Andrew Johnson’s Veto of the Civil Rights Act (1866)

Document Text

WASHINGTON, D.C.,

March 27, 1866.

To the Senate of the United States:

I regret that the bill, which has passed both Houses of Congress, entitled “An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights and furnish the means of their vindication,” contains provisions which I can not approve consistently with my sense of duty to the whole people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States. I am therefore constrained to return it to the Senate, the House in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law.

By the first section of the bill all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.… It does not purport to give these classes of persons any status as citizens of States, except that which may result from their status as citizens of the United States. The power to confer the right of State citizenship is just as...