March 27, 1866 – President Andrew Johnson Vetoes Civil Rights Bill

On this day in history, President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act passed by Congress which aimed to combat the discriminatory “Black Codes” enacted by the South. The bill offered a legislative definition for the first time of American citizenship and also spelled out the rights citizens were entitled to enjoy without regard to race. The concept of equality of the law was central to the measure.

President Andrew Johnson

As historian Eric Foner summarized the Act in Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction:

In constitutional terms, the Civil Rights Bill represented the first attempt to give concrete meaning to the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery, to define in legislative terms the essence of freedom. If states could deny blacks the rights specified in the measure, asked one congressman, ‘then I demand to know, of what practical value is the amendment abolishing slavery?’ (p. 115)”

President Johnson had objections to each and every section in the legislation, most of the objections having to do with a perceived encroachment on states rights.

But his main objection was a racist one, which he saved for the end of his statement.

In his concluding thoughts, Johnson wrote:

I do not propose to consider the policy of this bill. To me the details of the bill are fraught with evil. The white race and the black race of the South have hitherto lived together under the relations of master and slave – capital owning labor. Now, suddenly, that relation is changed, and as to ownership capital and labor are divorced. They stand now each master of itself. In this new relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious. Each has equal power in settling the terms, and if left to the laws that regulate capital and labor it is confidently believed that they will satisfactorily work out the problem…”

In fact, he averred, “the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored against the white race.”

This, of course, was anathema, and remains so to many whites to this day.

You can read the full text of his objections here.