Civil Rights Act of 1866

About the Author

Lyman Trumbull, author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, was born on October 12, 1813, in Colchester, Connecticut. He was educated at the prestigious Bacon Academy and began teaching at the age of sixteen. In 1834 he moved to Greenville, Georgia, where he studied law and opened a law practice. In 1837 he moved to Belleville, Illinois, where he resumed the practice of law.

Shortly after moving to Illinois, Trumbull entered politics. A man of strong conviction and principles, Trumbull exhibited a willingness to change political parties when party platforms and policies collided with his views and values. His plunge into political life began in 1840 when he was elected as a Democrat to the Illinois statehouse. He followed with a stint as Illinois secretary of state from 1841 to 1843 and then served as a justice on the Illinois Supreme Court from 1848 to 1853. Although he was elected  to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1854, Trumbull never served because he was immediately elected to the U.S. Senate by the Illinois state senate.

Soon after his election to the U.S. Senate, Trumbull's opposition to slavery compelled him to resign from the Democratic Party to become a Republican. His three-term career in the Senate was distinguished by his commitment to the freedom of African Americans. He backed President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, which freed slaves in states engaged in rebellion against the Union, but he believed in the need for emancipation of all slaves. Accordingly, he coauthored the Thirteenth Amendment, which, when ratified in 1865, abolished all slavery and involuntary servitude. His efforts on behalf of new freedmen resulted in a flurry of legislative activity. He authored the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, the Confiscation Acts, and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1866, which he championed in his position as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a courageous but costly decision, Trumbull broke party ranks, along with six other Republicans, in voting against the conviction of President Andrew Johnson during the president's impeachment trial in the Senate. Troubled by the procedural issues and the presentation of evidence during the trial, Trumbull exhibited an independence that had characterized his political career. His vote in the impeachment trial alienated him from the Republican Party. In 1872 he joined other liberal Republicans in supporting Horace Greeley's presidential campaign against the reelection bid of President Ulysses S. Grant.

At the end of his third term, Trumbull left Washington to return to  his law practice,  but he remained politically active until the end of his life. In 1880 he returned to the Democratic Party and campaigned unsuccessfully for the governorship of Illinois. In the 1890s he aligned himself with the Populist Party. Trumbull died in Chicago, on March 4, 1873.