Chapter LXXI: Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article (3)

"On the 10th of May the President [Andrew Johnson] issued a
proclamation declaring substantially that actual hostilities
had ceased, and that 'armed resistance to the authority of the
Government in the insurrectionary States may be regarded at an
end.' This great fact being officially recognized, the
President found himself face to face with the momentous duty
of bringing the eleven States of the Confederacy into active
and harmonious relations with the Government of the Union. …
An extra session of Congress seemed specially desirable at the
time, and had one been summoned by the President, many of the
troubles which subsequently resulted might have been averted.
… Declining to seek the advice of Congress, in the
embarrassments of his position, President Johnson necessarily
subjected himself to the counsel and influence of his
Cabinet," in which he had made no changes since President
Lincoln's death. Among the members of the cabinet, the one who
succeeded in obtaining ascendancy was Mr. Seward, who had
rapidly recovered from his injuries and resumed the direction
of the Department of State. Mr. Seward "was firmly persuaded
that the wisest plan of reconstruction was the one which would
be speediest; that for the sake of impressing the world with
the strength and the marvelous power of self-government, with
its Law, its Order, its Peace, we should at the earliest
possible moment have every State restored to its normal
relations with the Union. He did not believe that guarantee of
any kind beyond an oath of renewed loyalty was needful. He was
willing to place implicit faith in the coercive power of
self-interest operating upon the men lately in rebellion. … By
his arguments and by his eloquence Mr. Seward completely
captivated the President. He effectually persuaded him that a
policy of anger and hate and vengeance could lead only to evil
results. … The President was gradually influenced by Mr.
Seward's arguments, though their whole tenor was against his
strongest predilections and against his pronounced and public
committals to a policy directly the reverse. … Mr. Seward's
influence was supplemented and enhanced by the timely and
artful interposition of clever men from the South. … He
[President Johnson] was not especially open to flattery, but
it was noticed that words of commendation from his native
section seemed peculiarly pleasing to him. …
{3561}
On the 29th of May … two decisive steps were taken in the work
of reconstruction. Both steps proceeded on the theory that
every act needful for the rehabilitation of the seceded States
could be accomplished by the Executive Department of the
Government. … The first of these important acts of
reconstruction, upon the expediency of which the President and
Mr. Seward had agreed, was the issuing of a Proclamation of
Amnesty and Pardon to 'all persons who have directly or
indirectly participated in the existing Rebellion,' upon the
condition that such persons should take and subscribe an
oath—to be registered for permanent preservation—solemnly
declaring that henceforth they would 'faithfully support,
protect, and defend, the Constitution of the United States and
the union of the States thereunder;' and that they would also
'abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations
which have been made during the existing Rebellion, with
reference to the emancipation of slaves.' … The general
declaration of amnesty was somewhat narrowed in its scope by
the enumeration, at the end of the proclamation, of certain
classes which were excepted from its benefit." Of the thirteen
classes thus excepted, the first six were nearly identical
with those excepted in President Lincoln's proclamation of
December 8, 1863.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-JULY).

