American culture and society: How free were freed blacks after the Civil War

Before discussing how free the freed blacks were after the Civil War it is worth describing the situation prior and during that conflict that the unfree blacks found themselves in. Black slaves were mostly confined to the Southern states of the United States whilst the majority of the Northern states no longer had slaves and had declared themselves to be slave free states.

It was to be President Abraham Lincoln who expressed the aim of removing slavery from the United States. During the 1860 presidential election he stated: “There is a God, and he hates injustice and slavery. I see the storm coming, and I know that his hand is in it.”   Due to the way in which the United States constitution worked a confrontation between the free and the slave states became inevitable and victory for the Union or slave free states seemed the most likely result. The eventual victory of the Union states in 1865 would formally free all black slaves but as will be argued there would be limits on their freedom and their rights up to 1900 and well into the twentieth century. Perhaps Lincoln would have been disappointed if had lived to see the actual rights that most freed black slaves were able to exercise rather than the ones they were legally supposed to have.  The freed blacks certainly it can be argued did not have all the freedoms they believed they would have after their initial emancipation.

First it would be useful to mention the number of slaves and their situation prior to the emancipation that set them free.  The modern day United States of America received a small share of the African slaves transported across the Atlantic compared to those that were transported to the West Indies or Brazil. From 1619 until the end of the 1850’s 400,000 black slaves reached the United States compared to the 9.5 million that had to face much harsher conditions elsewhere in the Americas. The United States produced enough food to feed its entire population plus newly arrived slaves and immigrants alike.  There was also enough food available to promote rapid population growth. The black slave population grew at the same rate as the rest of the population, in other words by ten times during the entire period. That meant there were four million slaves by 1860, that rise continued even though no new slaves were imported after 1807 (in stark contrast to the West Indies and Brazil where harsher conditions and treatment led to a much greater death rate).  The South relied on slaves for the production of cotton and for domestic service. The Northern states (although the four states of Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware and Missouri that bordered the Southern states retained slaves) did not need slaves and was starting to expand economically and industrially at a greater rate than the South. Although the states had agreed to disagree over the slavery issue, the expansion of United States territory broke down that compromise.   While many in the North saw slavery as morally wrong their counterparts in the South believed that it was vital to sustain the economic viability of the cotton plantations.  The Southern states also did not like being dictated to by the federal government that none of them accepted, especially as they had all been against Abraham Lincoln in the first place.

The issue of slavery and whether it should be retained or abolished was a major cause of the American Civil War. The Southern states had felt so strongly about retaining slavery that they broke away from the United States leading to the American Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln winning the election in 1860 had prompted the formation of the breakaway Confederate states, but the outbreak of civil war had seemed likely for a long while as in the long term neither side was willing to compromise or give in.  Abraham Lincoln partly due to his strong religious convictions and partly because of his own ascent to the presidency from ill-educated poverty seemed to want to help the enslaved black population gain their freedom and become full citizen of the United States. Lincoln had campaigned for abolition for many years, for instance opposing the Kansas –Nebraska Act that favoured the slave states whenever the country expanded to the west or to the south.   However, Abraham Lincoln did not have enough support in Congress or the Supreme Court to have slavery abolished even though he had wanted to do so from 1860 onwards. President Lincoln did not wish to antagonize the four states within the Union that retained slavery, as their defection would have greatly enhanced the industrial and military capacity of the Confederacy. Whilst the Southern states openly fought the war to preserve the institution of slavery, the Northern states officially fought the American Civil War to prevent the permanent disintegration of the United States. Both sides claimed to protecting the constitution and have justice on their side. Abraham Lincoln was too astute a politician to openly have the abolition of slavery as an overt war aim.   The enslaved blacks would of course prefer a victory for the Union to gain their freedom.

