The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 97, July 1993 - April, 1994 Page: 15
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"All the Vile Passions"
A majority of Texas historians have viewed the black codes in a similar
vein. Charles W. Ramsdell saw the laws as "harsh and stringent," but
thought them "necessary both for the good conduct and for the protec-
tion of the negroes for whom alone [they were] intended." Seth Shep-
ard McKay considered them merely "toned down" versions of
antebellum legislation. T. R. Fehrenbach declared the code essential, as
blacks "delighted in taking no orders, a perfectly human reaction after
years of forced labor." Ernest Wallace wrote that the legislature saw the
codes as "imperative" and that they did not "offend the radicals." John
C. McGraw found the codes "absolutely necessary" because of the "total
irresponsibility and depravity" of blacks in 1866.4
Joe B. Frantz, in his brief bicentennial history, stated that the 1866
Constitution as "a whole treated blacks more generously than the funda-
mental law of any other state of the recent Confederacy," but the labor
code was a "subterfuge for keeping the black in some sort of peonage."
Like Frantz, Nora E. Owens insists that the 1866 Texas constitution
"gave more specific guarantees to blacks than did any other state," al-
though the code, while less severe and "much less rigid" than those im-
posed by other former Confederate states, was nevertheless
discriminatory. Finding the laws generally lenient, with the exception of
the contract provision, John P. Carrier states that they avoided "most of
the more obvious abuses" of earlier legislation.5
Winnell Albrecht, in the most comprehensive treatment of the code,
asserted that the freedmen received "more rights and privileges and their
"'What is to Become of the Negro?': White Reaction to Emancipation in Texas," Msd-America: An
HistoricalRevmew, LXXIII (Apr.-July, 1991), 115-133.
4 Charles William Ramsdell, Reconstruction in Texas (New York: Columbia University Press,
1910), 122, 125 (1st quotation), 126 (2nd quotation); Charles W. Ramsdell, "Presidential Re-
construction in Texas," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, XII (Jan., 1909), 2 17-2 18;
Seth Shepard McKay, Making the Texas Constitution of 1876 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva-
nia Press, 1924), 13 (3rd quotation); T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Tex-
ans (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1968), 402 (4th quotation). Fehrenbach adds that the
"stabilization [black codes] of 1866 could have saved many planters, but it was overturned" (p.
419). Ernest Wallace, Texas in Turmoil, 1849-r875 (Austin: Steck-Vaughn Co., 1965), 185 (5th
and 6th quotations), 186.
Actually, the code did offend the Republicans, but they could do little to prevent its imple-
mentation. John Conger McGraw, 'The Texas Constitution of 1866" (Ph.D. diss., Texas Techno-
logical College, 1959), 227 (7th and 8th quotations), 228, 233. McGraw misses the fact that
"petty officials" under all these laws had enormous power and the freedpeople, because of their
social and economic position, could do little to challenge the system. The underlying purpose of
the vagrancy statute was to keep blacks out of urban areas and on the plantation (p. 228).
5 Joe B. Frantz, Texas: A Bicentennial Hstory (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1976), 116 (1st
and 2nd quotations); Nora Estelle Owens, "Presidential Reconstruction in Texas: A Case Study"
(Ph.D. diss., Auburn University, 1983), 165 (3rd and 4th quotations); John Pressley Carrier,
"Constitutional Change in Texas during the Reconstruction, 1865-1876" (M.A. thesis, North
Texas State University, 1967), 62 (5th quotation). In his dissertation, "A Political History of
Texas During the Reconstruction, 1865-1874" (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1971),
125-140, Carrier elaborates on his earlier ideas. Most Southern states gave blacks basic rights. In
this sense, Texas was no different, and therefore, no more generous.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 97, July 1993 - April, 1994, periodical, 1994; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117154/m1/43/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.