Civil Rights Case Study
H.R.796- The Civil Rights Bill
Compelling Policy Question: What should be the goal of Civil Rights policies?
The Civil Rights Bill (modified/ original)
Governments should recognize the equality of all men before the law. It is their duty to create equal justice for all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political. It is the goal of legislation to make these great fundamental principles into law: Therefore,
All persons in the United States shall have full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, theaters, and other public places; except by laws that apply to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.
SEC. 2. Any person who denies, or helps deny, equal access to any citizen, shall pay $500 to the person offended. They will be guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be fined not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, or shall be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than one year . .
SEC. 3. That courts of the United States shall have knowledge of all crimes and offenses against, and violations of, this act.
SEC. 4. That no citizen qualified for service as a juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude shall be excluded from the right to serve on a Jury. Denying one their right is a misdemeanor, with a fine of up to $5,000.
SEC. 5. That all cases under this act shall be renewable by the Supreme Court of the United States, without regard to the sum in controversy.
Historical Context:
For all of American Colonial history and then the first 89 years of United States history slavery was legal, and many African Americans living in the United States were held in bondage. Some African Americans lived free, and though the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist Movement they worked to fight against slavery.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision denied citizenship and Constitutional Rights to all black people, enslaved and free. Three years later, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln is elected President. This causes eleven Southern States to secede from the United States and form the Confederate States of America. This causes the Civil War.
During the Civil War, on January 1, 1863, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. This frees only the slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865, Congress also created the Freedmen's Bureau created to provide help to enslaved people who were freed by the Union Army.
In 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders, President Lincoln is shot, making. Andrew Johnson President, and the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery.
As a result of Southern States creating slavery era codes making requirements for blacks to live, work or vote, in 1866, Congress passed the First Civil Rights Act. This Act made Black Codes illegal. "All persons born in the United States are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States, and have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property.”
In 1868, the 14th Amendment is created, giving citizenship, due process and equal protection under the law to all people born in America (including those who had been enslaved).
In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted blacks the right to vote, including former slaves.
In 1870, Senator Charles Sumner introduces S.No.1 “Supplementary to an Act entitled ‘An Act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication,’ passed April 9, 1866,” . The bill would make it illegal to discriminate in schools, churches, cemeteries, public places such as theaters, hotels, and restaurants, forms of transportation such as trains and boats, as well as on court juries. The bill is sent to committee and never voted on. Senator Sumner tries to get his bill passed three more times in 1871, but none work.
1870-1871- The Enforcement Acts (increased Government power to enforce the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, (especially to help fight the KKK)
January 15, 1872- Sumner introduces the bill again and delivers his “Equality before the law speech”. No actions taken
April 14, 1873- the Supreme Court’s ruling in the “Slaughterhouse cases” saying there was a difference between Federal and State rights. This meant the 14th Amendment only protected Federal Civil Rights. States did not have to protect all Civil Rights.
March 11, 1874 Charles Sumner dies
February 3, 1875, Benjamin F. Butler (R)Mass. introduces H.R.796 "to protect all citizens in their civil rights."
MARCH 1, 1875 Congress to vote on the Civil Rights Bill
Section One - Guiding Question, Why do people think the Government has a responsibility to promote equality ?
In his 1871 speech introducing the Supplementary Civil Rights Bill, Charles Sumner said,
source: (modified/link to original) Sumner (R)Massachusetts (Bio) created the Civil Rights Bill. He first introduced it in 1870
This is a very important bill. Congress should not go home until this bill, or something equivalent to it, becomes law.
Why would anyone here hesitate to make this a law? It conforms with the Declaration Of Independence and the Constitution, neither of which knows anything of the word ”white”
You cannot expect peace in this country until all citizens are really equal before the law. Even Senator Revels cannot travel to his home as you can without being insulted on account of his color.
And has he not the same rights before the law that you have?
Should you enjoy in any railroad car a privilege which he cannot enjoy? And yet you know his rights in the cars are not secured to him; you know that he is exposed to insult. So long as this endures, how can you expect the colored population of this country to place trust in our Government?
Government insults them so long as it refrains from giving them protection in these rights of equality.
