ern States, in reference to free
persons of color, upon the same basis with the free states. I hope and
trust your convention will do this."

The Negroes themselves began to ask for the suffrage. The Georgia
convention in Augusta (1866) advocated "a proposition to give those who
could write and read well and possessed a certain property qualification
the right of suffrage." The reply of the South to these suggestions was
decisive. In Tennessee alone was any action attempted that even suggested
possible Negro suffrage in the future, and that failed. In all other
states the "Black Codes" adopted were certainly not reassuring to the
friends of freedom. To be sure, it was not a time to look for calm, cool,
thoughtful action on the part of the white South. Their economic condition
was pitiable, their fear of Negro freedom genuine. Yet it was reasonable
to expect from them something less than repression and utter reaction
toward slavery. To some extent this expectation was fulfilled. The
abolition of slavery was recognized on the statute book, and the civil
rights of owning property and appearing as a witness in cases in which he
was a party were generally granted the Negro; yet with these in many cases
went harsh and unbearable regulations which largely neutralized the
concessions and certainly gave ground for an assumption that, once free,
the South would virtually reenslave the Negro. The colored people
themselves naturally feared this, protesting, as in Mississippi, "against
the reactionary policy prevailing and expressing the fear that the
legislature will pass such prescriptive laws as will drive the freedmen
from the state, or practically reenslave them."

The codes spoke for themselves. As Burgess says, "Almost every act, word,
or gesture of the Negro, not consonant with good taste and good manners as
well as good morals, was made a crime or misdemeanor for which he could
first be fined by the magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of
almost slavery for an indefinite time, if he could not pay the bill."[100]

All things considered, it seems probable that, if the South had been
permitted to have its way in 1865, the harshness of Negro slavery would
have been mitigated so as to make slave trading difficult, and so as to
make it possible for a Negro to hold property and appear in some cases in
court; but that in most other respects the blacks would have remained in
slavery.

What could prevent this? A Freedm