Final answer:
The state legislatures in the South passed Black Codes as a way to preserve the social conditions of slavery after the end of the Civil War. These codes were discriminatory laws designed to maintain the social and economic structure of racial slavery in the absence of slavery itself.
Step-by-step explanation:
The state legislatures in the South passed Black Codes as a way to preserve the social conditions of slavery after the end of the Civil War. These codes were discriminatory laws designed to maintain the social and economic structure of racial slavery in the absence of slavery itself. The Black Codes restricted the civic participation of freed enslaved people, denied them fundamental rights, and effectively criminalized black leisure and limited their mobility.
For example, these codes denied black men the right to serve on juries or in state militias, refused to recognize their testimony against white people, and established severe vagrancy laws. They also required freedmen to carry papers proving they had means of employment and allowed them to be arrested, fined, and hired out as laborers if they couldn't pay the fine. Overall, the Black Codes reasserted control over black labor and were a way to maintain white supremacy.