I will do whatever I can to hold a vote on this bill. Senators may vote it down; they may take that responsibility; but I shall take mine, God willing. I believe that our colored fellow citizens are exposed to outrage which the Congress of the United States can stop.
Charles Sumner, Speech introducing the Supplementary Civil Rights Bill, 1872 (modified/link to original) Sumner (R)Massachusetts (Bio) created the Civil Rights Bill. He first introduced it in 1870
There is a need for legislation to protect Equal Rights.
Slavery is not dead. While no man can call himself master, with power to separate families, to close the gates of knowledge, and to rob another of his labor and all its fruits, slavery is a ghost continuing to degrade a race.
Slavery postponed equality. More than four million people, whose only offence was a skin once the badge of Slavery, were shut out from the court-room, and also from the ballot-box, in open defiance of the great Declaration of our fathers, that all men are equal in rights. At last these wrongs are overturned. The slave testifies; the slave votes. To this extent his equality is recognized.
But this is not enough. The denial of any right is a wrong darkening the enjoyment of all the rest. Besides the right to testify and the right to vote, there are other rights without which Equality does not exist. The rule is Equality before the Law,—being entitled, without discrimination, to the equal enjoyment of all institutions, privileges, advantages, and services created or regulated by law.
The new citizen’s money is the same as the white man’s; but hotels are closed to him. Places of public amusement discriminate. School doors slam rudely in the face of the child, because of their skin. And the same insulting exclusion shows itself in other institutions of science and learning, also in the church, and in cemeteries, the last resting-place on earth.
In 1874, a Republican Representative from South Carolina named Robert B. Elliott, gave a speech about the Civil Rights Act...
Source: Speech to Congress on Civil Rights Act, 1874 (modified/original)
Elliot was an African American Republican Congressman from South Carolina (biography). He was born in England, but moved to the United States in 1867 after serving with the British Navy. He became involved in politics at the State Level in South Carolina during the Reconstruction Era.
I regret it is necessary to convince Congress to support a bill that is trying to give equal rights and equal public privileges to all American citizens.
I support this Act, because it is right. It represents justice, and should be supported out of gratitude for the negroes, who defended the Union in the war.
Mr. Stephens tells Congress they have no Constitutional power to pass this law, saying it goes against the rights of the States. I disagree, the Constitution should always favor human rights. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments give Congress the power to protect the citizen in his civil and political rights. Their purpose is to secure equality before the law of all citizens of the United states.
Under the 14th amendment no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It is under this idea the Civil Rights Act was created. American citizenship carries with it civil and political rights.
If the States do not follow this law, then Congress has power to enforce the Constitution by appropriate laws. That is what this bill now wants to do. It does not seek to create new rights, but simply to prevent and forbid inequality and discrimination on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Never was there a bill more completely within the constitutional power of Congress.
I have the honor to represent the race which pleads for justice at your hands today, The war settled our political status. This bill will determine the civil status, not only of the negro, but of any citizens who may feel themselves discriminated against. It will form the capstone of that temple of liberty,
We are at last politically free. The last vestiture only is needed--civil rights.
Debate between Mr. Charles Sumner (R)Massachusetts (bio) and Mr. Joshua Hill (R)Georgia (bio) on the Civil Rights Bill, 1871 (modified/link to original)
Mr. Hill. I do not believe that if a hotel, a school, or a railroad divides the races, and gives them equal services that there is anything offensive, or anything denying a person’s civil rights. When God made different races of men, it was to separate them.
Mr. Sumner. The Senator is confusing what belongs to society with what belongs to rights. There is no question of society. The Senator may choose his friends as he pleases. But when it comes to rights, there the Senator must obey the law. I insist that all persons without distinction of color shall be equal in rights. I insist that in the enjoyment of these institutions there shall be no exclusion on account of color.
Mr. Hill. I must confess, Sir, that I cannot see the magnitude of this. I object to this great Government descending to the business of regulating the hotels and taverns. It looks to me to be petty.
