The Pros And Cons Of The Black Codes

The Black Codes were very controversial in the North and in the South they were accepted and prominent. One reason why they were so controversial in the North was because they would try to persuade many African Americans to quit their jobs before their contracts would expire. In certain states where there were more African Americans than whites such as, Mississippi or South Carolina the Black Codes were harsher than in any other states. For example, in Mississippi a rule that if anyone without any type of job before January 1 of 1866 would be arrested if they could not pay a fee of 50 dollars. Many Congress members during Johnson’s time if office disliked his plan for Reconstruction in the South because it seemed like it was to “restore defeated and discredited Confederates to power in the South” (209). The Congress was not happy about the Black Codes and the misconduct of recent events that Congress told Johnson that they would no longer any type of presidential restoration he had in mind. Congress then began to set up a Joint Committee of Fifteen, which

If these states were accepted into the Union once again they must have political and social reform for the “protection of African Americans and the survival of the Republican Party in the South” (210). During this same time the Civil Rights act was then passed even though President Johnson vetoed it on April 10th, of 1866. The Civil Rights act gave all citizens of the Union full citizenship to all those born in the United States regardless of skin color, which would also give them the same rights as white men such as, the ownership of property and equal rights. To keep these laws into place Congress rushed to pass a new Freedmen’s Bureau bill and to make sure it would stand against Presidents Johnsons veto in July of 1866. These new polices were then quickly included into the Fourteenth