The Civil
Rights Bill.
The purpose of it was simply to establish equality in the enjoyment of civil rights for all citizens of the country and to make all persons born in the country and not subject to any foreign power citizens. The substantial part of the bill, as perfected, read: "All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be 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 whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in 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 the 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."
This is simply equality for all before the law. It conferred no political privilege and no social equality. It was fairly within the power of Congress to pass such a measure, by interpreting broadly the Thirteenth Amendment, without having any recourse to the idea of war powers. Slavery was nothing but extreme inequality in civil rights between master and servant. The prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude could, therefore, most certainly be held to be the prohibition of all of these incidents.
The remaining provisions of the bill did nothing more than fix penalties for violating, or attempting to violate, civil equality as thus defined, designate the officers charged with the duty of prosecuting the offenders, and establish the jurisdiction for the trial of such cases.
The penalties were somewhat grave. They might be as severe as a fine of one thousand dollars, or imprisonment for a year, or both, in the discretion of the courts. But they were not cruel or unusual, and were, therefore, within the power of Congress to prescribe. The officers authorized and required to institute proceedings against violators of the law were the district attorneys, marshals and deputy marshals of the United States courts, the commissioners appointed by the Circuit and Territorial courts of the United States, the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau, and every other officer whom the President might see fit to empower thereto. And the jurisdiction established for the trial of such cases was that of the United States courts, upon which was conferred original and exclusive jurisdiction in any case under the law, and to which any case touching these subjects commenced in a "State" court could be removed on motion of the defendant. But all these things were authorized by a liberal construction of the Thirteenth Amendment, which expressly vests in Congress the power to make all laws necessary and proper to enforce the prohibition of slavery throughout the whole country.
It was, indeed, a great change in the system of the jurisprudence of the United States that the central Government should define and protect
The measure sound
from the points of
view of modern
jurisprudence and
modern political
science.
On the 27th of March, he sent his veto of the bill into the Senate. It was a weak argument throughout. He objected to making the freedmen
The veto
of the bill.