Mr. Sumner. I would not have my country descend, but ascend. It must rise to the heights of the Declaration of Independence. We pledged to the great truth that all men are equal in rights. And now a Senator from Georgia denies it. He would adopt a substitute for equality. I cannot deny any human being any right of equality. He must be equal with me before the law, or the promises of the Declaration of Independence are not yet fulfilled.
In 1875, John R. Lynch (R)Mississippi said,
Source: Speech to Congress on Civil Rights Bill, 1875 (modified/link to original) Lynch was born into slavery in Louisiana, but after the war was elected to Congress. (Biography)
“Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill”
The 14th amendment was not meant to give the Federal Government more powers in general, but only in certain situations. What are those situations? The right to prevent discriminations between the citizens of the United States whenever such discriminations are made based on of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. As the Civil RIghts bill refers only to such discriminations as are made on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, it is in harmony with the Constitution.
But there are some democrats, including Mr. STEPHENS, who admit that the recent amendments to the Constitution guarantee to the colored citizens all of the rights that are enjoyed by white citizens. But they say it is the duty of the States, and not the Federal Government, to enforce these constitutional guarantees.
This is the most important point in the whole argument. Upon its decision this bill must stand or fall. The question that now is, does the Federal Government have the constitutional right to enforce legislation that guarantees rights given by the Constitution?
The Supreme Court answers: “Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The existence of laws in the States where the newly emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are forbidden. If the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then Congress is authorized to enforce it by suitable legislation.
Some may think that this is extraordinary power; but such is not the case.
“CIVIL RIGHTS AND SOCIAL EQUALITY”
I will now answer the arguments of those who believe this bill is an effort to bring about social equality between the races. This is absurd and ridiculous. I have never believed that social equality could be brought about even between persons of the same race. Social inequality exists even among white people. Do those who argue this bill will bring about social equality between the races believe that all white people, regardless of their moral character, are social equals? If they argue having the same rights as others makes people social equals then they must believe all the white people, who have the same rights, are equal?
I cannot believe the men on the other side of the House believe the ignorant and the degraded of their race are the social equals with them, and their families. If they do, then they do not think as highly of their social standing as intelligent colored people place on theirs. There are hundreds thousands of white people who I know are social inferiors of respectable and intelligent colored people.
I can then assure that portion of my democratic friends on the other side of the House whom I regard as my social inferiors that if at any time I should meet any one of you at a hotel and occupy a seat at the same table with you, or the same seat in a car with you, do not think that I have thereby accepted you as my social equal. Not at all. But if anyone should discriminate against you, I would regard it as an outrage; as a violation of the principles of republicanism; and I would be in favor of protecting you in your rights by legislation.
No, Mr. Speaker, it is not social rights that we desire. We have enough of that already. What we ask is protection in the enjoyment of public rights. Rights which are or should be accorded to every citizen alike.
Mr. Speaker, if this unjust discrimination continues to be tolerated by the American people, then I can only say with sorrow and regret that our boasted civilization is a fraud; our republican institutions a failure; our social system a disgrace; and our religion a complete hypocrisy. But I have confidence in the patriotism of this people, in their devotion to the cause of human rights, and in the stability of our republican institutions. I hope that I will not be deceived. I love the land that gave me birth; I love the Stars and Stripes. This country is where I intend to live, where I expect to die. To preserve the honor of the national flag and the thousands of brave colored men have fought, bled, and died for this country. Can it be possible that that flag under which they fought is to be a shield and a protection to all races and classes of persons except the colored race? God forbid!
The negro question ought to be removed from the politics of the country. It has been a disturbing element in the country ever since the Declaration of Independence, and it will continue to be so long as the colored man is denied any right or privilege that is enjoyed by the white man. Pass this bill and there will be nothing more for the colored people to ask or expect in the way of civil rights. Equal rights having been made an accomplished fact, opposition to the exercise thereof will gradually pass away, and the everlasting negro question will then be removed from the politics of the country for the first time since the existence of the Government. Let us, then, be just as well as generous. Let us confer upon the colored citizens equal rights, and, my word for it, they will exercise their rights with moderation and with wise discretion.
