“The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun, then moved back again toward slavery”
The end of the Civil War: a time of peace, freedom, and racial equality, a world where everyone lived in harmony and prosperity. Well, at least, so we like to dream.
The period of the Reconstruction was a time of harmony, but one of contradictions and conflict. To every law, every idea, every thought, there was a strong and very marked opposition. Slaves were freed, only to return to farming in a system that was not so unlike before. Laws were gruelingly debated and passed, then promptly vetoed. Major milestones were achieved, yet it felt as if nothing progressed. As abolition of slavery, equal citizenship regardless of race, and black suffrage (in the forms of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, respectively) came to pass, loopholes were found and heavily exploited in the form of Black Codes, laws designed to keep freedmen in a slave-like state. Many admirable efforts were made towards civil rights for ex-slaves. Domestic terror groups sprung up to meet each one without fail. The Reconstruction saw the establishment of the Freedmen’s Bureau, attempts to confiscate and redistribute land to ex-slaves, and many black senators, representatives, and even a governor. Sadly, projects like these were short lived or faced too much opposition to continue effectively or even at all. The “redeemers” fought against the Radical Republicans, back and forth and back and forth until a bargain was struck. And so the Reconstruction fizzled out--not with a bang, but a compromise.
One of the more pronounced contradictions comes in the form of abolition versus slavery. The advent of the Reconstruction came along with the largest step towards racial equality in the history of the United States at the time: the passing of the 13th Amendment. The outlawing of slavery was well received with the abolitionists and slaves. It was not as well met with others. Rich, white plantation owners saw their workforce disappearing before their eyes. Poor, white people felt uneasy--no matter how poor they were before, they were at least better than the slaves. Most had simply lived too long in a world where the status quo involved whites being superior to blacks. Even before Radical Reconstruction was forced down the throats of the South, towns everywhere (including in the North) had already started passing Black Codes, ordinances restricting the rights of ex-slaves. They made sure that blacks were working under a white employer at all times and denied them the right to travel freely or congregate. And still, the troubles for freedmen did not end there. Having been denied both education and a level playing ground, blacks struggled for work and inevitably fell back towards sharecropping, a system where landowners gave tenants a plot of land, tools, and room and board for half or even up to two-thirds of their pre-ordained crop. Tied to land they did not own and desperately trying to avoid debt, ex-slaves spiraled down into a state of quasi-slavery and despair.
The quote in the prompt perfectly represents the situation that ex-slaves were faced with during the Civil War and Reconstruction. It reflects upon the cruel irony of being suddenly freed from slavery, a jubilant celebration, with the end in sight, only to be shackled in the chains of a slightly more subtle “peculiar institution”--one fueled by legal jargon instead of whips. We now enjoy romanticizing the period--as if the amendment of a bill or the winning of a war was enough to destroy thousands of years of racial prejudice and discrimination. An effortless flick of a switch, turning the tide of a nation. In reality, the Reconstruction Era was only one battle amongst many in our history against injustice--the introduction of our federal government into this still ongoing war.
