Immediately after the war, aided by Lincoln’s replacement, President Andrew Johnson, former Confederate leaders tried to reestablish their control over the government and to reinstate their prewar society. They remanded southern African Americans back into a form of quasi slavery with laws called the Black Codes, requiring former slaves to sign year-long labor contracts with white employers and giving them no legal rights to defend their interests. Republicans defended their new vision of America. They crafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, declaring that anyone born in America
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