This brief exchange of May, 1865, throws light on the motivation for the Privileges or Immunities clause of the 14th Amendment, passed by congress in the following year.
Not to mention the more fundamental and evidently entirely necessary affirmation of citizenship.
It was the aim of the Radical Republicans to not only end slavery but bring about political, social, and civil equality with whites for the freedmen and their posterity - more likely according to a vision closer to something modern libertarianism could espouse than something today's liberals would want, or than something the socialists per se of any day would want.
Due allowance made, perhaps, for issues of land re-distribution.
[Aside:
Which is not to say the constitution is or ever was an
embodiment of libertarian ideals and nothing contrary to them.
None so blind as those who will not see – or very much need
others not to see.
Even so, that made them considerably more ambitious than the then president Andrew Johnson or even his illustrious predecessor, Abraham Lincoln.
From the look of it, Johnson would have been satisfied to end reconstruction and restore "normal" politics in the country on condition the South accepted an end to slavery.
Nothing I have seen indicates Lincoln ever thought to demand more.
[07052020. Lately I have seen it asserted that just before being killed Lincoln had come to desire citizenship and the vote for all.]
The 14th and 15th Amendments reflect the least enabling basics for the more profound goals of the Radicals.
It seems likely they demand more than Lincoln would have and surely more than Johnson.
But they do nothing like requiring all that the Radicals wanted.
Or all that the freedmen wanted.
It would take another century for the country to get close.
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