By September 1862 Abraham Lincoln finally made his emancipation proclamation that ensured that all slaves subsequently found in confederate territory would be given their freedom. Lincoln had declared “That … all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”     Abraham Lincoln stopped short of freeing all the slaves already in the Northern states but the proclamation was a shrewd move on Lincoln’s part as it meant that the Southern states would fight to the bitter end but would find it harder to gain foreign support.  The Confederates had wished to gain support mainly from Britain or France. The proclamation gave the union army greater impetus during the remainder of the American Civil War and made the pursuit of victory a moral crusade. Those slaves that could escaped the Southern states to gain their freedom and even fight for the union forces although the Confederates would enslave any black Union troops they captured.  

The American Civil War almost inevitably led to victory for the northern states leading to the preservation of the United States at the expence of slavery across the whole of the country. Abraham Lincoln and the Union armies had taken advantage of their military and economic superiority to eventually win. At the end of the war the Abraham Lincoln government kept its word and freed all the slaves across the United States. The union armies had included 200,000 blacks in its ranks during the war, fighting to set all the blacks in the United States free.  However new found freedom did not automatically make life better for freed blacks. Slavery had deprived blacks of their freedom and any kind of legal rights as well as trying to prevent them having their own cultural identity or any kind of education. Yet slavery had also provided them with food, shelter and clothing plus perhaps work related skills.  The harshness or otherwise of their enslavement depended from one slave owner to slave owner, but they tended to be looking after as they were valuable commodities to be brought or sold at will. Emancipation meant that freed blacks might have escaped slavery but found poverty and other factors even harder to escape from.   Freed blacks had to learn to fend for themselves rather than been told what to do.  Unfortunately the attitudes of Southern states whites changed once the slaves gained their freedom. For the freed blacks were no longer hard working commodities but potential rivals for employment and services such as schools and could use their new freedoms to improve their social and economic positions.

Freed black slaves that remained in the Southern states found it difficult to find enough paid employment to make ends meet. However there was limited federal help for them in the immediate post civil war period. There were various reasons for the lack of employment opportunities. Firstly there was the economic consequences of the American Civil War. The Southern states main money earner had been the cotton plantations’ exports of raw cotton and their main customer had been Great Britain. The British had also got to saturation point and did not need anymore cotton anyway.  During the American Civil War the British had found alternative cotton sources, India and Egypt. Food and cotton production had fell because of the war, slaves had left the plantations and farms, whilst white farmers and farm labourers had often been enlisted in the confederate armies.   Large numbers of freed blacks found poverty a severe restriction of their freedom, whilst the whites in the Southern states did want to see the freed slaves improve their position at all, especially not to their detriment.

In theory freed black American slaves had their legal and political rights provided for in amendments to the United States constitution in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. However, the problem with the constitutional amendments was that they were only enforced with any kind of effectiveness within the Northern states of United States where only a minority of freed black slaves actually lived. Even in the North, blacks still faced discrimination. It was up to individual states rather than the federal government to implement constitutional changes such as the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments thus allowing the Southern states great autonomy in their discriminatory and restrictive policies.
Freedom for some black slaves was in fact fatal to them in the Southern states, as they could not provide themselves with enough food and medicines. Abraham Lincoln intended to re-admit the defeated Southern states to the United States as quickly as was viable on the condition that they accepted the end of slavery. The period of ‘reconstruction’ was following the end of the American Civil War. There were divisions amongst the victorious union side as to how far the Southern states had to be cleansed and former confederates and slave-owners alike. Whilst in the Southern states there was a great deal of determination to deprive freed slaves of their rights even if they could no longer keep them enslaved. Andrew Johnson who was from the Southern states he replaced the assassinated Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 and set about pardoning thousands of former confederate soldiers, army officers and state officials. Andrew Johnson failed to insist that the Southern states should give black men the vote (there were of course no votes for any women at that time of any race). Unpunished yet pardoned former confederates were able to get into positions to ensure that former slaves would only ever have their freedom but never their rights or a viable present and future. Many high ranking former confederates were successful in the congressional elections of 1865 but were barred from sitting by the members from the northern states. If the main criteria of the ‘reconstruction’ was to reincorporate the former rebel states of the confederacy into the United States it was a success. If on the other hand the criteria was ensuring that all the freed black slaves in the Southern states received their full rights that was a different result. Those rights as granted to them by the presidency, the amended constitution and congress would not remain intact, then it was a great opportunity missed if not sacrificed for selfish short-term political gain. Andrew Johnson and congress clashed over the issues or re-admitting the Southern states and the extent of rights to be given to free slaves.  

