employer, or running away. Most of the slave codes also made it a criminal offense for anyone to entice or encourage a black laborer to break an existing labor contract. Criminal laws also played an important aspect in the Black Codes. To varying degrees, ex-Confederate states passed criminal laws that prohibited petty that blacks were more likely to commit due to their immediate condition. For example, the Louisiana Penal Codes specifically criminalized trespassing on plantations. Because free blacks often had no place to live other than on their previous master’s plantation, they were more likely to be arrested under these statutes. Penal Codes also specifically targeted blacks by inflicting harsher punishments for some crimes than whites convicted of the same crime. Unequal punishment was important for keeping blacks in a condition of servitude. For example, a North Carolina statute made it a capital offense for a black person to assault a white woman with intent to rape. Finally, the Black Codes uniformly prohibited interracial marriages between blacks and whites. For example, in Texas anti-interracial marriage laws called for the punishment of both spouses with a fine, imprisonment or both. It was a criminal offense, as it was in Georgia, for anyone to knowingly marry a white and black person. And frequently county clerks were required to record marriages of blacks and whites in separate registries. Conversely, the Black Codes also uniformly recognized black marriages and the legitimacy of children born to black parents. However, many Black Codes made it a criminal offense under adultery and fornication laws for blacks to live together without getting married or registering as a married couple with the county clerk. These statutes were frequently applied to blacks living in rural areas who were living together as result of their impoverished condition.