Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Template:USStat, enacted April 9, 1866, reenacted 1870) was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It was mainly intended, in the wake of the American Civil War, to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States.<ref name=text>Civil Rights Act of 1866</ref>

The Act was passed by Congress in 1866 and vetoed by U.S. President Andrew Johnson. In April 1866, Congress again passed the bill to support the Thirteenth Amendment, and Johnson again vetoed it, but a two-thirds majority in each chamber overrode the veto to allow it to become law without presidential signature.

John Bingham and other congressmen argued that Congress did not yet have sufficient constitutional power to enact this law. Following passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, Congress ratified the 1866 Act in 1870.

Primary objectives, introduction and amendment

The act had three primary objectives for the integration of African Americans into the American society following the Civil War: 1.) a broadened definition of American citizenship overturning the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision (but retaining some exceptions) 2.) attaching civil rights which flow from this citizenship and 3.) the unlawfulness to deprive any person of citizenship rights "on the basis of race, color, or prior condition of slavery or involuntary servitude."<ref name="20180626Encyclopedia.com">Template:Cite web</ref> The act accomplished these three primary objectives.<ref name="20180626Encyclopedia.com" />

The author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was United States Senator Lyman Trumbull.<ref>Lash, Kurt. "The Origins of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Part II: John Bingham and the Second Draft of the Fourteenth Amendment Template:Webarchive", Georgetown Law Journal, Volume 99, p. 361 (2011).</ref> Congressman James F. Wilson summarized what he considered to be the purpose of the act as follows, when he introduced the legislation in the House of Representatives:<ref>Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 39th Congress, 1st Session Template:Webarchive, p. 1117 (March 1, 1866).</ref>

During the subsequent legislative process, the following key provision was deleted: "there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Territory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." John Bingham was an influential supporter of this deletion, on the ground that courts might construe the term "civil rights" more broadly than people like Wilson intended.<ref>Kull, Andrew. The Color-Blind Constitution Template:Webarchive, pp. 75–78 (Harvard University Press, 1994).</ref> Weeks later, Senator Trumbull described the bill's intended scope:<ref>Lash, Kurt. "The Origins of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Part II: John Bingham and the Second Draft of the Fourteenth Amendment Template:Webarchive", Georgetown Law Journal, Volume 99, p. 394 (2011). This statement by Senator Trumbull was discussed by both the majority as well as by dissenting Justice Harlan in the Supreme Court case of Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 Template:Webarchive (1968). See the transcript from April 4, 1866 Template:Webarchive.</ref>

On April 5, 1866, the Senate overrode President Andrew Johnson's veto. This marked the first time that the U.S. Congress ever overrode a presidential veto for a major piece of legislation.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Content

With an incipit of "An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their vindication", the act declared that all people born in the United States who are not subject to any foreign power are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.<ref name=text /> A similar provision (called the Citizenship Clause) was written a few months later into the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also said that any citizen has the same right that a white citizen has to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Additionally, the act guaranteed to all citizens the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and ... like punishment, pains, and penalties..." Persons who denied these rights on account of race or previous enslavement were guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction faced a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.<ref name=text />

The act used language very similar to that of the Equal Protection Clause in the newly proposed Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, the act discussed the need to provide "reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. ..."<ref name=text />

This statute was a major part of general federal policy during Reconstruction, and was closely related to the Second Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866. According to Congressman John Bingham, "the seventh and eighth sections of the Freedmen's Bureau bill enumerate the same rights and all the rights and privileges that are enumerated in the first section of this [the Civil Rights] bill."<ref>Halbrook, Stephen. Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms, 1866–1876, page 29 Template:Webarchive (Greenwood Publishing Group 1998).</ref>

Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 are enforceable into the 21st century,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> according to the United States Code:<ref>Template:USC</ref>

One section of the United States Code (42 U.S.C. §1981), is §1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as revised and amended by subsequent Acts of Congress. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was reenacted by the Enforcement Act of 1870, ch. 114, § 18, 16 Stat. 144, codified as sections 1977 and 1978 of the Revised Statutes of 1874, and appears now as 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981–82 (1970). Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as subsequently revised and amended, appears in the US Code at 18 U.S.C. §242. After the fourteenth amendment became effective, the 1866 Act was reenacted as an addendum to the Enforcement Act of 1870 in order to dispel any possible doubt as to its constitutionality. Act of May 31, 1870, ch. 114, § 18, 16 Stat. 144.Template:Sfn

Enactment, constitutionalization, and reenactment

File:Flickr - USCapitol - Civil Rights Bill Passes, 1866.jpg

Mural of the passage of the act

Senator Lyman Trumbull was the Senate sponsor of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and he argued that Congress had power to enact it in order to eliminate a discriminatory "badge of servitude" prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.<ref name=Salzman>Salzman, Lawrence. "Civil Rights Act of 1866" in Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, by Paul Finkelman, Volume 1, pp. 299–300 Template:Webarchive (CRC Press, 2006).</ref> Congressman John Bingham, principal author of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, was one of several Republicans who believed (prior to that Amendment) that Congress lacked power to pass the 1866 Act.<ref>Curtis, Michael Kent. No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights, p. 80 (Duke University Press 1986).</ref> In the 20th century, the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately adopted Trumbull's Thirteenth Amendment rationale for congressional power to ban racial discrimination by states and by private parties, as the Thirteenth Amendment does not require a state actor.<ref name=Salzman />

