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Section One: Civil Rights // Section Two: Apportionment
Section Three: Punitive Measures // Section Four: Confederate Debt

While Senator Lyman Trumbull worked to enact the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights Bills, other congressmen wanted to incorporate civil rights for the freedmen explicitly into the U.S. Constitution, rather than leave them to protection by federal legislation or state governments.  Many of the principles that later formed the various sections of the Fourteenth Amendment were proposed originally as separate constitutional amendments.

What became Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment went through more changes before reaching its final form, and subsequently had more impact on constitutional law, than the other four sections of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The four clauses of Section One, respectively, (1) defined American citizenship, (2) prohibited abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens, (3) applied the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment (part of the Bill of Rights) to the states, and (4) guaranteed “the equal protection of the laws.”

On the first day of the 39th Congress, December 4, 1865, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, a leading Radical Republican and civil rights advocate, introduced his own Reconstruction agenda consisting of several resolutions, bills, and constitutional amendments.  He insisted that Congress should ensure that “all persons shall be equal before the law, whether in the court-room or at the ballot-box.”  The Joint Committee on Reconstruction apparently did not consider his proposals.  On December 5, 1865, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, another prominent Radical Republican, proposed a constitutional amendment declaring, “All national and state laws shall be equally applicable to every citizen, and no discrimination shall be made on account of race and color.” 

The next day, December 6, Congressman John Bingham of Ohio, introduced a more comprehensive constitutional amendment.  Bingham did not agree with Senator Trumbull’s contention that the enforcement clause of the Thirteenth Amendment gave Congress the authority to legislate in the area of civil rights.  Therefore, the Ohio congressman sought to confer the power explicitly on Congress through a constitutional amendment, and, in the meantime, voted against the Civil Rights Bill.  In January and February 1866, the Joint Committee on Reconstruction considered several versions of a similar constitutional amendment, but it was Bingham’s proposal, submitted to the committee on January 12, which laid the foundation for what later became the vital Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment.  His suggested constitutional amendment read:

The Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to secure to all persons in every State within this Union equal protection in their rights of life, liberty and property.

After changes were proposed in sub-committee and committee meetings, Bingham introduced on February 3 a substitute, which was approved by the Reconstruction Committee on February 10:

The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty and property.

Reconstruction Committee Chairman Fessenden introduced the measure into the Senate on February 13, and Bingham introduced it into the House on February 26.  Debate on the Bingham amendment was tabled until April, by which time it had been incorporated into the proposed Fourteenth Amendment.


Harper's Weekly References

1)  March 3, 1866, p. 131, c. 3
“Domestic Intelligence” column

2)  March 10, 1866, p. 147, c. 4
“Domestic Intelligence” column


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Section One: Civil Rights // Section Two: Apportionment
Section Three: Punitive Measures // Section Four: Confederate Debt
 
 

     
 

 
     
 

 
     
 

 

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