The classes added were: "Seventh, 'All persons who have been,
or are, absentees from the United States for the purpose of
aiding the Rebellion.' … Eighth, 'All officers in the rebel
service who had been educated at the United-States Military or
Naval Academy.' … Ninth, 'All men who held the pretended
offices of governors of States in insurrection against the
United States.' … Tenth, 'All persons who left their homes
within the jurisdiction and protection of the United States,
and passed beyond the Federal military lines into the
pretended Confederate States for the purpose of aiding the
Rebellion.' … Eleventh, 'All persons who have been engaged in
the destruction of the commerce of the United States upon the
high seas … and upon the lakes and rivers that separate the
British Provinces from the United States.' … Twelfth, 'All
persons who, at the time when they seek to obtain amnesty and
pardon, are in military, naval, or civil confinement, as
prisoners of war, or persons detained for offenses of any kind
either before or after conviction.' … Thirteenth, 'All
participants in the Rebellion, the estimated value of whose
taxable property is over $20,000.' … Full pardon was granted,
without further act on their part, to all who had taken the
oath prescribed in President Lincoln's proclamation of
December 8, 1863, and who had thenceforward kept and
maintained the same inviolate. … A circular from Mr. Seward
accompanied the proclamation, directing that the oath might
'be taken and subscribed before any commissioned officer,
civil, military, or naval, in the service of the United
States, or before any civil or military officer of a loyal
State or Territory, who, by the laws thereof, may be qualified
to administer oaths.' Everyone who took the oath was entitled
to a certified copy of it, … and a duplicate, properly
vouched, was forwarded to the State Department. … With these
details complete, a second step of great moment was taken by
the Government on the same day (May 29). A proclamation was
issued appointing William W. Holden provisional governor of
the State of North Carolina. … The proclamation made it the
duty of Governor Holden, 'at the earliest practicable period,
to prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary
and proper for assembling a convention—composed of delegates
who are loyal to the United States and no others—for the
purpose of altering or amending the Constitution thereof, and
with authority to exercise, within the limit of said State,
all the powers necessary and proper to enable the loyal people
of the State of North Carolina to restore said State to its
constitutional relations to the Federal Government.' … It was
specially provided in the proclamation that in 'choosing
delegates to any State Convention no person shall be qualified
as an elector or eligible as a member unless he shall have
previously taken the prescribed oath of allegiance, and unless
he shall also possess the qualifications of a voter as defined
under the Constitution and Laws of North Carolina as they
existed on the 20th of May, 1861, immediately prior to the
so-called ordinance of secession.' Mr. Lincoln had in mind, as
was shown by his letter to Governor Hahn of Louisiana, to try
the experiment of negro suffrage, beginning with those who had
served in the Union Army, and who could read and write; but
President Johnson's plan confined the suffrage to white men,
by prescribing the same qualifications as were required in
North Carolina before the war. … A fortnight later, on the
13th of June, a proclamation was issued for the reconstruction
of the civil government of Mississippi, and William L. Sharkey
was appointed provisional governor. Four days later, on the
17th of June, a similar proclamation was issued for Georgia
with James Johnson for provisional governor, and for Texas
with Andrew J. Hamilton for provisional governor. On the 21st
of the same month Lewis E. Parsons was appointed provisional
governor of Alabama, and on the 30th Benjamin F. Perry was
appointed provisional governor of South Carolina. On the 13th
of July the list was completed by the appointment of William
Marvin as provisional governor of Florida. The precise text of
the North Carolina proclamation, 'mutatis mutandis,' was
repeated in each one of those relating to these six States. …
For the reconstruction of the other four States of the
Confederacy different provisions were made." In Virginia, the
so-called "Pierpont government"—see VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861
(JUNE-NOVEMBER)—"the shell of which had been preserved after
West Virginia's separate existence had been recognized by the
National Government, with its temporary capital at Alexandria,
was accepted by President Johnson's Administration as the
legitimate Government of Virginia. All its archives, property,
and effects, as was afterwards said by Thaddeus Stevens, were
taken to Richmond in an ambulance. … A course not dissimilar
to that adopted in Virginia was followed in Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Tennessee. In all of them the so-called
'ten-per-cent' governments established under Mr. Lincoln's
authority were now recognized. … The whole scheme of
reconstruction, as originated by Mr. Seward and adopted by the
President, was in operation by the middle of July, three
months after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln.
{3562}
Every step taken was watched with the deepest solicitude by
the loyal people. The rapid and thorough change in the
President's position was clearly discerned and fully
appreciated. His course of procedure was dividing the
Republican party, and already encouraging the hopes of those
in the North who had been the steady opponents of Mr.
Lincoln's war policy, and of those in the South who had sought
for four years to destroy the Great Republic."

_J. G. Blaine,
Twenty Years of Congress,
volume 2, chapters 3-4._

ALSO IN:
_S. S. Cox,
Three Decades of Federal Legislation,
chapters 18-20._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (July-December).
Reports of Carl Schurz and General Grant on the condition
of affairs in the lately rebellious States.

