Talk:Black Codes (United States)/Archive 1

Northern/Southern?
The German article on Black Codes mentions only the Southern, Reconstruction-Era Black Codes. It seems strange that that should link to an article titled "Black Codes in Northern USA". Should the bit about Southern Black Codes be moved into a separate article and the interwiki links adjusted, or should the article's title be changed to reflect that both Northern and Southern Black Codes are dealt with in this article?--Bhuck 10:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * See the above comment. The article is skewed by its focus on a set of laws (those in the North before the Civil War) which are not normally those that are meant by "Black Codes" (laws in the South after the Civil War). Your solution seems worthwhile. -Will Beback 22:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Bhuck offers an either/or choice. One article, Black Codes in USA, should cover it, with sections for regional emphasis. That would also allow documentation of instances where state laws clashed. skywriter 22:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that it'd be better to split it into two articles. The pre-war material is a different topic than the post-war material. -Will Beback 23:48, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The topics are related, so there is an argument for keeping both topics in one article together. Skywriter's expansion of the article was helpful. On the assumption that the Black Codes will continue to be dealt with in one article, I will move the article to "Black Codes in the USA". However, I think Will Beback is correct to point out that the emphasis of this article remains on the Northern Codes, even though it is the Southern Codes which are normally referred to by this term, so it would be a further improvement to the article if the section on the Southern Codes would be expanded and presented more prominently, and not as the third of three sections of history and the smallest of them all. Perhaps someone can explain how legislative control shifted from Southern interests to Reconstruction agendas, how the courts came to overturn the laws based on the new Constitutional Amendments, how the theoretically enfranchised freedmen participated or failed to participate in the legislative process leading to these laws, etc. --Bhuck 08:11, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Accurate wording
Words like " negrophobia " are inaccurate, political words that have no place in an encyclopedia. A phobia is a particular psychological problem, which has no connection to the motives for racists, or even those who merely feel "uncomfortable" around black people. It's an easy, political word. Tragic romance 21:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Segregation - POV and Confusion
This article is circular, going from arguing the Republicans ensured Black Codes weren't enacted, to using isolated quotes from an historian which seem chosen to provide an apologetic or rationale for segregation as ordinary. It may be, but I don't think these quotes tell much about the state of the South after the Civil War, or about the Black Codes or later segregation.--Parkwells 20:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Additional Articles/Links
I deleted some of these, as they weren't referenced in this article and seemed to range far from it.--Parkwells 20:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Expansion 1840-1860
This section has too many generalities, for instance "several states had constitutions including or requiring Black Codes". Which and when? Is it really useful to call these Black Codes, or was there different intent at the time?--Parkwells 20:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

These signs read "if black, stay back!"
Although I'm willing to believe that it describes the basic sentiment, were there really signs that said "if black, stay back!"? It seems odd to me for a couple of reasons. The wording doesn't sound official enough for government signage. (which is more likely to say 'no loitering after dusk' than 'stay out of the park at night.') even local city and town posted notices. Also, the use of the term "black" seems odd for the era under discussion. Finally, it doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the reference links included in the article. 96.252.96.65 (talk) 00:36, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. The text There were signs posted in towns to keep blacks from integrating with the whites. These signs read "if black, stay back!" added 9/27/08 as sole anonymous contribution is inconsistent with the style of the article. Speak up if you want to keep it. JoJo (talk) 20:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization
As I understand Wikipedia style, the article title should be "Black codes" (lower case c) and usage in the article should be "black codes" (no caps). Unless someone can show where in the MOS it specifies a different system of capitalization, I will make this change (and the associated redirection change) to keep this article consistent with the rest of the project. Jojalozzo (talk) 03:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Weasel words
"the term Black Codes is most commonly associated with legislation passed by Southern states after the Civil War". By whom? Not by me. Can we clean the wording up on this? 138.162.128.52 (talk) 15:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree this is weasely, but I think it is because it is attempting to thread a path through the mire of multiple definitions. I think it would be better to face the mess and explain it rather then skirt it like this. However, as I understand it, "most commonly" means by most people with an opinion on the matter. The statement allows for dissent and does not address how Black Codes are viewed by any single person. Jojalozzo (talk) 02:57, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Folks, though it is true that the term "Black Codes" is more commonly associated with the South, the term is used to refer to the laws in the North as well (see ). I would say that trying to restrict this article to the laws in the South is severely POV and really misses a lot of important aspects of the history (i.e. by avoiding talking about the North you are deliberately distorting the history). The scope needs to be re-adjusted for NPOV.

