Notes

Blacks were forced to continue to work the plantations after their emancipation due to the system of "sharecropping." Plantation owners would rent out pieces of their land to blacks and make the cost of rent higher than the return the land produced. The renters of the land were bound by contract to continue to work the land until debts were repaid to the plantation owner. Unable to repay the debts, blacks began to "jump" their contracts.
The codes imposed harsh penalties on blacks who "jumped" their labor contracts, some of which usually forced the blacks to work for the same employer for one year. The codes also sought to restore the pre-emancipation system of race relations. The codes forbade a black to serve on a jury or to vote. The Black Codes mocked the idea of freedom and imposed terrible hardships on the blacks who were struggling against mistreatment and poverty to make their way as free people.
The Republicans were strongly opposed to the Black Codes.

Congressional Reconstruction
In December 1865, Southern states represented themselves in Congress with former Confederate generals and colonels. This infuriated the Republicans who were apprehensive about embracing their Confederate enemies in Congress.
The Republicans had enjoyed their supreme rule in Congress during the Civil War, but now there would be an opposing party. This time, the South would have much more control in Congress due to the fact that slaves were now counted as a whole person, not just 3/5. (This gave the South a larger population.) Republicans feared that the South would take control of Congress.
President Johnson announced on December 6, 1865 that the Southern states had met his conditions and that the Union was now restored. This statement angered the Republicans.

Johnson Clashes with Congress
In February 1866, the president vetoed a bill extending the controversial Freedmen's Bureau (later re-passed). In response to this, Congress (controlled by the Republicans) passed the Civil Rights Bill in March 1866, which gave blacks the privilege of American citizenship and struck at the Black Codes. Congress overruled the President's veto for this bill.
Fearing that the Southerners might someday repeal the Civil Rights Law, Congress passed the 14th Amendment in 1866. The amendment had the following components: 1) Gave civil rights, including citizenship, to the freedmen; 2) Reduced proportionately the representation of a state in Congress and in the Electoral College if it denied blacks the right to vote; 3) Disqualified from federal and state offices former Confederates who, as federal officeholders, had once sworn to support the Constitution of the United States; 4) Guaranteed the federal debt, while the Union assumed all Confederate debts.
With the ability to overrule a presidential veto, Congress began to develop into the dominant role in controlling the government.
All Republicans agreed that no state should be welcomed back into the Union without ratifying the 14th Amendment.

Swinging 'Round the Circle with Johnson
In anticipation of the congressional elections of 1866, President Johnson went on a tour of giving speeches denouncing the radical Republicans in Congress.
Over 2/3 of the ballots cast in the congressional elections of 1866 went to the Republicans.

Republicans Principles and Programs
Charles Sumner led the Republican radicals in the Senate for black freedom and racial equality. Thaddeus Stevens led the radicals in the House of Representatives.
The moderate Republicans, the majority in Congress, preferred policies that restrained the states from cutting citizens' rights, rather than policies that directly involved the federal government in individual lives.

Reconstruction by the Sword
On March 2, 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act. It divided the South into 5 military districts, each commanded by a Union general and policed by Union soldiers. It also required that states wishing to be re-admitted into the Union had to ratify the 14th Amendment, and that states' constitutions allowed former adult male slaves to vote. The moderate Republican goal was to create voters in Southern states that would vote those states back into the Union and thus free the federal government from direct responsibility for the protection of black rights.
The 15th Amendment was passed by Congress in 1869. It granted black men the right to vote.
Military Reconstruction of the South took control of certain functions of the president and it set up a military rule of the South.
In 1877, the last federal troops were removed from the South and Democracy returned to the South (in theory).