In the summer of 1865 the Honorable Carl Schurz was
commissioned by President Johnson to visit the Southern States
and investigate the condition of affairs in them. Mr. Schurz,
on returning from this mission, made a report of the result of
his observations and inquiries, and the conclusions to which
they led him, which was transmitted to the Senate, by the
President, on the 18th of December. The views thus submitted
were summarized at the close of the report, as follows: "I may
sum up all I have said in a few words. If nothing were
necessary but to restore the machinery of government in the
States lately in rebellion in point of form, the movements
made to that end by the people of the south might be
considered satisfactory. But if it is required that the
southern people should also accommodate themselves to the
results of the war in point of spirit, those movements fall
far short of what must be insisted upon. The loyalty of the
masses and most of the leaders of the southern people consists
in submission to necessity. There is, except in individual
instances, an entire absence of that national spirit which
forms the basis of true loyalty and patriotism. The
emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as
chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But
although the freedman is no longer considered the property of
the individual master, he is considered the slave of society,
and all independent State legislation will share the tendency
to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery passed by
the conventions under the pressure of circumstances will not
be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of
servitude. Practical attempts on the part of the southern
people to deprive the negro of his rights as a freeman may
result in bloody collisions, and will certainly plunge
southern society into restless fluctuations and anarchical
confusion. Such evils can be prevented only by continuing the
control of the national government in the States lately in
rebellion until free labor is fully developed and firmly
established, and the advantages and blessings of the new order
of things have disclosed themselves. This desirable result
will be hastened by a firm declaration on the part of the
government, that national control in the south will not cease
until such results are secured. Only in this way can that
security be established in the south which will render
numerous immigration possible, and such immigration would
materially aid a favorable development of things. The solution
of the problem would be very much facilitated by enabling all
the loyal and free-labor elements in the south to exercise a
healthy influence upon legislation. It will hardly be possible
to secure the freedman against oppressive class legislation
and private persecution, unless he be endowed with a certain
measure of political power. As to the future peace and harmony
of the Union, it is of the highest importance that the people
lately in rebellion be not permitted to build up another
'peculiar institution' whose spirit is in conflict with the
fundamental principles of our political system; for as long as
they cherish interests peculiar to them in preference to those
they have in common with the rest of the American people,
their loyalty to the Union will always be uncertain. I desire
not to be understood as saying that there are no well-meaning
men among those who were compromised in the rebellion. There
are many, but neither their number nor their influence is
strong enough to control the manifest tendency of the popular
spirit. There are great reasons for hope that a determined
policy on the part of the national government will produce
innumerable and valuable conversions. This consideration
counsels lenity as to persons, such as is demanded by the
humane and enlightened spirit of our times, and vigor and
firmness in the carrying out of principles, such as is
demanded by the national sense of justice and the exigencies
of our situation." With the report of Mr. Schurz, the
President transmitted to the Senate, at the same time, a
letter written by General Grant after making a hurried tour of
inspection in some of the Southern States, during the last
week of November and early in December. General Grant wrote:
"Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the
point of the bayonet throughout the States in rebellion, have
left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that
ready obedience to civil authority the American people have
generally been in the habit of yielding. This would render the
presence of small garrisons throughout those States necessary
until such time as labor returns to its proper channel, and
civil authority is fully established. I did not meet anyone,
either those holding places under the government or citizens
of the southern States, who think it practicable to withdraw
the military from the south at present. The white and the
black mutually require the protection of the general
government. There is such universal acquiescence in the
authority of the general government throughout the portions of
country visited by me, that the mere presence of a military
force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain
order. The good of the country, and economy, require that the
force kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen,
(elsewhere in the southern States than at forts upon the
seacoast no force is necessary,) should all be white troops.
The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of
them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes
labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a
resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White
troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small
number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored
troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves.
It is not the thinking men who would use violence towards any
class of troops sent among them by the general government, but
the ignorant in some places might; and the late slave seems to
be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master
should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no
protection from the colored soldier.
{3563}
There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes.
My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of
the southern States are anxious to return to self-government,
within the Union, as soon as possible; that whilst
reconstructing they want and require protection from the
government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what
they think is required by the government, not humiliating to
them as citizens, and that if such a course were pointed out
they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that
there cannot be a greater commingling, at this time, between
the citizens of the two sections, and particularly of those
intrusted with the lawmaking power. … In some instances, I am
sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be
disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live
without care or provision for the future. The effect of the
belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in
camps, towns, and cities. In such cases I think it will be
found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination or
great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected
that the opinions held by men at the south for years can be
changed in a day, and therefore the freedmen require, for a
few years, not only laws to protect them, but the fostering
care of those who will give them good counsel, and on whom
they rely."

_39th Congress, 1st Session,
Senate Ex. Doc. no. 2, pages 45-46, 106-107._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (December).
The end of Slavery.
Proclamation of the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (JANUARY).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866.
The creation of the Freedmen's Bureau.

