escape  its   restrictions,   asserting  whatever  autonomy  they  could  over their working and personal lives.     Thousands  left their homes to reunite with  families  or to  contract with employers  of their choice. Others  challenged  apprenticeship  laws  which  bound  the  labor  of their children to white employers.     Some rented land and a few acquired acres of their own.    Many moved to Baltimore or Washington.
White opposition to black aspirations was equally forthright.     The refusal   of conservative  Unionists  and  pro-southern  Democrats   to countenance anything  for freed slaves  beyond a strict reading of the 13th   Amendment  was   immediate,   vociferous,   and  hardly   surprising.2 Less  predictable  but  equally  important  were   "radical"   Unionists   and Republicans   whose   pro-northern   reconstruction   policies   contained inner  limitations  which  ultimately  undermined  the  very  people  they were intended to help.    As exponents of what Eric Foner has called the ideology of "free soil,  free labor, and free men,"  Maryland radicals  supported  civil  and political  rights  for black  citizens  and strove  to  provide  them  with  the  basic  essentials—including education—of free and self-reliant labor.     But  few escaped the economic  and racial  assumptions  of the time which limited the