For some members of the Republican Party their vision of the United States future was that of a land full of farmers with small holdings. Their ideal was for a United States whose greatness rested solely on the efforts of the free farmers black or white. Of course the expanding industrial cities of the North would be driving force of substantial growth and development. Despite the passing of the Homestead Act in 1862 it was a future that never happened on the hoped for scale. To gain land a family had to farm their allocation for five years or buy it at a discounted rate after six months. However there were very few freed slaves that could afford $1.25 per acre.  In total the Homestead Act of 1862 granted or sold land at greatly reduced prices to over 400,000 families.   However, the equivalent act of 1866 for the Southern states only allowed 4,000 freed slaves and their families to gain land. To a certain extent the former slave plantations had given slaves work now no matter what the prevailed economic position was like. Unfortunately for freed slaves the replacement of these plantations with the widespread practice of share cropping only replaced their chains with poverty. To the problem of low pay, seasonal unemployment and underemployment was added the damage of the 1873 recession that affected the United States as well as Europe.  For a brief period after the end of the American Civil War the prospects for genuine advancement for the freed slaves had seemed brighter. In the immediate aftermath of the war’s end the Freedman’s Bureau set out to provide freed slaves with rudimentary education and health services as well as food, shelter and clothes. Given the severe economic dislocation and devastation in parts of the Southern states the Freedman’s Bureau also helped out equally destitute whites.  The economic well being of freed slaves and other blacks was hampered by the fact that many of them were trapped in the Southern states when cotton and crop prices were low whilst the industrial cities of the Northern states were enjoying a long period of growth and profits. Depressed agriculture prices meant that income declined dramatically across the Southern states and the whites increased their discrimination to protect their position as best that they could. 

The Northern states were the undoubted victors from the American Civil War but the former ruling elites of the Southern states did not lose as much power and influence as would have seemed. In fact they astutely held on to a great deal of their and influence.  Although the freed black slaves may have believed they were on the winning side they found any real benefits were taken off them in the Southern states. In many ways life before the American Civil War and the emancipation had been less harsh to the slaves as things actually became for many after they gained their freedom. As soon as the union officials and armies left the Southern states by 1877 the former white elites had returned to power at state level. The United States was fully re-united as a fully functioning political entity. In return for the Southern states returning to the fold their elites were left to do as they wished. The legacy of the American Civil War in the South was that “it remained agrarian, poor, and resentful; the whites resenting the never forgotten defeat, the blacks the disfranchisement and ruthless subordination re-imposed by the whites”. 

