The Black Codes were laws passed by states in the American South in 1865 and 1866, in the aftermath of the defeat of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The Black Codes were passed by the state legislatures of the former Confederate states, which were controlled by the reactionary Southern Democrats. The codes were meant to reduce the influence of free African-Americans, and the codes stated that blacks could not own property or guns, could not vote, and could be arrested and forced to work without pay if they were unemployed (slavery). This form of quasi-slavery was meant to negate the results of the Civil War, but the decisive victory of the Republican Party in the 1866 congressional elections allowed for the new US Congress to implement the military occupation of the South during "Reconstruction". The white supremacist "Black Codes" would be justified under Plessy v. Ferguson, which decreed that segregation under the "separate but equal" Jim Crow policies were constitutional, and the South would experience segregation until the 1960s, and the South is still plagued by racism.