Meanwhile, on
February 2, 1866, the Senate had
passed the Civil
Rights Bill, 33-12, with just three Republicans voting against
the measure. On March 13, it passed the House, 109-38, with
only six Republicans among the no votes. In the March 31 issue
of Harper’s Weekly (published March 21), editor George
William Curtis
justified the Civil Rights Bill as
an appropriate response to the situation following adoption of
the Thirteenth Amendment; in essence, “this Bill of Rights is
necessary, simple, and precise.” He praised it as “truly a
Magna Charta” that “overthrows all hostile legislation of the
States against equality of civil rights.” The editorial
appeared two days after Johnson vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau
Bill, but Curtis may have written it before. In any event, the
editor optimistically forecast, “we see no reason to suppose
that the President will dissent.” Similarly, as with the
Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, Senator Trumbull and other leading
Republicans had come away from discussions with the president
convinced that he found the Civil Rights Bill acceptable.
Nevertheless, on March 27, President
Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Bill as an unconstitutional
violation of states’ rights, characterizing it as “another step,
or rather stride, toward centralization, and the concentration
of all legislative powers in the national government.”
Harper’s Weekly editor Curtis
reacted in the
April 14 issue (published April 4). He reviewed the history of
color and citizenship to explain why a national definition of
citizenship was necessary. He rebutted the president’s
objections, concluding that Johnson’s states’ rights policies
were inadequate to secure the civil rights of black Americans.
The president’s veto of the Civil Rights
Bill was the fateful action that broke the previously
cooperative relationship between Johnson and Republican
moderates, such as Trumbull and Fessenden. Thereafter, they
joined forces with the Radicals to resist Johnson’s
Reconstruction policies. On April 6, the Senate again passed
the Civil Rights Bill with over a
two-thirds majority,
33-15, and the House followed suit three days later, 122-41. It
was the first time in American history that a bill became law by
a congressional override of a presidential veto. Illustrations
in the
April 28
issue of Harper’s Weekly (published April
18) showed the jubilation expressed outside the
House galleries by blacks and white Civil War veterans and by
white women. |
1)
February 17, 1866, p. 99, c. 4
“Domestic Intelligence”
column
2) March 31, 1866, p. 194, c. 2-3
editorial, “The Civil
Rights Bill”
3) April 14, 1866, p. 226, c.3
and p. 227, c. 1
editorial, “The
Civil Rights Bill”
4)
April 21, 1866, p. 247, c. 4
“Domestic Intelligence”
column
5) April 28, 1866, p. 269
illustrations (top), “Outside of
the Galleries of the House of Representatives during the Passage of the Civil
Rights Bill” |