Thus, it would be best to study President Andrew Johnson as the primary opponent of the Fourteenth Amendment and a Conservative. Andrew Johnson became President of the United States after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April of 1865. Andrew Johnson—a Democrat—desired for the country to re-unite with the Southern states as quickly as possible. His attitude towards African-Americans demonstrated that he believed African-Americans were not equip to handle the responsibilities that came with all the rights guaranteed to them under the Fourteenth Amendment. “Johnson had little knowledge of Negroes; although he had owned a few slaves, he accepted most of the current Southern patterns.” Of course, the acceptance of the current societal ways …show more content…
The Black Codes were a way in which “the white planter endeavored to keep the Negro at work for his own profit on terms that amounted to slavery and which were hardly distinguishable from it.” The main way in which White Southerners intended to keep African-Americans within their control was through the introduction of sharecropping and the convict lease system. With the practice of sharecropping, African-Americans remained under the will of rich White plantation owners—similarly to the practice of slavery because African-Americans farmed on the plantations these planters. As a result, African-Americans received a small fraction of what the land grew and would also be charged for using/buying things on the planation owner’s land. Often, these sharecroppers would end up owing the plantation owners money and could not leave the plantation without risking their lives. Of course, this was what most political leaders wanted because they believed that the worst thing to happen to the South would be progressive African-American societies who would create a mixed-race society that would ruin the Southern way of life and decrease the number of White