ABSTRACT
The South’s defeat and the end of slavery meant the nation then had to decide how to rebuild Southern society, both socially and economically, in its absence. The paradox of the Thirteenth Amendment was that in freeing slaves from their masters, it made them vulnerable, as never before, to the violent whims of all white men. To newly freed slaves expecting more, there was little difference between Southern laws and lawlessness. Within the limits circumscribed by the Thirteenth Amendment, Southern whites intended to reconstruct a society as close as possible to the one they had fought unsuccessfully to defend. Southern whites were adamant in their refusal to accept equal justice, but especially so with respect to black testimony against them in court. Southern whites believed that neither military defeat nor emancipation had given blacks the right to be treated as equals, or to treat them as equals.
