Summary[]
Laws and unofficial social codes put in place in the United States to limit basic rights of blacks.
Exact Definition[]
The Black Codes were laws, both official and unofficial, put in place in the United States to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. The codes reflected the unwillingness of white Southerners to accept blacks as equals and also their fears that freedmen would not work unless coerced. Thus the codes continued legal discrimination between whites and blacks.
Importance[]
Played a key role in agitating the Radical Republican Congress after the Civil War. This made Congress advocate for more black civil rights and led to the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments.
Helpful Links[]
Terms from Test 4 (Civil War and Post-War)
- Whiskey Ring
- Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address
- Sears and Roebuck
- Mugwumps
- “Robber Barons”
- Standard Oil
- Battle of Vicksburg
- Henry Clay Frick
- Horizontal integration
- Thomas Edison
- Bessemer Process
- Thomas Nast
- Gustavus Swift
- Thaddeus Stevens
- Samuel Gompers
- Comstock Lode
- Haymarket Square Riot
- Tenure of Office Act
- Pinkertons
- Eugene V. Debs
- Scalawags
- Boss Tweed
- “New immigration”
- Promontory Point
- Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882
- Social Darwinism
- Gospel of Wealth
- Robert E. Lee
- Gettysburg
- Morrill Act, 1862
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Emancipation Proclamation
- John Wilkes Booth
- Appomattox Courthouse
- Sharecropping
- Sherman’s March
- 1863 Draft Riots
- Homestead Act, 1862
- 14th Amendment
- Scrip
- Freedmen’s Bureau
- Depression of 1893
- Credit Mobilier Scandal
- Compromise of 1877
- Kickbacks