The freed black slaves were to be the continued victims of rabid racism that proclaimed that all whites from the very bottom of the social strata to the very top of the social strata were all superior to even the best educated or most gifted black people. That racism was institutionalised into the form of the ‘black code’ that deprived freed blacks of everything but their actual freedom. Even if blacks tried to exercise their rights they would be physically prevented from doing, facing the very real danger of intimidation and violence.
Violence against blacks in Southern states by thugs and vigilantes and large numbers were murdered, perhaps as many as 2,000 in and around Shreveport, Louisiana during 1865 alone. 
The intimidation of potential black voters continued not only till 1900 it was being experienced during the 1960’s. Blacks would finally be able to exercise their full democratic rights across all of the United States under President Johnson, Lyndon Johnson rather than Andrew Johnson a century earlier.  Andrew Johnson’s relationship with congress was poor as they differed over their approach to the length and depth of rehabilitation that the Southern states needed before they were restored to the union. Andrew Johnson was against the more radical legislation and vetoed it. However there was enough support in Congress to overturn those vetoes (the necessary majority to do so is a two-thirds majority). The radicals in Congress showed their displeasure by attempting to impeach him. However, they were unable to gain a majority to succeed.  Andrew Johnson had opposed the extension of the Freedman’s Bureau area of operation to increase its provision of basic education. The Freedman’s Bureau Act of 1866 allowed that expansion of basic education to start up black schools, its meager resources being supplemented by church groups and charity organisations than on the main came from the North states. In terms of reducing illiteracy amongst freed slaves that combination of education providers succeeded in reducing the rate from 95% at the close of the American Civil War to 64% in 1890. The foundation of the universities of Howard and Fisk within two years of the war finishing was intended to allow the brightest freed slaves to become professionals and advance their social and economic position through self-help. It was also intended to combat racial discrimination in the Southern states where military courts were able to prosecute racists to protect freed slaves. That limited measure to protect blacks only lasted during the Reconstruction period, after those cases of racial discrimination or the breach of civil liberties had to be heard through the civil court. That proved a long drawn out process that often wasted time, money and effort without improving the situation or reducing discrimination. Freed slaves were initially able to gain full citizenship in March 1866 with the Civil Rights Act, once again passed against the wishes of Andrew Johnson. The Civil Rights Act when combined with the 13,14 and 15 Amendment formally granted former slaves their freedom, their rights and the formal protection of the law. The 13th amendment had officially ended slavery, a fait accompli of the Union states victory. The 14th amendment provided full and equal protection under the law (although this proved far too easy to breach in practice). The 15th amendment granted the vote to all citizens irrespective of their colour or whether they had been slaves or not. Congress even attempted to protect black voters from violence and intimidation carried out by white racists such as the Klu Klux Klan. Three enforcement acts were approved by congress between 1870 and 1872. Unfortunately for the freed slaves that only removed the violence and intimidation whilst the union army remained in the Southern states. Once the army had gone very few white people would try to stop the Klu Klux Klan and rather more of them would support their criminal activities. However nobody at county, state or federal seemed interested in protecting them or their civil rights.  

The radical Republicans had believed that enacting the constitutional amendments and other legislation would establish rights for the free slaves that could not be taken away from them.
A political consequence of extending the vote to freed slaves was that the Southern state had increased representation at the federal level and more electoral college votes to elect presidents.
Southern whites were predominantly Democratic Party supporters whilst the Republican Party hoped to counter that by gaining the support of the new black voters. The freed slaves fully used their right to vote and their support could be vital to the winning of elections at all levels. Freed blacks realised the importance of being available to vote to protect their newfound freedoms. Of course those against the freed slaves also realised the potential importance of the freed slave vote, which is why they made repeated efforts to deny that right been used.  Black candidates were not only elected to country and state legislatures they were also elected to the United States congress itself. The election of blacks was deeply resented by whites in the Southern states that fully intended to revert to racist white only electorates and white only legislatures. At face value the election of black representatives seemed like progress. However, the 87 black members of the South Carolina State legislature, the 14 that sat in the House of Representatives or the two senators would be the peak of black representation. For the enfranchisement and the opportunity to be elected were only there whilst the federal government were determined to protect it. Those blacks that had gained elected positions were hard working and a credit to themselves and other black people. In fact many of them were more honest and had greater personal integrity than their white counterparts. It is a great shame that so many Southern whites were determined to reinforce their racist superiority policy rather than support the further progress of their black
Compatriots. It was an even greater shame that the federal government fully cooperated in denying the freed slaves and other blacks their freedoms and rights

The expansion of even basic education to freed slaves was of benefit to them in the long term. However, in the short term it just made them more aware of the injustices and discrimination they suffered without much in the way of solutions. The American Civil War and the all too brief interlude of the Reconstruction era had given freed slaves an insight into a freer, brighter future. It was a freer, brighter future that eluded a great majority of them. In theory the rights that freed slaves were granted meant that those that lived in the Southern states could have migrated to the Northern states where their rights were more likely to be respected.
However, 90% of the black population remained in the Southern states through poverty, habit or the desire to stay in their home states. The growth of education and independent black churches gave freed blacks a wider perspective on life. The racist and white supremacist Tom Watson of Georgia warned that “ there is absolutely no place in this land for the arrogant, aggressive, school spoilt Afro American who wants to live without manual labour”.    Stereotypes like that were used to justify the unlawful breaking of the rights of freed slaves and other black Americans whilst reinforcing race hate and discrimination.