“PUBLIC OPINION on the CIVIL RIGHTS Bill”
The opposition to the Civil Rights bill is not as intense in the South today as was the opposition to the reconstruction acts of Congress. As long as congressional action is delayed in the passage of this bill, the more intense this feeling will be. But let the bill once pass and become a law, and you will find that in a few months reasonable men, liberal men, moderate men, sensible men, who now question the propriety of passing this bill, will arrive at the conclusion that it is not such a bad thing as they supposed it was. They will find that democratic predictions have not and will not be realized. They will find that there is no more social equality than before. That whites and blacks do not intermarry any more than they did before the passage of the bill. In short, they will find that there is nothing in the bill but the recognition by law of the equal rights of all citizens before the law. My honest opinion is that the passage of this bill will have a tendency to harmonize the apparently conflicting interests between the two races. It will have a tendency to bring them more closely together in all matters pertaining to their public and political duties. It will cause them to know, appreciate, and respect the rights and privileges of each other more than ever before. In the language of my distinguished colleague on the other side of the house, "They will know one another, and love one another."
It is embarrassing for a colored man to urge the passage of this bill, because an ignorant white man will accuse him of desiring social equality. But it is just as embarrassing to remain silent in a matter that concerns him more than anyone else, it can make his friends desert his cause.
Any white ex-convict may travel with me today to Montgomery, Alabama, and all the way down he will be treated as a gentleman, while I will be treated as the convict. He will be allowed a seat in a sleeping-car with all its comforts, while I will be forced into a dirty, rough box with the drunkards.
There is not an inn between Washington and Montgomery that will rent me a bed or serve me a meal. Is there a man in Congress who is so heartless, they think this brutal custom needs no regulation? I hold that it does and that Congress is the body to regulate it.
I am degraded as long as I am denied the public privileges common to other men. Nothing short of a complete acknowledgment of my manhood will satisfy me. I have no compromises to make, and will not accept any.
To call this land the asylum of the oppressed is wrong, for I am treated as an outcast. The solution is to make laws with strong penalties to prevent any person from discriminating against another in public places on account of color. No one asks for a law that will interfere with any one's private affairs. But I do ask the enactment of a law to secure me in the enjoyment of public privileges.
All the supporters of this Bill want is the equality of civil rights, not social rights. Social rights will take care of themselves- laws cannot change social rights, but they can fight for civil rights.
This Bill is forced to fight the “Constitution-scare-crow”. My soul is sick of people using the Constitution as a reason to deny rights to men. Every man deserves all the rights of a man, no matter what any constitution may say.
Our courts and congress war against God by still refusing to accept and protect man as God created him. Their highest crime was in tolerating the turning of God’s man into man’s slave: and now, they follow up this crime by still tolerating his partial enslavement.
One day our country will have to justify the invasion of fundamental human rights, this treason against the laws of God! Father in Heaven- the equal Father of his white and colored children- cannot be at peace with our guilty nation, until the crimes against which this Bill is aimed are stopped.
There are no rights, either civil or social, that Government should be allowed to trample under foot.
This refusal to pass the Civil Rights Bill is not a good way to ask for forgiveness for our ages of crime against the poor black man, and but a poor payment for his honorable services to our country in the late war.
J.F. Quarles, Petition sent to Congress in support of a Civil Rights Bill, 1872 (modified/link to original) Quarles was an African American who sent this Petition to Senator Sumner. He was a pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Sumner read this Petition to Congress when he arguing for the Civil Rights bill.
In every direction we go, whether in public places of amusement, in the streetcars, on railroads, or in hotels we encounter discrimination. We cannot speak of these things without frustration: we cannot speak of them without denouncing them as unworthy of an intelligent and human people. Nay, we would be less than men if we did not protest against this inhuman outrage upon our manhood.
I know that these legislative enactments alone cannot remedy these social evils.
But there is a grand and moral power in the spectacle of a whole people arising to assert their rights and demanding justice, which can neither be overlooked nor ignored.
And now we ask the Southern people in all honesty, if we have not borne this type of oppression long enough?
We are tired of being treated as outcasts and strangers in the land of our nativity, and the home of our fathers.
Let the abominable crimes against humanity be buried in the grave of oblivion, and write upon their tombstone ‘no resurrection.’
Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen (R)New Jersey (Bio) , Speech on the Civil Rights Act, 1874 (modified/link to original)
The money invested in inns, places of amusements, and public conveyances is that of the owners,
The owners know what details their business requires.
They know the best way to accommodation each guest.
But the businesses these owners have selected to operate impact the public, the law demands that the accommodation for all of the guests shall be good and suitable.
This bill adds to that requirement the condition that no person shall, in the regulation of these employments, be discriminated against merely because he is an American or an Irishman, a German or a colored man.
Senator Daniel D. Pratt (R)Indiana, Speech to Congress on the Civil Rights Act, 1874 (modified/link to original) (Pratt's bio)
Suppose a colored man goes to a public inn and is either refused admittance or treated as an inferior guest - placed at the second table and consigned to the attic, or forced to sleep on the floor - does any one doubt that upon an appeal to the courts, the law would rule the innkeeper owes to him damages for the unjust discrimination? I suppose not....
The same is true of public carriers such as railroads.
All persons who behave themselves and do not have any contagious disease are entitled to equal accommodations where they pay equal fares.
So, where the need for this legislation, since the courts are open to all?
My answer is, that the remedy is inadequate and too expensive, and involves too much loss of time and patience to pursue it.
When a man is traveling, and far from home, it does not pay to sue every inn-keeper who, or railroad company which, insults him by unjust discrimination. Practically the remedy is worthless.
If this bill was made to give those who break the law stronger penalties, it would be obeyed, so there would never be any court cases.
Many a wrong is practiced even upon the white traveler, upon the supposition that his business will not allow him to remain and bring the wrong-doer to account, which is generally true. And let me say right here, that this measure is not confined to colored citizens; it embraces all, of whatever color
James L. Alcorn (R)Mississippi (bio), Speech to Congress on Civil Rights Act, 1874 (modified/link to original)
Some people oppose this bill because it says the colored man should be allowed to say at public hotels.
If he is denied accommodations at the public hotels, where will he get accommodations if he has to travel?
When traveling, he has no right to go to a private house. If the public houses refuse him, then an American citizen becomes an outcast in the land which guarantees to him the right of travel.
The hotels are licensed businesses. When the grant of a license is made, the government demands the owner must perform his end of the contract.
The contract says he has to provide food and lodging for the traveling public. This bill requires him to comply with the conditions of his bond.
He cannot stand at his door and turn away men from the hotel based on their color, since his contract says he will provide housing to the public.
It would be a strange if a government would allow him to act like this.
MR. Whitehead. I just want to know whether you are in favor of a hotel-keeper being forced by law to make white and black people sit at the same table?
MR Harris.... I will tell him what the Massachusetts doctrine is. It is that when any man, white or black, respectable and well-behaved, comes into any hotel in our Commonwealth and asks to have a comfortable apartment assigned him and proper food furnished him, he has a right to it, without regard to his color. But, sir, there is nothing proposed here that would authorize any colored man to force himself on the gentleman from Virginia. This law merely provides that white and black shall be alike entitled to a common hospitality.
MR. Whitehead That does not answer my question at all. Do you wish hotel-keepers to be bound to place white and black at the same table? ...
MR Harris .... I will tell the gentleman, however, that in Massachusetts we do not make all classes of white men sit at the same table or sleep in the same bed. But every man in Massachusetts, be he white or black, can have entertainment at one of our hotels, and a black man can get entertainment there equal to that afforded to any white man, if he is respectable and pays his bill'
Gerrit Smith, “ Will the American people never cease to oppress and torture and helpless poor?” 1874 (modified/link to original) Gerrit Smith was an abolitionist and social reformer (biography)
Will the American People ever stop oppressing these helpless people? Who is responsible for this outrage? Mainly the Politicians opposing the Civil Rights Bill.
I ask, what is the excuse for this crushing of hearts and blasting of hopes? It is that the laws require it. Whose laws? Surely not God’s Laws. His laws forbid all crimes against humanity--all abuse and contempt of any portion of it.
The day for interpreting the Constitution in behalf of oppression and injustice has passed away. We now read it in the light of that liberty and justice.
