How did the Civil War influence the meaning of American freedom? The Civil War, which started in 1861 and ended in 1865, strengthened the Northern understanding of freedom as implying that everybody was qualified to the f ruits of his labor. The Civil War was an extraordinary defining moment to the meaning of freedom in the United Stated. Without the

Civil War the United States would be totally diff erent today in the fact that slavery would not have been ended and probably would have still been in eff ect today. Slaves were not satisfied with the way they were living. Their definition of freedom was similar to the way we define freedom today. Today freedom is not only about being free; it is also about feeling free, being able to do anything, say anything, and to be whatever you want to be. American freedom before the Civil War was defined by Abolitionism, and it meant escaping the countless abuse of slavery that African Americans were experiencing. American freedom af ter the Civil war was defined by

freed people and it meant that they had their lives back.

American freedom before the Civil War was defined by Abolitionism, and it meant escaping the countless abuse of slavery that African Americans were experiencing. Freedom meant several diff erent things to several diff erent slaves. To most of them, it implied that families would stay together, women would never again be sexually misused, education, churches, being able to go anywhere without permission, working would create income for the slave and not the master, owning land, living on land, voting, and having the same rights as white individuals.

Slaves understanding of freedom were defined by their encounters as slaves and their perception

of the society around them.

Before the Civil War, the Abolitionist movement was in f ull eff ect. Abolitionism, which is a movement to end slavery, in the United States was an effort to end slavery in a country that

admired personal freedom and had a belief that all men and women are created equal. The Abolitionist movement was led by Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass played an important role in the anti-slavery debate. He had similar perspectives with his abolitionist mentor, William Garrison. He originally was a Garrisonian. In 1851, Frederick Douglass published an article called "Change of Opinion Announced":

Change of Opinion Announced

The debate on the resolution relative to anti-slavery newspapers [at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society] assumed such a character as to make it our duty to define the position of the North Star in respect to the Constitution of the United States. The ground having been distinctly taken, that no paper ought to receive the recommendation of the American Anti-Slavery Society that did not assume the Constitution to be a pro-slavery document, we f elt in

honor bound to announce at once to our old anti-slavery companions that we no longer possessed the requisite qualification for their official approval and commendation; and to assure them that we had arrived at the firm conviction that the Constitution, construed in the light of well established rules of legal interpretation, might be made consistent in its details with the noble purposes avowed in its preamble; and that hereaf ter we should insist upon the application  of such rules to that instrument, and demand that it be wielded in behalf  of emancipation. The change in our opinion on this subject has not been hastily arrived at. A caref ul study of the writings of Lysander Spooner, of Gerrit Smith, and of William Goodell, has brought us to our present conclusion. We found, in our former position, that, when debating the question, we were compelled to go behind the letter of the Constitution, and to seek its meaning in the history and practice of the nation under it-a process always attended with disadvantages; and certainly we f eel little inclination to shoulder disadvantages of any kind, in

order to give slavery the slightest protection. In short, we hold it to be a system of lawless violence; that it never was lawful , and never can be made so; and that it is the first duty of every American citizen, whose conscience permits so to do, to use his political  as well as his moral power for its overthrow. Of course, this avowal did not pass without animadversion, and it would have been strange if it had passed without some crimination [recrimination]; for it is hard for any  combination or party to attribute good motives to any one who diff ers from them in what they deem a vital point. Brother Garrison at once exclaimed, "There is roguery somewhere!" but we can easily forgive this hastily expressed imputation, falling, as it did, from the lips of one to whom we shall never cease to be gratef ul, and for whom we have cherished (and do now cherish) a veneration only inf erior in degree to that which we owe to our conscience and to our God. (Douglas 1)

In this article, Frederick Douglass changed sides to support the political abolitionists' position. The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) announced that no pro-constitution  newspaper should receive the support of the organization, encouraging Frederick Douglass to openly announce his change in opinion. Garrison responded by saying that there was "roguery" somewhere meaning that Garrison thought that there was some type of dishonesty or playful mischief going on.

The Civil War in the words of Abraham Lincoln brought to America "a new birth of

freedom" (as cited in Zyskind 204). Af ter the Civil War, American freedom was defined by freed people and it meant that they had their lives back. By the end of the Civil War, it was clear that the Reconstruction era was going to aff ect the southern society. The Reconstruction era changed  a lot of African Americans lives. The lif e of African Americans changed socially, economically, and politically, starting with the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fif teenth Amendments.  The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime (Lawson 413). The Fourteenth Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the Civil War (Lawson 433). The Fif teenth Amendment prohibits the f ederal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race, color, or previous conditions of servitude (Lawson 438).

Af ter the Civil War there defiantly were some positive improvements, but there also were some negative changes. One of the negative changes af ter the Civil War was the Black Codes. In the primary source "Mississippi Black Code," it shows in detail the laws that were introduced:

An Act to Confer Civil Rights on Freedmen, and for other Purposes

SECTION 1. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes may sue and be

sued . . . in all the courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire personal property, and choses in action [right to bring a lawsuit to recover chattels, money,

or a debt], by descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same in the same manner and to the same extent that white persons may: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall not be so construed as to allow any freedman, free negro or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorporated cities or towns, in which places the corporate authorities shall control the same.

