# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Three amendments passed after the Civil War transformed the women's rights movement. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, made slavery illegal. Black women who were enslaved before the war became free and gained new rights to control their labor, bodies, and time.

The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the new rights of freed women and men in 1868. The law stated that everyone born in the United States, including former slaves, was an American citizen. No state could pass a law that took away their rights to "life, liberty, or property."

The Fourteenth Amendment also added the first mention of gender into the Constitution. It declared that all male citizens over twenty-one years old should be able to vote. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment affirmed that the right to vote "shall not be denied...on account of race."

The insertion of the word "male" into the Constitution and the enfranchisement of African American men presented new challenges for women's rights activists. For the first time, the Constitution asserted that men-not women-had the right to vote. Previously, only state laws restricted voting rights to men. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "If that word 'male' be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out."

Activists bitterly fought about whether to support or oppose the Fifteenth Amendment. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony objected to the new law. They wanted women to be included with black men. Others-like Lucy Stone-supported the amendment as it was. Stone believed that women would win the vote soon. The emphasis on voting during the 1860s led women's rights activists to focus on woman suffrage. The two sides established two rival national organizations that aimed to win women the vote.

By Allison Lange, Ph.D.
2015

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Three amendments passed after the Civil War transformed the women's rights movement. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, made slavery illegal. Black women who were enslaved before the war became free and gained new rights to control their labor, bodies, and time. The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the new rights of freed women and men in 1868.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Affirmative action

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens, "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." Although President Andrew Johnson vetoed the legislation, that veto was overturned by the 39th United States Congress and the bill became law. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the nation's first civil rights law.

Background

Under President Andrew Johnson's (D) Reconstruction policy, the former Confederate states were required to maintain abolition, swear loyalty to the United States, and pay their war debts in order to rejoin the Union. Under Johnson's Reconstruction policy, southern states adopted and enacted a series of laws "designed to restrict freed blacks' activity and ensure their availability as a labor force." Although these laws recognized certain liberties, they largely denied black citizens equal protection under the law. For instance, these laws restricted property, contract, and labor rights for black citizens. Republican lawmakers in the United States Congress, who "believed the federal government had a role in shaping a multiracial society in the postwar South," opposed Johnson's plan for Reconstruction and sought a different approach.

Legislative history

Senator Lyman Trumbull ( R- Illinois) introduced the bill in the United States Senate on January 5, 1866. On February 2, 1866, the Senate voted to approve the bill 33-12. On March 13, 1866, the United States House of Representatives approved the legislation by a vote of 111-38, with 34 members not voting. Representative William Lawrence ( R- Ohio), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the following in support of the act:

"

There are certain absolute rights which pertain to every citizen, which are inherent, and of which a State cannot constitutionally deprive him. But not only are those rights inherent and indestructible, but the means whereby they may be possessed and enjoyed are equally so. ... Every citizen, therefore, has the absolute right to live, the right of personal security, personal liberty, and the right to acquire and enjoy property. These are rights of citizenship. As necessary incidents of these rights there are others, as the right to make and enforce contracts, to purchase, hold, and enjoy property, and to share the benefit of laws for the security of person and property.

"

-Representative William Lawrence

On March 27, 1866, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act. Johnson wrote the following in his veto statement:

"

In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go indefinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored against the white race. They interfere with the municipal legislation of the States; with relations existing exclusively between a State and its citizens, or between inhabitants of the same State; an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited power, and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States.

"

-President Andrew Johnson

On April 6, 1866, the Senate voted 33-15 to override Johnson's veto. The House followed suit on April 9, 1866, by a vote of 122-41, with 21 members not voting. As a result, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law.

Key features

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is notable for being the nation's first civil rights law. The act established that all persons born in the United States, regardless of race, color, or "previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude," were entitled to basic rights of citizenship "in every state and territory in the United States." The law further declared that all such individuals were entitled to the following specific rights:

1. "to make and enforce contracts"

2. "to sue, be parties, and give evidence" in court

3. "to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property"

4. "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"

The law also provided for the conviction and punishment of individuals who violated the law.

Later developments

The Civil Rights of 1866 did not address political rights, which include the right to vote and the right to hold public office. The Fifteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified in February 1870, guaranteed to all United States citizens the right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Even so, according to the National Constitution Center, the Fifteenth Amendment "had little impact for almost a century because states imposed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other restrictions that kept African Americans from voting." Subsequent legislative actions in the 20th century, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were taken to address this problem.

