The more stringent laws were enacted before the end of 1865.

After New Year's Day had passed and the Negroes had begun to settle down, the legislatures either passed mild laws or abandoned all special legislation for the Negroes.

Later in 1866, several states repealed the legislation of 1865.
In so far as the "Black Laws" discriminated against the Negro they were never enforced but were suspended from the beginning by the army and the Freedmen's Bureau.

They had, however, a very important effect upon that section of Northern opinion which was already suspicious of the good faith of the Southerners.

They were part of a plan, some believed, to reenslave the Negro or at least to create by law a class of serfs.