--Mcorazao (talk) 22:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Jojalozzo (talk) 23:48, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Segregation?
The Segregation section does not make sense to me. What is its purpose and what is the quote trying to say? What does this contribute to the article? If we're going to keep this it needs to be expanded and explained and it needs a grammar fix. Jojalozzo (talk) 03:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Black codes in the pre-Civil War South
In early 19th century Virginia laws were passed requiring freed slaves to leave the state. One rationale given for that at the time was to prevent slave owners from freeing slaves who were unable to work (and therefore no longer of any economic use to them) and thereby making the free slaves the responsibility of the general public. Annette Gordon-Reed discusses this in The Hemminges of Monticello. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.22.47.232 (talk) 03:47, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

What are "Unofficial Laws"?
Re: "The Black Codes were unofficial laws put in place in the United States to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks."

If a law is passed by a state, which a later section states, how can it be "unofficial"? If the idea is that it wasn't made legislation at the Federal level, than we better say that most legislation is "unofficial". Alternately, if we say it would not pass muster in a supreme court, then we should say that as well, citing some reference concerning the issue. I'm unsure of how to better word it, so I didn't change it or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.85.184.113 (talk) 23:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Midwest/Southern?
There seems to be a misunderstanding. The Midwest Black codes were designed to exclude blacks from the states The Southern black codes were designed to keep them in the South. The overlap is pretty small. The result is this is a POV article that is not very good history. Rjensen 18:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
 * also plenty other things were in vovlved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.34.114.199 (talk) 17:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

" the U.S. constitution originally discriminated against blacks"
This is in the beginning of the first paragraph, and the rest of the sentence makes it sound as if the constitution explicitly mentions blacks. It doesn't, the text separates the 'numbers' of each state into three groups:
 * 1) free Persons (counted)
 * 2) Indians not taxed (not counted)
 * 3) other Persons (counted as 3/5)

Those few free blacks that were around at the time (mostly in the north) would have been counted fully. The constitution didn't mention blacks implicitly (though the intent is obvious). I think the sentence should read 'enslaved blacks' instead of just 'blacks'.

Andymadigan (talk) 19:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Intent
I'm editing some of this to limit the unsubstantiated, unreferenced statements regarding legislators' intent. For example, the first sentence currently reads, "The Black Codes were unofficial laws put in place in the United States to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks." I reasonably doubt whether anyone got together, banged the gavel, and went, "What's on the agenda tonight, gentlemen? Ah, yes: we're going to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. Suggestions? Suggestions? Anyone?" They might very well have been motivated by antipathy toward that population and their actions might very well have had that effect, but that doesn't constitute intent.

Statements of others' intent are tricky. If you're driving your car, you decide, "Today's the day: I'm going to kill my uncle Bob!" you take your eyes off the road to rifle through the back seat looking for your machete and hockey mask, and BAHBUMP-BAHBUMP, you run someone over, then lo and behold it's your uncle Bob and he's dead, you didn't just murder someone with previous intent; you didn't commit first-degree murder. When you put your brakes on in your car, an amount of heat is generated by the parts of the brakes rubbing together sufficient to warm your house, but you don't put your brakes on intending to heat the air--you put your brakes on intending to stop your car, and for that matter, you don't start driving intending to put your brakes on--you start driving in order to reach a destination; putting your brakes on and heating the air are only incidental.