To the extent that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 may have been intended to go beyond preventing discrimination, by conferring particular rights on all citizens, the constitutional power of Congress to do that was more questionable. For example, Representative William Lawrence argued that Congress had power to enact the statute because of the Privileges and Immunities Clause in Article IV of the original unamended Constitution, even though courts had suggested otherwise.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In any event, there is currently no consensus that the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 actually purports to confer any legal benefits upon white citizens.<ref>Lund, Nelson. "Two Faces of Judicial Restraint (Or Are There More?) in McDonald v. Chicago" Template:Webarchive, Florida Law Review (forthcoming).</ref> Representative Samuel Shellabarger said that it did not.<ref>Harrison, John. "Reconstructing the Privileges or Immunities Clause", 10 Yale Law Journal 1385 (1992).</ref><ref>Congressional Globe, House of Representatives, 39th Congress, 1st Session, page 1293 (1866) Template:Webarchive.</ref>

After enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by overriding a presidential veto,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn some members of Congress supported the Fourteenth Amendment in order to eliminate doubts about the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1866,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> or to ensure that no subsequent Congress could later repeal or alter the main provisions of that Act.<ref>Yen, Chin-Yung. Rights of citizens and persons under the Fourteenth amendment, page 7 Template:Webarchive (New Era Printing Company 1905).</ref> Thus, the Citizenship Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment parallels citizenship language in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and likewise the Equal Protection Clause parallels nondiscrimination language in the 1866 Act; the extent to which other clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment may have incorporated elements of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is a matter of continuing debate.<ref>See McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. (2010).</ref>

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. Two years later, the 1866 Act was reenacted as Section 18 of the Enforcement Act of 1870.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Aftermath and consequences

After Johnson's veto was overridden, the measure became law. Despite this victory, even some Republicans who had supported the goals of the Civil Rights Act began to doubt that Congress possessed the constitutional power to turn those goals into laws.<ref>Rosen, Jeffrey. The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America, p. 79 (MacMillan 2007).</ref><ref>Newman, Roger. The Constitution and its Amendments, Vol. 4, p. 8 (Macmillan 1999).</ref> The experience encouraged both radical and moderate Republicans to seek Constitutional guarantees for black rights, rather than relying on temporary political majorities.Template:Sfn

The activities of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) undermined the act, meaning that it failed to immediately secure the civil rights of African Americans.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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The vote breakdown in the US Senate by party of The Civil Rights Act of 1866.

While it has been de jure illegal in the U.S. to discriminate in employment and housing on the basis of race since 1866, federal penalties were not provided for until the second half of the 20th century (with the passage of related civil rights legislation), which meant remedies were left to the individuals involved: because those being discriminated against had limited or no access to legal assistance, this often left many victims of discrimination without recourse.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

There have been an increasing number of remedies provided under this act since the second half of the 20th century, including the landmark Jones v. Mayer and Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc. decisions in 1968.Template:Sfn

Legislative Breakdown

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The vote breakdown in the US House by party of The Civil Rights Act of 1866.

S. 61 was brought to a floor vote in the chambers of the US Senate on April 6, 1866. Three political parties were present. The Republican Party voted 32 in favor, 4 against. The Democratic Party voted 0 in favor, 11 against, and the Unconditional Unionists voted 12 in favor, 0 against. 1 member did not vote. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

It was brought to a floor vote in the US House of Representatives on April 9, 1866. Four political parties were present to vote in the House of Representatives on the motion to pass S. 61. The Republican Party voted 117 in favor, 2 against. The Democratic Party voted 0 in favor, 33 against. The Unconditional Unionists voted 4 in favor, 0 against. 21 members did not vote.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• US labor law
• Civil right acts in the United States
• History of civil rights in the United States
• Black homesteaders

References

Bibliography

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Further reading

• Bracey, Christopher A., and Cody J. Foster. Gale Researcher Guide for: The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Gale, Cengage Learning, 2018).
• Cahill, Bernadette. No Vote for Women: The Denial of Suffrage in Reconstruction America (McFarland, 2019).
• Dew, Lee Allen. "The Reluctant Radicals of 1866," Midwest Quarterly (Spring 1967) pp 261–276.
• Edwards, Laura F. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (Cambridge UP, 2015).
• Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 (1988)
• Hyman, Harold M. A More Perfect Union (1975) pp 427–31 online
• Kaczorowski, Robert J. "The Enforcement Provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1866: A Legislative History in Light of Runyon v. McCrary." The Yale Law Journal 98.3 (1989): 565–595.
• Kohl, Robert L. "The Civil Rights Act of 1866, Its Hour Come Round at Last: Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co." Virginia Law Review (1969): 272–300. online
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• Samito, Christian G., ed. The Greatest and the Grandest Act: The Civil Rights Act of 1866 from Reconstruction to Today (Southern Illinois UP, 2018) excerpt.
• Tsesis, Alexander. The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History (2004)

Primary sources

• Samito, Christian G., ed. Changes in Law and Society During the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Legal History Documentary Reader (SIU Press, 2009).