Ratifying the 13th amendment was a precondition for rejoining the Union under presidential reconstruction. If states chose to ratify, they expected that they could regain the privileges of states in good standing, thus being equal again to northern states. Hence why South Carolina (and others) tried to send representatives and senators to the 39th congress in December 1865- they had ratified the amendment in November and expect things to go back to how they were. President Johnson seemed to be on board with this idea since he wanted to put things back to normal as quickly as possible. Johnson had fairly minimal requirements for reentering the Union- only that “state legislatures ratify the thirteenth amendment, nullify the states’ secession ordinance, and repudiate the Confederate debt.”(1) Congressional Republicans, however, did not support this plan and refused to recognize the senators and representatives from the former confederacy.

But why wasn’t there more resistance to ratification from the southern governments? Well for many of these states slavery was already effectively abolished long before the 13th amendment. As early as 1863 nearly half a million slaves had run off and offered their services to the union army on the South Carolina coast and in the Mississippi River valley, forcing the military to accept them as “contraband of war” (2). As Sherman made his march to the sea this number only grew. With the confederate army defeated, the government surrendered, and civil society in disarray, there was really no question that slavery could continue in its previous form. Slavery was over. Ratifying the 13th amendment did not end slavery, it merely acknowledged the present state of affairs and gained the states that did ratify it certain important privileges in return.

Additionally, ratifying the 13th amendment did not mean accepting black equality or civil rights. Many of the states you listed quickly passed black codes that tried to recreate systems of social control and economic exploitation (like imprisonment with hard labor as punishment for vagrancy) (3) These sorts of outrageous laws, which President Johnson allowed, were a large part of why congress turned on him and took over reconstruction, as well as the motivation behind the 14th and 15th amendments.

(1) David Herbert Donald The Civil War and Reconstruction Norton: New York 2001, 522.

(2) W. E. B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in America The Free Press: New York 1935, 78.

(3) Donald, 526.

(I apologize for my surely improperly formatted citations. I am typing on a phone and have been out of academia too long to remember how to do it!)