Just here, let me thank Archbishop Manning, for declaring that no man is at liberty to obey a human law, when the law is in conflict with a divine law.
Human law must protect all men, as they come from God. Human law will be proper when it makes "equality before the law" the right of every man.
But shouldn’t laws be followed? The argument for obeying wicked laws is that they command obedience. The argument for disobeying them is that of the Apostles: "We ought to obey God rather than men."
I will not forget how disrespected the higher laws were in this land during centuries of slavery. Almost as bad now, are the laws shutting people out of the railroad cars, steamboats, and hotels, if their complexion can be found fault with.
Alas, the South! She cries out for peace--and her sins will not let her have it. Peace will be hers when she shall consent to "do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God," and not till then.
“Mr Sumner’s Civil Rights Bill”, Harper’s Weekly, 1871 (modified/link to original)
Mr. Sumner’s bill wants to end all discrimination in public places in this country—such as hotels, railroad cars, etc.. Those who think that it is foolish to attempt to make people associate with those whom they dislike, may be comforted. They are not going to be forced to invite anyone to their tables. But those who run businesses are not to discriminate against any part of the public.
The owner of a hotel must host all orderly customers, unless he has reason to suspect dishonesty. He can not lawfully refuse a guest because of his blue eyes or his straight hair. No people have more rights as citizens, than the colored man.
To exclude anyone from places of common public resort we insult our own laws. For the equality that we assert by law, the law must protect.
That is what Mr. Sumner’s bill proposes. It forbids distinctions created under slavery which the law has abolished. It prohibits making an American citizen an outcast because of his color. It aims to lift from the colored race as much as possible of the consequences of the curse which civilization has imposed upon it.
If we meant to keep the people of that race an outcast class, we had no right to make them equal citizens. But having made them so, we can not keep them outcasts without infinite harm to ourselves. What man of honor does not burn with anger to see a polite and quiet colored passenger refused a place in a car or a steamboat from which a drunken and disgusting white traveler is not expelled?
The fundamental principle of this republic is that every citizen shall be equal before the law. And whoever smiles at Mr. Sumner’s bill smiles at the American principle
The shackle broken - by the genius of freedom, E. Sachse & Co., 1874
(summary)
In 1875, Thomas Nast drew a cartoon titled "To Thine Own Self be True" in Harper’s Weekly.
Explanation of Thomas Nast's "To Thine Own Self Be True" source
The Bill being handed from Columbia reads: “It is the duty of government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political”
The quote “These Few Precepts in Thy Memory” is from Shakespeare's play Hamlet:
Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Giver every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
This above all- To Thine Own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man,
Shakespeare
In 1875, Thomas Nast drew a cartoon titled "A Privilege?" in Harper’s Weekly.
Text under Nast's cartoon: a woman speaking to her drunken husband in a segregated bar, "Wife.- 'I wish you were not allowed in here.'"
In 1875, Thomas Nast drew a cartoon titled 'The Jubilee, 1875', in Harper’s Weekly.
Explanation of Thomas Nast's "The Jubilee 1875":
A freeman shows a copy of the Civil Rights Bill to Saint Peter. According to the Bible, Saint Peter is the gatekeeper to Heaven. He holds the keys in his hands.
The caption below the cartoon said:
Freeman “Hi Massa Peter, you can’t objec’ to open de gates to me now!
N.B. Pure White Churches please take notice.”
Sumner's original Civil Rights bill made discrimination illegal in both churches and cemeteries.
The first colored senator and representatives - in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States, Currier & Ives., 1872
Group portrait of African American legislators: Robert C. De Large, Jefferson H. Long, H.R. Revels, Benj. S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. Rainy [i.e., Rainey], and R. Brown Elliot.
Thomas Nast, “Patience on a Monument” Harper’s Weekly 1868 (text)
Thomas Nast, “This is a White Man’s Government”, Harper’s Weekly, 1868 details
Thomas Nast, “Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction and How It Works.”, Harper’s Weekly, 1866 (explanation)
Thomas Nast, Pardon. Franchise Columbia. -- "Shall I trust these men, and not this man?" Harper’s Weekly, 1865
Left Frame: Columbia thinks to herself: Pardon: “Shall I trust this man?”