The former slaves may have been freed but they were not freed from poverty, hatred or discrimination. Not only were they discriminated against in favour of whites that already lived in the Southern states, they would lose out to white immigrants. Self taught former slaves such as Booker T Washington were frustrated in their quests to find employment when the jobs they went for would be given to ill educated foreign immigrants with fewer skills and less qualifications. However Washington and other blacks would find the biggest obstacle in their way was the colour of their skin, the one thing that nobody could alter. For many employers an individual’s skills, experience and standard of education were of secondary importance compared to their race. Employers would rather employ whites first and foremost no matter of their abilities or lack of them. Such prejudice reduced the opportunities open to blacks and their freedom to choose the most apt employment for their skills, experience and education. Freedom of maneuver to pick a career was rarely an option. “Most of the former black slaves saw no alternative but to continue to work for the white man, on the white man’s land for the white man’s profit”. Blacks were caught in a catch 22 situation. To stand any chance of a good job they had to gain skills and education. However, the more they advanced themselves the greater the amount of discrimination they faced. The best jobs were given to whites whilst the lower paid jobs were taken away from the blacks and given to immigrants. 

Freed slaves found it very difficult to break free of the poverty trap that restricted their freedom almost as much as the denial of their constitutional rights. For the majority of freed slaves that could not afford to buy their own land were forced to work as share croppers or other low paid jobs that whites were deemed too good to carry out. The Southern states clamped down on the rights of the freed slaves as soon as they could get away with doing so and enforced segregation and second class citizenship upon their black population through ‘Jim Crow’ laws.
The Northern states that had claimed to have fought the American Civil War to free black slaves and preserve the United States did nothing to intervene to protect its black citizens. The Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln and the Radicals sold out the black community in the Southern states for the sake of a few Electoral College votes. Even the Supreme Court that was supposed to protect the legal rights of every single American citizen, it gave the segregationist Southern states their blessing for their curtailment of black rights. They made the law farcical by claiming that none of the Southern states governments had breached the 14th amendment and that individuals were not bound to follow its provisions anyway. To further rub salt in to the wounds of the black population the Plessy V Ferguson case declared that segregation was legal as long as it provided services that were equal in quality yet separated.   In fact the services provided to freed slaves and other black American was almost always inferior in terms of quality. 

From the 1890’s freed slaves and other blacks actually found their rights curtailed even further than they had been at the end of the 1870’s. Laws were passed throughout the Southern states that widened segregation even further and to seemly trivial extremes. Not only were freed slaves and other blacks not considered good enough to share buses, schools and restaurants with whites they could not play sports or games together. Even the school books used in the segregated schools and colleges had to be segregated in the warehouse irrespective of whether they were exactly the same book or not. The whites in the Southern states believed so they said that the end of slavery had shown that given their freedom that blacks would be immoral drunks and that they needed to be controlled. Such attitudes carried on well into the twentieth century. Even the generally liberal President Woodrow Wilson (later famous for saying all nations had the right to self determination) would insist on further segregating the national civil service by making sure that whites and blacks should have separate toilets and canteens. Woodrow Wilson went as far as justifying the new civil service arrangements to civil rights protestors. Woodrow Wilson said, “ Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit”.  