Thankfully, we live in a relatively egalitarian time and place, so it's easy to look at other, less egalitarian times or places, see only the effects of the behavior happening there that's so unlike ours, and forget that the people behaving that way didn't have our same knowledge and beliefs, so they might've had wildly different intents than we'd have to in order to behave the same way. You get what I mean? --Dan (talk) 02:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The Black Codes weren't "unofficial laws", but were official laws. They didn't last long, but they were full laws whilst they were in force.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.161.78.193 (talk) 04:50, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

American propaganda and censorship in Wikipedia
Aha, so the US civil war was never about the freedom of the slaves. It was all about power. The Southern states wanted to build an own independent state, and the Northern states used slavery as pretended reason for war. As soon as the Northern states were in power again, the black codes were introduced in the Southern states. Why don't you guys mention these facts in the article American Civil War? Poor censored Wikipedia... --178.197.229.37 (talk) 12:31, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

This article is not so bad; it's fairly balanced now; it's pretty good. I had thought the same as 178 above but it really was the "slave problem" which weighed on some of the country starting before the constitution was written. The slave problem weighed heavily on the founders writing the constitution both for and against: the southern state delegates would not have it: making the slave problem disappear. Most of the northern delegates and those rightly offended by slavery KNEW the Constitution would never fly without a compromise. Everyone settled for I think it was a 20 year window regarding the importation of slaves. It was a necessary compromise. It was almost equally a Federal / National power issue as well. The southern states had almost everything riding on landownership / agriculture and slave labor. When there is a lot of money on the table people will do not the best things. There are many good articles here on Reconstruction which clearly show the intransigence of those, the southerners, who felt and many still do that their property, the slaves, were taken from them. In 5 short years 3 amendments were passed, 13th, 14th and 15th; this is remarkable and indicates, at least the intent, serious change in the country. The amendments were about the slaves mostly and a direct reaction to the southern states intransigence. The southerners fought back in court and proffered compelling challenges. To take a moment and look at it from the southern point of view: consider not only the fact they lost their cheap labor, but the south was very well in ruins from the war, without capital and men (25% of southern men died in the war) and now no slaves. They reacted the way most would when faced with this kind of situation and they did not like losing what was part of their culture and heritage: the slaves. It took some very brave men to go against the slave owners mostly in the judiciary and the big story is how the judiciary (the new circuit court, application in law of the new amendments) applied the law to make the slaves less slaves. It did not work very well. But look at the Klan Trials, the Colfax massacre and much more: many of the southerners were as equally appalled as the anti-slave northerners by the senseless treatment some felt good about. It was appalling in retrospect but not unusual human treatment of other humans which doesn't make it right. It took a long time to get it better (almost 100 years with the 1968 Civil Rights Act) and the movie 'Selma' has just played 2014 (another 50 years nearly) so it's not too much to use the word intransigence. They always thought they were trying to get back what was wrongly taken from them. I can still remember (early-mid 1960's) neighborhood kids saying: "the south will rise again"; they didn't just make that up: they got it from their families. That kind of indoctrination of the superego goes a long way. The Civil War really was about freeing the slaves. That this included the National vs. States power should go almost without saying: it was a function of the form. Regards, Philip Psw808 (talk) 20:36, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Black Codes vs Jim Crow
"Distinction from Jim Crow laws" blatantly contradicts "History" with respect to when "Black Codes" began - will an authority please fix this fundamental contradiction? 68.144.97.207 21:15, 16 September 2006

This comment has been at the top of this page for over 2 years and no one appears to have addressed it. Which is it? Do Black Codes subsume Jim Crow laws or not?? JoJo (talk) 20:36, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

From the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia:
 * black codes, in U.S. history, series of statutes passed by the ex-Confederate states, 1865–66, dealing with the status of the newly freed slaves. They varied greatly from state to state as to their harshness and restrictiveness. Although the codes granted certain basic civil rights to blacks (the right to marry, to own personal property, and to sue in court), they also provided for the segregation of public facilities and placed severe restrictions on the freedman's status as a free laborer, his right to own real estate, and his right to testify in court. Although some Northern states had black codes before the Civil War, this did not prevent many northerners from interpreting the codes as an attempt by the South to reenslave blacks. The Freedmen's Bureau prevented enforcement of the codes, which were later repealed by the radical Republican state governments.