The man kneeling in front of her is a former Confederate soldier asking to be pardoned for his crime of Treason against the United States.
Right Frame: Columbia thinks to herself: Franchise: “And not this man?”
The man standing next to Columbia is a former slave who fought for the Union in the Civil War and lost his leg. He is asking for the right to vote (his franchise).
Library of Congress Summary: Centerfold prints show Columbia considering why she should pardon Confederate troops who are begging for forgiveness when an African American Union soldier with an amputated leg does not have the right to vote.
Matt Morgan, “Charles Sumner”, Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, 1874. summary
Thomas Nast, Outside of the galleries of the House of Representatives during the passage of the civil rights bill, 1866. Harper’s Weekly, 1866. source
Section Two - Guiding Question, Why do people oppose the Government promoting equity?
In 1874, Representative Alexander Stephens, a Democrat from Georgia, said...
Source: Speech on Civil Rights Bill, 1874 (modified/link to original)
Stephens represented Georgia in Congress before the Civil War, but became Vice President of the Confederacy.
He is infamous for what he said in what is known as the "Cornerstone Speech". In that speech he said, "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition." Source
After the war he represented Georgia as a Democrat (biography)
I am not against this Act because I am against justice for every human. The goal of all governments should be the protection of rights. The struggle of humanity has been trying to balance government power and people’s rights.
While I do not believe in the racial equality, I do believe all men are created equal. This great truth was first said by Thomas Jefferson. In my opinion, he was not saying men are created equal; but meant all men have a right to equality before the law. This is the right of all men, whether white, red, brown, or black.
I am opposed to this Act, or any one like it, because it gives Congress more power. Where does the Constitution say we have the power to make this law? The power under which it is claimed is derived from the fourteenth amendment.
Neither of these amendments give any rights at all to citizens of the United States. They only forbid the States from discriminating, in their laws against the colored race. Whatever rights they grant to other citizens shall not be denied to the colored race as a class. This is the whole of the matter. The question is how can Congress enforce a prohibition of the exercise of these powers by a State?
Interference by the Federal Government would be against the very genius of our Government. If there is one truth which stands out prominently above all others in the history of these States, it is that the principle of American constitutional liberty is the absolute unrestricted right of State self-government. I oppose this Act because even if Congress did have the the power to pass this law, I think it would be better to let the States solve the issue.
During a 1875 speech to Congress on the Civil Rights Bill, a Democratic Representative from Delaware named Thomas Bayard, said...
It is almost impossible to imagine Congress is suggesting the federal government of our Union should be:
-Watching the duties of an hotel clerk?
-Examining into the relative advantages and condition of the bedrooms of an inn?
-Judging the work of waiters, making sure equal enjoyment is had by all guests?
-Supervising the railway conductor, making sure he assigns equally good seats to all the passengers?
-Demanding all theatre managers and ushers, always consider the power of the great government of the United States?
Nothing else is needed to show the absurdity of this bill than the mere suggestion to assign duties such as these to a government.
It seems to me that when the Supreme Court of the United States shall be found judging whether A or B have had equal seats or equal comforts, or equal enjoyment at a hotel, or in their transportation, or at some theater where their idleness and pleasure may have led them, then the position will be so absurd that the case will be laughed out of court, even if there was no other way to get rid of it.
Senator Allen G. Thurman, Speech about the Civil Rights Act, 1872 (modified/link to original) Thurman (D)Ohio was a former chief justice of the Ohio supreme court (Bio).
I do not know any country in the world in which the subject or the citizen is interfered with as this bill proposes to interfere with him; to take from men the right to associate according to their own tastes when by so doing they interfere with the right of no one, and do not injure or in any way prejudice the State.
I know of no country in which the liberty of free association, according to the tastes or the wishes or the interests of the persons associating, is denied to either subject or citizen.
And yet, the Senators supporting the Civil Rights Act, in the name of liberty, in the name of freedom, in the name of humanity, seeks to shackle the American people and take from them liberties that they and their ancestors have enjoyed for a long time, and which the people in every civilized country enjoy at this day.
I repeat again, this bill is a bill of despotism and not of liberty.
