America, Post-Civil War

America after the war and after Lincoln's death could be described as a mess. Though the Union had won and the slaves were free, there were still problems to be resolved. For example, though the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment made slavery illegal, it did not give black Americans any rights or protection under the law. Southerners plantation owners suddenly lost their labor force, but they were not going to let an amendment with loopholes stop them from continuing to make profit. The former slaves were free, but some Southerners found ways to keep them "slaves." They passed laws that practically put black Americans back in the cotton fields. For example, one law said that if a black person broke a law, they could be punished with a work period of "undetermined" length. That basically just created a new system of slavery. Black Americans weren't equally protected under the law, and the federal government realized that just declaring, "All slaves are free!" really had not changed much. In fact, one political cartoon labelled the situation that the black Americans were in as "worse than slavery."