SECTION 2. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes may intermarry with each other, in the same manner and under the same regulations that are provided by law for white persons: Provided, that the clerk of probate shall keep separate records of the same.

SECTION 3. All freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes who do now and have herebefore lived and cohabited together as husband and wif e shall be taken and held in law as legally married, and the issue shall be taken and held as legitimate for all purposes; and it shall not be lawf ul for any freedman, free negro or mulatto to intermarry with any white person; nor for any person to intermarry with any freedman, free negro or mulatto; and any person who shall so intermarry shall be deemed guilty of f elony, and on conviction thereof shall be confined in the State penitentiary for lif e; and those shall be deemed freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes who are of pure negro blood, and those descended from a negro to the third generation, inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation may have been a white person.

SECTION 4. In addition to cases in which freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes are now by law competent witnesses, freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes shall be competent in civil cases, when a party or parties to the suit, either plaintiff or plaintiff s, def endant or def endants; also in cases where freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes is or are either plaintiff or plaintiff s,

def endant or def endants. They shall also be competent witnesses in all criminal prosecutions where the crime charged is alleged to have been committed by a white person upon or against the person or property of a freedman, free negro or mulatto. . . .

SECTION 5. Every freedman, free negro and mulatto shall, on the second Monday of January, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, and annually thereaf ter, have a lawful home or employment, and shall have written evidence thereof as follows, to wit: if living in any incorporated city, town, or village, a license from that mayor thereof; and if living outside of an incorporated city, town, or village, from the member of the board of police of his beat, authorizing him or her to do irregular and job work; or a written contract, as provided

in SECTION 6 in this act; which license may be revoked for cause at any time by the authority granting the same.

SECTION 6. All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes for a longer period than one month shall be in writing, and a duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free negro or mulatto by a beat, city or county officer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in which the labor is to [be] perf ormed, of which each party shall have one: and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall forf eit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting. . . .

An Act to Amend  the Vagrant Laws of the State . . .

SECTION 2. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or

thereaf ter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawf ul[ly] assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white persons assembling themselves with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freed woman, freed negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fif ty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisonment at the discretion of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six

months. . . .

SECTION 6. The same duties and liabilities existing among white persons of this State shall attach to freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, to support their indigent f amilies and all colored paupers; and that in order to secure a support for such indigent freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes, it shall be lawf ul, and is hereby made the duty of the county police of each county in this State, to levy a poll or capitation tax on each and every freedman, free negro, or mulatto, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years, not to exceed the sum of one dollar annually to each person so taxed, which tax, when collected, shall be paid into the county treasurer's hands, and constitute a fund to be called the Freedman's Pauper Fund, which shall be applied by the commissioners of the poor for the maintenance of the poor of the freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes of this State, under such regulations as may be established by the boards of county police in the respective counties of this State. (Mississippi Black Code 1)

Black Codes were a sequence of laws presented af ter the Civil War by southern legislatives. The Black Codes were used to limit the rights of free African Americans af ter emancipation and return them to a condition as close as possible to slavery (Lawson 431). They were not able to carry weapons, vote, etc. One of the first states to have this was Mississippi.

Af ter the Civil War, African Americans in South Carolina wasted no time in declaring

their rights as free people. The Colored People's Convention of South Carolina met in November 1865 and the African Americans implored their list of demands to congress to claim full rights of citizenship, the rights that were at risk because of the Black Codes. In the primary source "Memorial to Congress," it shows some of the demands that the Af rican Americans begged for:

We ask that equal suffrage be conf erred upon us, in common with the white men of this State.

This we ask, because "all free governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"; and we are largely in the majority in this State, bearing for a long period the burden of onerous taxation, without a just representation. We ask for equal suffrage as a protection for the hostility evoked by our known

faithf ulness to our country and flag under all circumstances.

We ask that colored men shall not in every instance be tried by white men; and that neither by custom or enactment shall we be excluded from the jury box. (Colored People's Convention of South Carolina 1)

American freedom before the Civil War was defined by Abolitionism, and it meant escaping the countless abuse of slavery that African Americans were experiencing. American freedom af ter the Civil war was defined by freed people and it meant that they had their lives back. Freedom to the slaves before the Civil War was nowhere to be found. They thought that every day of their lives was going to be hell on earth until the Civil War started. Af ter the Civil War freedom became visible to the slaves, they started to see the light. It took a while for them to be completely free but it was worth it. Everything happens for a reason, if there was no such  thing as a Civil War, the United States today would not have existed.  The Civil War brought "a new birth of freedom" (as cited in Zyskind 204) to America.

Works Cited

Colored People's Convention of  South Carolina. "Memorial to Congress." (1865): 1. Book. 8 Nov.2014. Douglas, Frederick. "Abolitionism and the Constitution." (1851): 1. Book. 8 Nov.2014.

Lawson, Hewitt. Exploring American Histories. "Andrew Johnson and Presidential Reconstruction."

(2013): 431. Book. 8 Nov.2014.

Lawson, Hewitt. Exploring American Histories. "Johnson and Congressional Resistance." (2013): 433.

Book. 8 Nov.2014.

Lawson, Hewitt. Exploring American Histories. "The Final Battles and the Promise of Peace." (2013):

413. Book. 8 Nov.2014.