Although the
Thirteenth Amendment ended slavery, the Fourteenth made Black Americans citizens and gave them
equality before the law, and the Fifteenth insured their right to vote, the Reconstruction
Congress took few steps to insure the protection of these rights. As a result, aside from
physical freedom, most blacks were no better off than they had been in slavery. There was little
economic opportunity, and most were forced to work as sharecroppers at wages closer to slavery
than to freedom.
The defeated South was bitter and vindictive at the end of
the war. Southern legislatures passed a...
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