On the last day of the 38th Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act
was passed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen
and refugees. It was among the last Acts approved by Mr.
Lincoln, and was designed as a protection to the freedmen of
the South and to the class of white men known as "refugees,"—
driven from their homes on account of their loyalty to the
Union. The Act provided that the Bureau should have
"supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the
control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from
rebel States, or from any district of country within the
territory embraced in the operations of the army, under such
rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the head of the
bureau and approved by the President. The said bureau shall be
under the management and control of a commissioner, to be
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent
of the Senate. … The Secretary of War may direct such issues
of provisions, clothing, and fuel as he may deem needful for
the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute
and suffering refugees and freedmen, and their wives and
children, under such rules and regulations as he may direct. …
The President may, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, appoint an assistant commissioner for each of the
States declared to be in insurrection, not exceeding ten. …
Any military officer may be detailed and assigned to duty
under this act without increase of pay or allowances. … The
commissioner, under the direction of the President, shall have
authority to set apart for the use of loyal refugees and
freedmen such tracts of land, within the insurrectionary
States, as shall have been abandoned, or to which the United
States shall have acquired title by confiscation, or sale, or
otherwise. And to every male citizen, whether refugee or
freedman, as aforesaid, there shall be assigned not more than
40 acres of such land, and the person to whom it is so
assigned shall be protected in the use and enjoyment of the
land for the term of three years, at an annual rent not
exceeding 6 per centum upon the value of said land as it was
appraised by the State authorities in the year 1860. … At the
end of said term, or at any time during said term, the
occupants of any parcels so assigned may purchase the land and
receive such title thereto as the United States can convey. …
On the 20th of May, 1865, Major-General O. O. Howard was
appointed Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. He gave great
attention to the subject of education; and after planting
schools for the freedmen throughout a great portion of the
South, in 1870—five years after the work was begun—he made a
report. It was full of interest. In five years there were
4,239 schools established, 9,307 teachers employed, and
247,333 pupils instructed. In 1868 the average attendance was
89,396; but in 1870 it was 91,398, or 79¾ per-cent. of the
total number enrolled. The emancipated people sustained 1,324
schools themselves, and owned 592 school buildings. The
Freedmen's Bureau furnished 654 buildings for school
purposes."

_G. W. Williams,
History of the Negro Race in America,
part 8, chapters 21-22 (volume 2)._

As the original act, "by experience, had proved somewhat
inadequate for the ends in view, Congress, in the early part
of February, 1866, submitted an act amendatory … for executive
approval. Its main features consisted in the reservation of
three millions of acres of public land in the South from the
operation of the homestead and pre-emption laws for occupation
by former slaves at a rental to be approved by designated
authorities, an extension of the former means of relief in the
way of food and clothing, and the punishment, by tribunals
composed of the agents and officials of the bureau, of all
persons who should violate the rights under this act of its
designated beneficiaries. … The President, chafing under the
non-admission to their representation in Congress of the
Southern States which under his policy had been restored,
vetoed the bill February 19 on various grounds, among the more
important of which, and the only ones of particular import,
were that the measure violated constitutional guarantees in
that no person by our organic code should be deprived of life,
liberty or property without due process of law, and that
taxation should never be imposed without representation. …
February 21st the bill was again put upon its passage, but not
obtaining a two-thirds vote in the Senate, consequently failed
to become a law. … The third Freedmen's Bureau bill, of July,
1866, was another attempt to amend the original law of March
3, 1865, as to juridical measures for the enforcement thereof,
and to perfect the distribution of the abandoned and
confiscated lands of the South among the blacks. It was much
milder in form than the one vetoed in February of the same
year, as it did not make violations of the proposed law a
criminal offence.
{3564}
It proposed to give jurisdiction of such violations, however,
to military tribunals, made up of the agents and officers of
the bureau, until the Southern States had been restored to
their representation in Congress. … July 16, 1866, the
President vetoed the bill as a matter of course. He could have
pursued no other action without self-contradiction. Congress,
moreover, could not have reasonably expected a different
result. It framed the bill not with an eye for executive
approval, but with regard to its ability to pass it over the
disapproval of that official, which it did on the same day the
veto message was received, thereby making it a law of the
land."

