There were certainly serious attempts through both law and custom to re-establish the underlying economy of slavery--denial of political rights, zero or subsistence "wages" (sharecropping/tenant farming), denial of property, denial of rights to self determined pursuit of living, denial of fair labor contracts, denial of rights to dispute labor contracts, criminality of vagrancy, denial of legal justice through a court of peers, forced labor for criminals, etc.

Former slaves were told they were free--but it was a crime for them to be jobless, they could only enter lengthy one year or sometimes longer labor contracts, pay was withheld until end of contract, expenses deducted (often nothing left after this, guess who did the accounting), and living conditions as tenant were not necessarily dissimilar to that of slave. If the "worker" tried to leave the job before the contract was up, they could be arrested and, if convicted, forced to hard labor. No joke.

Although apparently haphazard or piecemeal in implementation, these methods were nevertheless systemic in reach, purpose and outcome. Slavery by another name is still arguably slavery. The North won the war, but the South won the Reconstruction.

Among many other important books, I recommend the superlative stand-out on the topic by Eric Foner--"Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution." Also, for excellent background on the emergence of the modern economy during Jacksonian period, see Charles Sellers "The Market Revolution."

I wrote a paper on a similar topic in January. This is a very very very condensed version of it. Some of my source material is listed at the end.

So long story short: The South was simply not pleased with the fact that slavery was now outlawed – so they figured out a way to make it legal.

The economy of the South based on cheap labour. The Union states required cheap supplies of raw materials (generally cotton) for the textile mills to produce clothing, so they weren’t completely innocent in this (by proxy anyway.) The Southern states enacted various “Black Codes” and “Pig Laws” wherein it made essentially being an unemployed former slave illegal. Within these Black Codes it also made it difficult to leave work, as an adequate reason and a 30 day minimum notices were required. White citizens were exempted from these laws. The 13th Amendment was specific in outlawing slavery “except as a punishment for a crime.” This then caused the rise in “Pig Laws,” named for the fact that the average price of a pig at the time was $10, and crimes wherein the value of damage was in excess of $10. (Keep in mind that $25 then, is about the equivalent of $390 today.) This caused a huge influx of “criminals” into the prison system, which were in turn leased to various businesses. The result was multiple different agencies benefiting from the cheap labour. Businesses which lost their slave were now able to purchase the cheap labour, which went back to the state’s coffers (to pay for reconstruction.) And the state was able to sell the labour to construction contractors to do the rebuilding, and again, that money went back to the state. Just keep in mind that on average in Mississippi prior to the enactment to the Pig Laws, 272 former slaves had convictions, there were over 1070 convictions by former slaves after. These codes were an attempt to maintain the socioeconomic status of slaves, and legislate slavery into legality again.

"13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents of American History (Virtual Programs & Services, Library of Congress)." Home | Library of Congress. 2016.https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html. "American Experience | Reconstruction: The Second Civil War | Black Legislators | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. "American Experience | Reconstruction: The Second Civil War | Black Legislators | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. Accessed January 9, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/activism/ps_1875.html. "American Experience | Reconstruction: The Second Civil War | Slave to Sharecropper | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/sharecrop/ps_adams.html. Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black People in America from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008. "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875." American Memory from the Library of Congress. https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=014/llsl014.db&recNum=389. "Declaration of Causes of Secession." UL-Lafayette Computing Support Services. http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~ras2777/amgov/secession.html. "Facts About the Slave Trade and Slavery." The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/resources/facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery. Kurin, Richard. The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects. 2013. Mintz, S., and S. McNeil. "America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War." UH - Digital History. Last modified 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/section3/section3_free.html. Mintz, S., and S. McNeil. "Digital History." UH - Digital History.http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3179. Mintz, Steven, and Randy Roberts. Hollywood's America: United States History Through Its Films. St. James, N.Y.: Brandywine Press, 2001. Oshinsky, David M. Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. "Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Legal Rights & Gov't | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/legal/docs6.html. "Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Religion | PBS." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/responses/docs1.html.