1866 Andrew Johnson – Section 3 of the 14th Amendment (Jonson’s Veto of the 1866 Civil Rights Act)
In 1862, Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson as the military governor of Tennessee. Johnson after all, was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state’s secession. Johnson was known as a Southern Unionist, and made a logical choice as Lincoln’s running mate in 1864. Lincoln wanted to send a message of national unity in his campaign. But, in 1866 when Radical Republicans gained the majority, and claimed a mandate to override Johnson’s veto of the 1866 civil rights act which led to the fourteenth amendment granting blacks equal rights, he saw it as vengeful. Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment after all could be used to block many former Congressmen and Senators from Southern states, because they engaged in insurrection against the United States. It was a direct attack on Johnson’s promised to forge a centrist coalition with the South.
The fourteenth amendment states that No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. It has been used as the basis for landmark decisions such as the civil rights case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) an Roe v. Wade (1973). The fourteenth amendment, was enacted to insure against the repeal or overturning of the Civil Rights At of 1866. One of the moments of the time just prior to the Civil War was the ruling of the Dred Scott case (Scott v. Stanford) which declared that African Americans were not citizens of the United States. In 1866, Congress passed the 1866 civil rights act which overturned this decision and provided a definition of citizenship. On March 27, 1866, President Andrew Johnson vetoed this bill. In his veto message, he expressed his opposition on each section of the amendment, starting with the first section, suggesting that the blacks did not possess the necessary qualifications to be citizens,
“Can it be reasonably supposed that they possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States? Have the people of the several States expressed such a conviction?”
But Johnson’s real concern, was not just that blacks would become citizens, but that states would lose their right to discriminate. One simple example, was the right to marry. Many states forbid mixed marriages, but the act would now give the federal government the right to repeal these laws. Johnson argued, that if the federal government could forbid a state from discriminating based upon race regarding laws such as marriages, then they would also have the right to forbid discrimination between the “between the two races on the subjects of suffrage and office.” In other words, the fourteenth amendment would eventually allow blacks to run for office or judge in every state of the Union.
” If it be granted that Congress can repeal all State laws discriminating between whites and blacks in the subjects covered by this bill, why, it may be asked, may not Congress repeal in the same way all State laws discriminating between the two races on the subjects of suffrage and office? If Congress can declare by law who shall hold lands, who shall testify, who shall have capacity to make a contract in a State, then Congress can by law also declare who, without regard to color or race, shall have the right to sit as a juror or as a judge, to hold any office, and, finally, to vote “in every State and Territory of the United States.”
Congress disagreed with Johnson’s objections, and by June, both the House and the Senate had a enough votes to override President Johnson’s veto. The civil rights act was now law. To insure that it could not be repealed or overturned, Congress took additional steps to include much of it’s wording in the 14th amendment. On June 16, 1866, a Joint Resolution in the House and Senate proposed the 14th amendment to the Constitution and submitted it to the states. President Johnson was not happy, to say the least, under Section 3 of the fourteenth amendment, Congress included wording that would allow them to continue blocking many former Congressmen and Senators from Southern states, just because they engaged in the rebellion and supported the confederacy.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The civil rights act, like section 3 of the amendment would also negate any attempts by Johnson to distribute amnesties and pardons. President Johnson, like Lincoln before him had promised to forge a centrist coalition with the South. But when Radical Republicans gained enough seats in 1866 to oppose Johnson, and secure a mandate for passing the Fourteenth Amendment, they could impose harsher punishments on the South. President Johnson, may have objected to the civil rights act based on racial biases, but he and southern Democrats now viewed section 3 of the 14th amendment as vengeful. President lashed out at congress during his 1866 annual address:
“I deem it a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far failed to admit to seats loyal Senators and Representatives from the other States whose inhabitants, with those of Tennessee, had engaged in the rebellion. Ten States–more than one-fourth of the whole number–remain without representation; the seats of fifty members in the House of Representatives and of twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by their own consent, not by a failure of election, but by the refusal of Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed, would have accomplished much toward the renewal and strengthening of our relations as one people and removed serious cause for discontent on the part of the inhabitants of those States. It would have accorded with the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of American Independence that no people ought to bear the burden of taxation and yet be denied the right of representation. It would have been in consonance with the express provisions of the Constitution that “each State shall have at least one Representative” and “that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” These provisions were intended to secure to every State and to the people of every State the right of representation in each House of Congress; and so important was it deemed by the framers of the Constitution that the equality of the States in the Senate should be preserved that not even by an amendment of the Constitution can any State, without its consent, be denied a voice in that branch of the National Legislature.”
The fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868.