Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

by Kate Masur

During the summer and fall of 1865, white southerners pushed to organize their state governments and send representatives to Congress. They believed that the sooner they did so, the sooner the president would withdraw the military and they could resume the usual authority enjoyed by states in the federal system. Many high-ranking former Confederates, having received individual pardons from the president, reentered public life and were voted into office. Newly constituted legislatures abolished slavery, as Johnson had urged, but they went out of their way to deny that the Thirteenth Amendment gave Congress any power over civil rights or voting rights in the states. They also adopted racially restrictive laws that expressed their desire for white supremacy in every facet of life.10 These were the southern “black codes” so notorious in American history.