Question

Summarize the events that led to the ratification of south Carolina's constitution of 1868.

Answer 1

At the end of the Civil War, South Carolina’s legislature drafted a new constitution in December 1865. The constitution included a section now referred to as the Black Codes – articles that regulated and restricted the lives of African Americans. These Codes stipulated where blacks could travel, what professions they could choose, and greatly restricted the use of firearms. The period of Reconstruction was a time of great resentment and uncertainty, and many white South Carolinians were unsure how to feel about the new status of black men and women in their lives.

The federal government rejected South Carolina’s Constitution of 1865, and because of this, a turnover occurred within South Carolina’s state government. Radical Republicans, many of them African Americans, took control of the legislature and created the Constitution of 1868. This constitution established local governments, created a Declaration of Rights giving equal treatment to all races, mandated statewide public education, established a welfare program for the poor, elderly and disabled, and removed the property ownership-voting requirement. These new provisions were a radical departure from previous constitutions, and though they were in the public’s best interest, the programs established in the Constitution of 1868 were met with much resistance from those who formerly had been in places of power. These actions on the part of the Radical Republicans only seemed to spur the old establishment into action, and by 1876 they had regrouped enough to elect Wade Hampton III as governor of South Carolina. By this time, many whites had brought back the old order and eventually blacks were disenfranchised and stripped of their rights once again.

The Constitution of 1865 enacted strict legislation regarding the actions of black citizens in South Carolina, and the Black Codes offer a foreshadowing to the Jim Crow era.

Answer 2

http://www.teachingushistory.org/ttrove/scblackcodes.htm does this help