The racist rhetoric of white supremacists led logically to violent campaigns against blacks every bit as bad as the violence at the end of the American Civil War. Black civic leaders such as R. R. Wright tried to highlight the violence against blacks endemic in the Southern states where the vigilantes were given free reign to murder as they pleased. A staggering number of black people were murdered solely due to their race between 1890 and 1917 a black person would be killed every other day. Wright wrote in the Christian Recorder “ we are lynched, we are hanged, riddled with bullets and burned”.   The official death toll of murdered blacks was 2,734 during the period 1887 and 1917.
The Southern states resorted to dubious measures to take away the voting rights of freed slaves and other blacks. Knowing that many freed slaves and other blacks were poor, illiterate and did not own any property, they used these as pretexts to disfranchise them. Literacy tests, residential tests and the poll tax were ideal for taking the vote away from blacks. Louisiana even succeeded in introducing a clause that only those men whose grandfathers had held the vote could vote. Of course virtually every grandfather of the black voters had been a slave thus disqualifying their grandsons. This disqualification of black voters was pronounced. By 1900 only 5,300 black voters remained whereas just four years earlier there had been around 130,000 eligible black voters. The situation would get even worse after 1900. 

Therefore overall the freed black slaves gained their freedom after the American Civil War but their rights were by and large denied to them. In effect their freedom was like an empty hollow shell. In other words their being freed did not leave them particularly freer than they had been under slavery, but it left them less secure both physically, socially and economically vulnerable. Black slaves and already freed slaves constitutionally gained their freedom due to the victory of the union forces in the American Civil War. Blacks, perhaps as 200,000 had taken part on the side of the union forces during that war. Prior to the war there had already been free blacks in northern states that started to make social, economic and political progress. Unfortunately for the freed slaves of the Southern states their emancipation in the wake of the union’s victory and its occupation of the Southern states only gave them their basic constitutional rights for as long as the union armies remained in the Southern states. Even the military presence in the South could not prevent violence and intimidation against freed slaves by racist white vigilantes such as the Klu Klux Klan. The Southern police and judiciary were particular lax at catching the murders of black people that were being killed with alarming regularity.

The Southern states did have to concede the freed slaves their basic rights with much delay and resentment during the Reconstruction era but the passing of Black Code and Jim Crow laws showed the white supremacist’s intentions to make civil rights for black people a farcical charade. A charade were being free actually less to eat, drink and less clothing than under slavery. It is to the shame of United States federal government that they were able to do so with such ease and so rapidly after 1877 with the official end of the Reconstruction era. During the Reconstruction era black people had started to make social, economic, and political advances. Black members of local and state legislatures plus congressmen and senators had shown their abilities. The Freedman’s Bureau was able to start the process of educating freed slaves and showing the way to future advancement. On the other hand the Southern Homestead Act had only limited success in giving former slaves their own land. Freed slaves found it difficult to survive economically due to the poor of the Southern states after the American Civil War. The effect of discrimination in the labour market and the worldwide trade slump of 1873 made things even worse. The whites within the Southern states repressed the economic, social and political rights of their fellow black citizens out of their perceived racial superiority, their perceived self-interests and out of vindictiveness for losing the American civil War. They were aided and abetted in their plans by the federal government establishment, self-serving politicians and the Supreme Court. In essence the Republican Party betrayed the freed slaves even though it was the same party that Abraham Lincoln had belonged to, but black rights were exchanged for the extra Electoral College votes in the Southern states. Those extra Southern states only came about because of the emancipation of the black slaves in the first place. Black Americans would gradually help themselves to help their position improve but they were unable to achieve their civil rights until the 1960’s. That they were able to achieve their civil rights was down to the legacy of freed slaves such as Booker T Washington. By 1900 however the freed slaves and other black Americans seemed further away from having their rights and full equality than they had in the immediate aftermath of the American Civil War. The federal government could probably have forced Southern states to allow blacks their full rights but had not desire to do so.
It would take many more years of struggle and discrimination before blacks in the United States had freedom and equality in anything like worthwhile amounts.  Freed slaves would learn to fear the vindictiveness, hatred and intimidation that white supremacists used against them to such murderous effect, they were free but they were not safe.  Although some of the freed slaves and other blacks continued to improve their own situations they could have presumably done so much more if they had not been deprived of so much of their civil rights and treated so badly not only by those that had always mistreated them but by those that were supposed to protect them.
 

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