Civil Rights Act of 1866

Context

The Civil Rights Act transformed the protection of civil rights in the United States. Before its passage,  the enforcement of civil rights was viewed as a state responsibility; afterward, it was increasingly perceived to be the responsibility of the federal government. It was, therefore, an integral part of the Reconstruction  period, which changed the way the nation understood the Constitution.

The Civil Rights Act represented a direct response to the Black Codes. After the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which eliminated slavery and involuntary servitude but, more pointedly, the badges of slavery, a number of southern states enacted Black Codes to keep newly freed slaves in a subordinate status economically, politically, culturally, and legally. In essence, these codes reenacted and embraced elements of the law of slavery. Among other badges and shackles, the codes defined racial status, prohibited Blacks from pursuing certain occupations, controlled the movements of Blacks through a system of passes, prohibited the congregation of Blacks and restricted their residence in certain areas, and specified an etiquette of deference to whites. Blacks, moreover, were excluded from jury duty, public office, and voting.

The Civil Rights Act was intended to curb the effects of the Black Codes, but it also foreshadowed the Fourteenth Amendment and, consequently, represented a bridge from the Thirteenth Amendment as part of a continued effort to bring legal equality to new freedmen, a defining pillar of the Reconstruction amendments. Supporters of the Thirteenth Amendment believed that it  completed the Constitution and fulfilled the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Champions of  the  Fourteenth Amendment meant to constitutionalize the Civil Rights Act; indeed, the provisions of the act and Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment cover the same ground.  The efforts by members of Congress, including the so-called Radical Republicans, to achieve this level of equality, however, were continually frustrated by President Andrew Johnson and his potent exercise of the presidential veto.

Johnson's traditional view of states' rights and his conception of racial hierarchy lay behind his repeated efforts to frustrate congressional efforts to elevate the legal status of Black Americans. Before vetoing the Civil Rights Act, he vetoed a measure that would have expanded the Freedmen's Bureau and its aims to protect the rights of Blacks. He denounced congressional efforts to impose citizenship for Blacks in states that he believed were unrepresented, and he decried federal measures that would determine the scope of civil rights, a power, he believed, that belonged to the states. His antagonism toward Blacks was further manifested in his opposition to the Fourteenth Amendment. The determination of Congress prevailed, as seen in its success in overriding Johnson's vetoes of both the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Act. Although Congress enjoyed victories in these and other battles with Johnson, genuine success proved elusive, since the United States would continue to be plagued by both institutional and private acts of racism for the next century and beyond.