_O. Skinner,
The Issues of American Politics,
part 2, chapter 2._

"The law made the agents of this Bureau guardians of freedmen,
with power to make their contracts, settle their disputes with
employers, and care for them generally. The position of Bureau
agent was one of power, of responsibility, capable of being
used beneficently, and sometimes, no doubt, it was; but these
officials were subjected to great temptation. … Nearly every
one of these agents who remained South after reconstruction
was a candidate for office; and many actually became
Governors, Judges, Legislators, Congressmen, Postmasters,
Revenue officers, etc."

_H. A. Herbert,
Why the Solid South?
chapter 1._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (December-April).
The Reconstruction question in Congress.
The Joint Committee of Fifteen.
The shaping of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The "independent measures of the Executive for reconstruction
were far from giving satisfaction to the Republican party.
Within a few days after the meeting of Congress, in December,
1865, Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, asked leave to introduce a
joint resolution which provided that a committee of fifteen
members should be appointed—nine of whom were to be members of
the House and six to be members of the Senate—for the purpose
of inquiring into the condition of the states which had formed
the so-called Confederate States of America. This committee
was to report whether these states or any of them were
entitled to be represented in either house of Congress. Leave
was given to report at any time, by bill or otherwise, and
until such should be made and finally acted upon by Congress,
no member was to be received into either house from any of
those states. All papers relating to this representation in
Congress were to be referred to this committee without debate.
This resolution was adopted in the House by a vote of—yeas
133, nays 36." In the Senate it received amendments which made
it a concurrent, instead of a joint resolution, and which
struck out the clause relating to the non-admittance of
members from the States in question pending the committee's
report, and also that which required a reference of papers to
the committee without debate.

_S. S. Cox,
Three Decades of Federal Legislation,
chapter 18._

The Joint Committee on Reconstruction was constituted by the
appointment (December 14), on the part of the House, of
Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn, Justin S. Morrill, Henry
Grider, John A. Bingham, Roscoe Conkling, George S. Boutwell,
Henry T. Blow, and Andrew J. Rogers; and by the appointment
(December 21), on the part of the Senate, of William Pitt
Fessenden, James W. Grimes, Ira Harris, Jacob M. Howard,.
Reverdy Johnson, and George H. Williams. The most serious
question connected with the problem of reconstruction was that
arising from the great increase of representation in Congress,
and consequent augmentation of political weight and power,
that must necessarily accrue to the lately rebellious States
from the emancipation of their slaves. To this question the
Committee gave their attention first. By an original provision
of the Constitution, representation is based on the whole
number of free persons in each State and three-fifths of all
other persons. "When all become free, representation for all
necessarily follows. As a consequence the inevitable effect of
the rebellion would be to increase the political power of the
insurrectionary States, whenever they should be allowed to
resume their positions as States of the Union. As
representation is by the Constitution based upon population,
your committee [said their report, when made, on the 8th of
June, 1866] did not think it advisable to recommend a change
of that basis. … It appeared to your committee that the rights
of these persons by whom the basis of representation had been
thus increased should be recognized by the general government.
… It did not seem just or proper that all the political
advantages derived from their becoming free should be confined
to their former masters, who had fought against the Union, and
withheld from themselves, who had always been loyal. … Doubts
were entertained whether Congress had power, even under the
amended Constitution, to prescribe the qualifications of
voters in a State, or could act directly on the subject. It
was doubtful, in the opinion of your committee, whether the
States would consent to surrender a power they had always
exercised, and to which they were attached. As the best if not
the only method of surmounting the difficulty, and as
eminently just and proper in itself, your committee came to
the conclusion that political power should be possessed in all
the States exactly in proportion as the right of suffrage
should be granted, without distinction of color or race. This
it was thought would leave the whole question with the people
of each State, holding out to all the advantage of increased
political power as an inducement to allow all to participate
in its exercise." To this conclusion the committee arrived as
early as the 22d of January, when they made a preliminary
report, recommending an amendment to the constitution to the
effect that "Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included
within this Union according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding
Indians not taxed: Provided, That whenever the elective
franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account
of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be
excluded from the basis of representation." Grave objections
were found to the proposed exclusion of the colored race as a
whole from the basis of representation, in case the suffrage
should be denied to any part of it. It was shown, moreover,
that disfranchisement might be practically accomplished on
other grounds than that of race or color and the intended
effect of the constitutional provision evaded.
{3665}
Hence the proposition of the Committee failed in the Senate
(March 9, 1866), though adopted by the House (January 31). On
the 20th of February, the Committee on Reconstruction reported
a concurrent resolution, "That in order to close agitation
upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of
the Government, as well as to quiet the uncertainty which is
agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which
have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or
Representative shall be admitted into either branch of
Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have
declared such State entitled to such representation." The
House adopted this important concurrent resolution the same
evening. In the Senate it was debated until the 2d of March,
when it was passed by a vote of 29 to 18. On the 30th of April
the Reconstruction Committee reported a joint resolution
embodying a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution,
designed to protect the rights of the freedmen of the South,
as citizens of the United States, and to fix the basis of
representation in Congress, as well as to settle other
questions arising out of the Rebellion. As adopted by Congress
in June, and subsequently ratified by the legislatures of the
necessary number of States this became what appears as the
Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (JUNE).

