The new program of emancipation in America.
Despite the dire ramifications created in the South after the civil war, Lincoln decided to enforce more strictly the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862 in hopes of weakening the Confederacy without losing the support of the slave states in the Union. The emancipation of slaves instigated a new labor system in the South as a result of Reconstruction. It helped replace the old and traditional "free" labor with the newly wage-based labor. Consequently, the new systematic approach was followed by a weak economy because of a shortage of currency and labor. These implications created barriers that would limit the emancipation for plantation workers.
After the war, the South's economy began to weaken. It was devastated by huge expenditures in equipments, tools and victuals to support the war. These created a tremendous shortage of currency. Moreover, the new system generated a conscious debate among southern planters and their slaves. Landowners were scared at the falling economy and now they needed to pay new salaries to their slaves and granting them portions of their crop. Furthermore, the new privileges did not always aid the freedmen since most planters concerned with the economic deficit were "primarily interested in receiving the maximum possible labor from the freedmen at minimal cost even if it involved cheating, violence, and brutality". (12) .
With a degraded economy, the news turned out to be even worse as numerous slaves escaped from one plantation to another in search of better commodities and salaries. As a result of the shortage of labor, southern whites were preoccupied and hoped that the conditions given to blacks were only short-lived. They often scolded slaves for being lazy at work, and the slaves were punished by discharging and depriving them from any compensation. Many of these injustices went "unnoticed". (12) Moreover, blacks were optimistic and their aspirations to be able to have "a more individual form of life" (15) helped them overcome the hardships they had confronted in the past.
