<P> Some of the leading officers of the state down there--men who do much to form and control the opinions of the masses--instead of doing as they promised, and quietly submitting to the authority of the government, engaged in issuing slave codes and in promulgating them to their subordinates, ordering them to carry them into execution, and this to the knowledge of state officials of a higher character, the governor and others . (...) These codes were simply the old black code of the state, with the word' slave' expunged, and' Negro' substituted . The most odious features of slavery were preserved in them . </P> <P> Conway describes surveying the Louisiana jails and finding large numbers of Black men who had been secretly incarcerated . These included members of the Seventy - Fourth Colored Infantry who had been arrested the day after they were discharged . </P> <P> The state passed a harsher version of its code in 1866, criminalizing "impudence," "swearing," and other signs of "disobedience" as determined by whites . </P> <P> Of the Black Codes passed in 1866 (after the Northern reaction had become apparent), only Florida's rivaled those of Mississippi and South Carolina in severity . Florida's slaveowners seemed to hold out hope that the institution of slavery would simply be restored . Advised by the Florida governor and attorney general as well as by the Freedmen's Bureau that it could not constitutionally revoke Black people's right to bear arms, the Florida legislature refused to repeal this part of the codes . </P>

Which act of congress overturned southern black codes