The Thirteenth Amendment of 1865 freed the slaves but did not provide for their participation in land ownership. There was a plan in the U.S. Congress to confiscate all Southern farms larger than two hundred acres and divide them into fortyacre parcels for the ex-slaves, but this strategy never came to pass. After the war, lands were reclaimed by their former white owners without interference from Congress. Lawmakers insisted only on guaranteeing the ex-slaves the right to citizenship (the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868) and the vote (the Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870).
In general, the federal government allowed issues concerning property and jobs to be worked out by the Southern people themselves. Since the breakup of the large plantations never did occur, Southern lands became concentrated into fewer and larger holdings than before the war, and Southern farmers restricted themselves more often to raising just one crop, usually cotton. In many cases, however, they no longer had resources to maintain the properties, and their slave labor force had disappeared.
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