"This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied
by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately
in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its
Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and
qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The
other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late
Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of
the United States."

_W. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
chapters 3, and 13-19._

ALSO IN:
_Report of Joint Committee on Reconstruction,
39th Congress, 1st session.
H. R. Report, number. 30._

_A. R. Conkling,
Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling,
chapter 14._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866.
The Fenian movement and invasion of Canada.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867;
and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (February).
The French warned out of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D.1861-1867.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (April).
The passage of the first Civil Rights Bill
over the President's veto.

"Immediately on the reassembling of Congress after the
holidays, January 5, 1866, Mr. Trumbull [in the Senate], in
pursuance of previous notice, introduced a bill 'to protect
all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and
furnish the means of their vindication.' This bill, having
been read twice, was referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary." A few days later the bill was reported back from
the Committee, and it came up for discussion on the 29th of
January. On the 1st of February it passed the Senate and went
to the House. In that body it was reported from the Judiciary
Committee on the 1st of March, and debate upon the measure
began. It passed the House, with some amendments, March 13th,
by a vote of 111 to 38. The amendments of the House were
agreed to by the Senate, and it went to the President, who
returned it with an elaborate veto message on the 27th of
March. In the Senate, on the 6th of April, by 33 ayes to 15
nays, and in the House three days later, by 122 affirmative
votes to 41 in the negative, the bill was passed
notwithstanding the veto, and became law. As enacted, the
Civil Rights Bill declared "that all persons born in the
United States and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding
Indians not taxed, are … citizens of the United States; and
such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any
previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except
as a punishment for crime, … shall have the same right in
every State and Territory of the United States to make and
enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to
inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and
personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws
and proceedings for the security of person and property as is
enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like
punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law,
statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding." Section 2 of the act provided penalties for
its violation. The remaining sections gave to the district and
circuit courts of the United States cognizance of all crimes
and offenses committed against the provisions of the act;
extended the jurisdiction of those courts and enlarged and
defined the powers and duties of the district attorneys,
marshals, deputy marshals and commissioners of the United
States, to that end; made it lawful for the President "to
employ such part of the land or naval forces of the United
States, or of the militia, as shall be necessary to prevent
the violation and enforce the due execution of this act;" and,
finally, provided that "upon all questions of law arising in
any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may
be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States."

W_. H. Barnes,
History of the 39th Congress,
chapters 9-11._

ALSO IN:
_H. Wilson,
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power,
volume 3, chapter 48._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866 (June).
Congressional adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The joint resolution, embodying the important amendment to the
Federal Constitution which became, when ratified, the
Fourteenth Amendment, reported to Congress on the 30th of
April, 1866, by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction was
passed by the House of Representatives on the 10th of May, and
by the Senate on the 8th of June, with amendments which the
House concurred in on the 13th of June.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865-1866 (DECEMBER-APRIL).

Having no constitutional power to veto the resolution,
President Johnson sent a message to Congress on the 22d
expressing his disapproval of it. The proposed constitutional
amendment as it passed both Houses of Congress, and as it
became part of the constitution of the United States by
subsequent ratification of the States, is as follows:

"Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens
of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No
State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law; nor deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

{3566}

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the
several States according to their respective numbers, counting
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the
choice of electors for President and Vice President of the
United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and
judicial officers of a State, or the members of the
Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants
of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for
participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of
representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion
which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.