Not surprisingly, many northerners and Unionists criticized the codes.  The following statement, made by Missouri Republican William M. Grosvenor, was typical of their responses:

The contest [i.e., the Civil War] was not closed when Lee surrendered. It only changed its form. We have no longer a known foe and an open field. Intrigue and chicanery come by gift of nature to all Southern races. For skirmishes we are to have speeches; for battles, conventions, and in place of campaigns, the sessions of Legislatures and Congresses. The rebel puts aside the bayonet, and takes up the ballot. It is for us to say whether it will not prove the more deadly weapon of the two. 

Within the next six months eleven new organizations, claiming to be states, will apply for restoration of political powers. With the national Congress rests absolute power to admit, delay, or reject, and, in case of delay or rejection, to make such provision for the government of the conquered territory or the future organization of its inhabitants, as the national safety may require. If the nation had the shadow of right to crush the rebellion, it has now full right to protect itself, and all its loyal citizens, against the political influence of rebels whose arms it has taken, and whose lives it has spared. In all things essential to the success of a Republican form of government, it is not only the right but the duty of Congress to dictate terms. In the exercise of that duty its members should be sustained and held to strict account by a vigorous public sentiment. . . .

But the freedom which the nation has solemnly promised is not a mere nominal emancipation. It involves full protection in all rights of person and property—absolute equality before the law. No man will pretend that such protection is possible, after the withdrawal of bureau superintendence [oversight of the Freedmen’s Bureau] and military power, unless the testimony of the freedman is received in all the courts, and his rights of contract and property are placed upon the same basis as those of whites. Such provisions do not yet exist in any rebel state. Had the [state constitutional] conventions which have been held incorporated provisions of this nature into the new constitutions, there would have been some security at least, that the rights of the loyal blacks would not be forever at the mercy of every state legislature.

Every [state] convention, as yet, has refused to do anything of the kind. The subject was not overlooked, . . . for ordinances were passed directing state legislatures to make provision for the protection of the freedmen, and “to guard the state against the evils which may result from their sudden emancipation.” If it was thought that this vague but almost insulting formula would satisfy the just demands of a nation, whose faith is pledged to secure to these victims of oppression and hatred full and permanent protection in all their natural rights, surely Congress will not fail to teach the masters their error! It is a matter of the first importance. . . .

Full well these Southern leaders know that laws passed by a legislature, though they might satisfy some Northern consciences, would give no permanent protection, since they would be liable to repeal at the next session after full restoration had removed all restraint upon the popular prejudice. Should Congress neglect this matter, it will outrage the moral sense and the honor of the North. We cannot justly leave all the rights of the freedmen at the mercy of those who so long held them in slavery. We cannot safely leave four millions of people so utterly defenseless against the cruelty or revenge of a hostile and exasperated race. . . .

There is abundant evidence that the Southern people do not yet show such a spirit that they can be safely left to deal as they please with those whom the nation has so recently rescued from bondage, and that the existing passion and prejudice would render ineffective the best laws ever framed. While the present state of feeling lasts, to withdraw the protecting power of the nation, and restore the rebel states to full control over their domestic affairs, would be a deed of the most heartless cruelty. Indeed, it would be not only inhuman, but suicidal. It would end in anarchy, and a war of races. For this difficulty there are but two remedies; to continue military or provisional government until a different state of feeling is developed, or to give to the blacks an invulnerable shield of self-protection in the right of suffrage. No man can logically deny the power of Congress to enfranchise the negroes, as the only sufficient guarantee of their true freedom and equality before the law. . . .

Recognition, permanent establishment, and representation in Congress, must be refused for the present to all the revolted states. Provisional government or military control must be maintained, until there is sufficient evidence, both in the form of their laws and in the temper of the people, that the rebel communities can he safely restored to their political powers as members of the Union. . . .

Source: W. M. Grosvenor, “The Rights of the Nation, and the Duty of Congress,” New Englander and Yale Review 24:93 (October 1865), 755-78.