JoJo (talk) 02:58, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Briefly, Jim Crow laws generally refers to those passed in the 1870s and after, after white Democrats had regained control of state legislatures in the South, and Reconstruction ended with the compromise that withdrew federal troops. The black codes of this article were passed by southern states immediately after the Civil War, when white Democrats still controlled most state legislatures. Such representatives were temporarily superseded for a period of time by biracial Republican coalitions in most states after freedmen were granted the franchise.Parkwells (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

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What is the subject?
The Lead explicitly says that this article is about the laws known as Black Codes passed in the South in the immediate postwar years. Yes, it notes that they were related to prewar laws, but I think the content of the article goes into way too much detail about the prewar laws restricting free blacks, as well as laws passed by the midwest states trying to prevent their settlement. That material should be summarized for more accessibility, IF the focus of this article is supposed to be on the 1865-1866 laws.

Similarly, if editors want to refer to laws passed by southern state at the end and after Reconstruction, in the 1870s when white Democrats had regained control, this should be explicitly noted with a header. There is so much prewar detail that it makes this really murky - covering overall treatment of slaves, free blacks, and emancipated blacks (during the war by Union troops), all of which is covered in other articles. We need to agree on what this is supposed to be about. I don't think a general overview of treatment of African Americans before the end of the war helps the approach.Parkwells (talk) 18:37, 2 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I just came from the Origins of the American Civil War article where it mentioned Black Codes prior to the war and I knew that Black Codes was the official name of the postwar reconstructing South's laws to use the 13th amendment loophole.
 * This is my post from over there which properly belongs here:

Prewar Black Codes?
The Black Codes (United States) article lead paragraph defines them as being written after the war as a reaction to the newly freed blacks. The Free Soil movement section mentions Black Codes of the Northern states prior to the war. The Black Codes article does mention "From the colonial period, colonies and states had passed laws that discriminated against free Blacks." but was Black Codes the name of these laws? In it's history section there's mention of laws in the 1830's and anti-voting laws in some Northern areas. The article goes onto call them slave codes in the South. It also covers prewar Illinois ''the 1848 Constitution of Illinois contributed to the state legislature passing one of the harshest Black Code systems in the nation until the Civil War. The Illinois Black Code of 1853 but in John Jones letter to the legislature he calls them Black Laws''.

So the problems I'm seeing are in the Black Codes article where the etymology of the term stems from the post civil war codes yet it goes on to cover similar laws, not explicitly called Black Codes, from earlier periods. The very first paragraph makes an explicit definition and then the article strays from that definition: the lead needs rewriting. Alatari (talk) 14:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)


 * So do we adopt John Jones name of Black Laws?
 * Are their historians that give support for calling all laws that confine free blacks movements and other rights from colonial times to the Civil War as Black Codes?
 * Anyone have the ability to look at some of these earlier laws and see what name they are given on the title?


 * I agree with Parkwells. The leading paragraph doesn't fit with the entire content of the article.  If the scope is larger then the lead needs to reflect this.  If there isn't one historian that calls the colonial laws Black Codes then splitting the article into Black Codes and say Black Laws (John Jones and possible other contemporary speakers) is needed?
 * This article ties in with Slave codes, Homestead Acts and Free Soil Party {"The party distanced itself from abolitionism and avoided the moral problems implicit in slavery. Members emphasized instead the threat slavery would pose to free white labor and northern businessmen in the new western territories. Although abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison derided the party philosophy as "white manism,") concepts where white jobs and property were to be protected.
 * Black Laws is a redirect to Black Code. Alatari (talk) 15:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The above-mentioned internal inconsistency (definition problem) within this article still has not been fixed, unfortunately. Perhaps this article and the Slave codes article should be merged. Also unfortunate is that neither this article nor the Slave codes article mentions the drumming bans (which reacted to whites' fear that slaves were communicating rebellion plans via drums), which apparently set profound limits on how much African-American music was influenced by West African music. Acwilson9 (talk) 04:40, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

How long did black codes really last?
How long did black codes really last? Thebearfootaquarius (talk) 23:37, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Treating the Freedmen's Bureau as an example of a Black Code is a mis-representation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnsomp (talk • contribs) 02:21, 15 January 2020 (UTC)