"Harriet Martineau, writing in 1834-35 and commenting upon the statement of a Boston gentleman that the Negroes were perfectly well treated in New England in the matter of education, the franchise, and otherwise, states that while they are nominally citizens."
Robert Spector wrote about a landmark Negro emancipation case in "The Quock Walker Cases (1781-83) - Slavery, its Abolition, and negro Citizenship in Early Massachusetts" in the Journal of Negro History, 1968
Walker, an enslaved Negro who had been promised emancipation by his late former owner, sued for his freedom. In the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling, Justice Cushing held for Walker on the basis of the Massachusetts State Constitution of 1780 and natural law grounds. Cushing wrote:
"As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that (it is true) has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws formerly, but nowhere is it expressly enacted or established. It has been a usage -- a usage which took its origin from the practice of some of the European nations, and the regulations of British government respecting the then Colonies, for the benefit of trade and wealth. But whatever sentiments have formerly prevailed in this particular or slid in upon us by the example of others, a different idea has taken place with the people of America, more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven (without regard to color, complexion, or shape of noses-features) has inspired all the human race. And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal -- and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property -- and in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves. This being the case, I think the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and Constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract ...."
"15 states refused to ratify the 14th Amendment. In response 28 Senators were unconstitutionally denied a seat in Congress. At which point Congress illegally overthrew the legitimate, duly-elected republican governments of most of the Confederate states via the Reconstruction Acts (see their ratification of the 13th Amendment for proof of republican govenments). New military governments were instituted (another violation of the republican guarantee), and these puppet governments ratified the 14th."
"The 14th Amendment was adopted only by virtue of ratification subsequent to earlier rejection. newly constituted legislatures in both North Carolina and South Carolina (respectively July 4 and July 9, 1868), ratified the proposed Amendment, although earlier legislatures had rejected the proposal. The Secretary of State issued a proclamtion, which, though doubtful as to the effect of the attempted withdrawals by Ohio and new jersey, entertained no doubt as to the validity of the ratification by North and South Carolina. the following day, (July 21, 1868), Congress passed a resolution which declared the 14th Amendment to be part of the Constitution and directed the Secretary of State so to promulgate it. The Secretary waited, however, until the newly constituted legislature of had ratified the Amendment, subsequent to an earlier rejection, before the promulgation opf the ratification of the new Amendment."
"Amemdments XIII, XIV, and XV are commonly known as the Reconstruction Amendments, inasmuch as they followed the Civil War, and were drafted by Republicans who were bent on imposing their own policy of reconstruction on the South. Post-bellum legislatures there - Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia, for example - had set up laws which, it was charged, were contrived to perpetuate Negro slavery under another name." (World Almanac entry)
Like I said before - old, bad habits die hard.
"The 14th also prevented (ex post facto) former Confederates the right of suffrage. So much for yankee visions of equality."
Why don't you actually try reading Section 3 of the 14th Amendment?
Now you're engaging in teleology. White Southerners didn't feel in 1866 that blacks were part of American society any more than Abraham Lincoln did in 1858 per his quotes above posted by others.
That they were included in American society rather than colonized was a matter subject to the political will of others: the black community was indeed still a slave society in all important respects(how could it change in one year?), however much their immediate circumstances may have suddenly improved, but they escaped colonization and expatriation only because Lincoln couldn't find the political will to put his ultimate plan into effect, and because the Black Republicans decided, viciously, to play "let's you and him fight" with their hated, defeated enemies. That's a Transactional Analysis game, btw -- this version was played at the level of the third degree, the degree in which smoke rises and blood flows. Postwar Republican Reconstruction politics relied on using the black population as a weapon against white Southerners in a program of permanent political domination for the Republicans' own socioeconomic benefit. And boy, did they benefit.
But who are you, Capitan, to judge those Southerners, at the comfortable distance of 140 years? Really, who are you to make these calls about other people's lights and times? You sound like a liberal, confidently and hypocritically calling dozens on people you don't know, for your own benefit.
Wait 'til you lose a war to people who hate you, before you go around telling everyone what you wouldn't do.