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Affirmative action The Civil Rights Act of 1866 declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens, "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." Although President Andrew Johnson vetoed the legislation, that veto was overturned by the 39th United States Congress and the bill became law.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On March 3, 1865, Congress passed " An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees " to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans. The Freedmen's Bureau was to operate "during the present war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter," and also established schools, supervised contracts between freedmen and employers, and managed confiscated or abandoned lands. The battle to establish the Freedmen's Bureau, and then to extend the legislation one year later, was a major factor in the struggle between President Andrew Johnson and Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction and the role of the federal government in integrating four million newly emancipated African Americans into the political life of the nation.

In 1863 Representative T. D. Eliot of Massachusetts proposed a bill establishing a bureau of emancipation within the Department of War to provide protection and support to newly freed African Americans. Freedmen aid societies had been advocating for such an agency through memorials, petitions, and direct lobbying. The House spent two months debating the bill and finally passed it by a vote of 69 to 67 on March 1, 1864. The bill was then referred to the Senate's Select Committee on Slavery and Freedom, chaired by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.

Senate debate on the bill focused on which executive department should run the bureau. Some senators objected to placing the Freedmen's Bureau in the Department of War, favoring the Department of the Treasury instead. Insisting that the well-being of freedmen depended on their connection to the land, these senators noted that Congress had placed control of confiscated lands in the Treasury Department and argued that freedmen and lands should be handled by one authority. Senators who favored the War Department believed it had more experience than any other agency in addressing the needs of freedmen and thought military power was necessary to protect former slaves.

Despite the fact that an amended bill would have to go back the House-where it had narrowly passed before-the Senate placed the bureau under the Treasury department and passed its amended Freedman's Bureau bill on June 28, 1864, by a vote of 21 to 9. The House refused to agree to the Senate's changes, however, so the bill went to conference. The conference committee reported a new bill on February 2, 1865, authorizing an independent Department of Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, not subject to either the War or the Treasury Departments.

The revised legislation stirred more debate. In addition to the issue of which department should control the Freedmen's Bureau, senators disputed the role of the federal government in providing special treatment to a specific group of people at the exclusion of others. Some senators argued that the Freedmen's Bureau would make former slaves and Southern refugees dependent on government bureaucrats who might take advantage of them. It would, in effect, prolong their servitude, Iowa senator James Grimes claimed. "Are they free men, or are they not? If they are free men, why not let them stand as free men?" he asked. Senator Sumner countered that assistance was a necessity during the transition from slavery to freedom. "The curse of slavery is still upon them," he insisted. "Call it charity or duty," he said, regarding the creation of the Freedman's Bureau, "it is sacred as humanity."

Ultimately, the Senate voted not to concur with the conference report and requested a second conference, which agreed to place control of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in the War Department. Although several senators vociferously opposed the legislation, the Senate adopted the conference report on March 3, 1865, by a vote of 21 to 9, with 22 members abstaining. The House quickly followed suit, and President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill that same day. A little more than a month later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and Vice President Andrew Johnson, who would repeatedly clash with Radical Republicans in the House and Senate, assumed the presidency.

While the Act creating the Freedmen's Bureau was a considerable legislative accomplishment, it limited the agency's operation to just one year after the end of the Civil War. On January 5, 1866, Illinois senator Lyman Trumbull introduced a bill to extend the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau Act by removing an expiration date and encompassing freedmen and refugees everywhere in the United States-not just in the ex-Confederate states. His bill also expanded the power of military governors to enforce provisions to protect African Americans and defined the organization of interim governments in the South under conditions prescribed by Congress. For nearly three weeks the Senate debated the bill and on January 25, approved it by a vote of 37 to 10. After House approval, the bill went to the president's desk on February 13. Supporters of the legislation, including Lyman Trumbull, believed President Andrew Johnson would sign the bill, so they were shocked when he sent the bill back to the Senate on February 19 with a veto message. Johnson's stated reasons for opposing the legislation were similar to the arguments made by the measure's opponents in the House and Senate-it was unnecessary to extend the original legislation, it infringed on states' rights, it gave the federal government an unprecedented role in providing aid to a specific group of people at the exclusion of others, and it was expensive. Johnson had resisted all congressionally driven reconstruction programs and denounced those who stood "opposed to the restoration of the Union." He viewed the Southern states as fully restored and thus "entitled to enjoy their constitutional rights as members of the Union." Democrats and moderate Republicans supported the president's position, and a vote to override the veto the next day failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote.

The issue floundered until May, when a more moderate House bill to extend the Freedmen's Bureau was proposed. This final bill gained approval by both the House and the Senate and went to the president on July 3. Again, President Johnson vetoed the bill. This time, however, both the Senate and the House mustered the two-thirds majorities necessary to override the veto. The Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866 became law on July 16, extending the work of the agency for two more years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Landmark Legislation: Freedmen's Bureau Act