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The Reconstruction Er Tactics Used By Southern Democracy

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In the Reconstruction Era, many tactics were used by Southern Democrats to try to restrict the freedom of African Americans. They used restrictive laws, violence on many levels, and intimidation in order to suppress the freedoms of freedmen. By looking at historical documents, the evidence of these actions is undeniable and cannot be overlooked. Southern Democrats created limiting laws, also known as black codes, to restrict the rights of African Americans. Many of these laws were derived from old slave codes and were created to instill fear in freedmen. For example, one of these codes was written as follows, “.That no freedman, free negro, or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by …show more content…

citizen’s right. Along with this limitation, there was also a fine if they were caught disobeying the law. Southern Democrats used this as intimidation to force African Americans into subservience under their utmost control. It is essential to understand the levels at which Southern Democrats took power in order for the federal government to not have a lot of power in protecting the rights of African Americans. This point of view is echoed by Historian Mary Ellen Curtin, who states the following in the documentary The Origins of Black Codes, “There is actually very little the federal government could do to intervene in these types of situations. It was really a tool that was used to keep Blacks in fear and also to curtail their independence” (“Slavery By Another Name”). This quote helps to illustrate the anger that Southern Democrats felt and the extremes at which they were willing to go in order to scare African Americans into submission. They took black codes and made it hard for freedmen to actually live free and avoided the wrath of the government by making these codes on a local

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