The Rights of Men
The Rights of Men
This chapter moves the argument into the post-emancipation period. In particular, it chronicles the story of the legal code’s deracialization during the years following the state’s 1864 emancipation decree. Many different groups, friends and foes of the freedmen alike, defined freedom as self-sufficiency and self-reliance, and it would be these liberal ideals that shaped the legal terms of emancipation. As federal agents worked to enforce black men’s wage contracts and ratify their marriage contracts, as formerly enslaved black men eagerly asserted their rights to possess both, and as an interracial coalition of activists confronted stubborn employers and an apprentice system still indebted to slavery, a fully realized property rights regime emerged. Through real work – through hard work – slavery died during the 1860s, and a seemingly color-blind legal order predicated upon male rights to wages and household autonomy arose in its place. In liberal terms, emancipation looked like a success.
Keywords: Emancipation, Color-blind, Freedmen, Wage contracts, Marriage, Household autonomy, Apprentice system, Male rights, Workplace, Property rights
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