African-Americans

Black Codes

The three main laws—with their extensive articles—that comprised South Carolina’s Black Codes addressed three general areas: new rights following abolition, new restrictions following abolition, and more specific decrees directed toward the labor issue. After four years of war, Republicans in Congress were not ready to accept a social, economic, and political return to the antebellum years. With the convening of Congress in December 1865, Republicans set out first to overturn the Black Codes; then to sweep away President Andrew Johnson, the South’s last defender; and finally to establish a new social, economic, and political order in the South.

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