Senator Eli Saulsbury (D)Delaware (bio), Speech on Civil Rights Act, 1872 (modified/link to original).
But, say the Senators supporting the Act, this is not a question of social equality.
I beg to differ with them. I believe this amendment is one not only of social equality, but of social equality enforced by pains and penalties.
If a man chooses to ride in the same car with negroes, if he voluntarily attends the same church and sits in the same pew, and of his own motion sends his children to the same school to be educated in the same class, to eat at the same table, and sleep in the same bed, then he chooses social equality with negroes for himself and his children.
That is social equality from choice.
But if, on the other hand, he is forced to ride in the same car, eat at the same table and sleep in the same bed, attend the same church and sit in the same pew, and send his children to the same school, then it is enforced social equality; and that is what the Civil Rights Act proposes.
Senator Lyman Trumbull, Speech about the Civil Rights Act. (modified/link to original) Trumbull (R)Illinois was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (bio)
Mr. President, this is not a Civil Rights bill.
I now ask the Senator from Ohio if he will tell me one single civil right that he has or I have that the colored people of this country have not. What is it?
What civil right do I have or has he that is denied a colored man?
I want to know what it is. I know of no civil right that I have that a colored man has not, and I say it is wrong to talk about this being a civil rights bill.
If the Senator from Ohio means social rights, if he means by legislation to force the colored people and white people to go to church together, or to be buried in the same grave-yard, that is not a civil right.
I know of no right to ride in a car, no right to stop at a hotel, no right to travel possessed by the white man that the colored man has not.
James G. Blair, Speech to Congress on Civil Rights Act, 1872, (modified/link to original) before the Civil War Blair was a Democrat, but he supported the Union and became a Republican Congressman for Missouri during the war (biography).
Let the steam and sail vessels have their separate rooms and tables for the colored people, the railway companies separate cars, and the hotel-keepers separate rooms and tables; managers of theaters separate galleries, and public schools separate houses, rooms, and teachers, and the question of races will adjust itself quicker than by using forced laws.
Let our Republican friends come up to the work manfully, for if they have the power under the Constitution to do what they are seeking to do by this bill, they have the power to blot out all distinction on account of color.
Let me insist that my Republican friends stop not here. Should any white man or white child refuse to speak to a negro on the public highway, in the streets, or elsewhere, because of color, fine them and send them to the penitentiary.
Senator Aaron A. Sargent (R)California (biography), Speech to Congress on the Civil Rights Bill, 1874 (modified/link to original)
The fourteenth amendment does not say that black men should have rights, but that black and white men and women should have rights. It was a guarantee of equality of right to every person in the United States, be he black or white.
When a white man traveling on a railroad without his wife has to stay in a car separate from those for women, is it a violation of the fourteenth amendment? If the man who was black instead of white, would the difference in color make it a violation of the fourteenth amendment? I do not believe these things are of enough importance for us to make laws about them. They regulate themselves. I doubt if any white man ever felt outraged because he was told to take one car rather than another. Why, then, should the black man?
What about the hotel table? In most hotels the tables are small tables where families sit, or two or three friends sit. The owner tells people where to sit.
And in assigning rooms at a hotel, the landlord may put him in the fourth story or the first; and if he does not like his room he can go to some other hotel. He has no right to demand under the fourteenth amendment that he shall be put in the third story instead of the fourth. The fourteenth amendment does not apply to these situations at all. They are simply incidents of business which have existed for years, and will exist for years whether the fourteenth amendment exists or not.
If the car to which a white man without a lady is assigned, or the black man is assigned, is just as good as any other of the train, where is the problem?
Why should we interfere with the business of railroad companies and hotel-keepers in this way, putting our noses into the smallest details of business?
In 1860, a cartoon titled "THE POLITICAL QUADRILLE. MUSIC BY DRED SCOTT" was published by Rickey, Mallory & Company, from Cincinnati.
In 1875, Thomas Nast drew a cartoon titled “Civil Rights (?) Waiting for a Five-Hundred Dollar Kick”, in Harper’s Weekly.
What happened to H.R. 796?
In 1875, H.R. 796 was passed and became known as the The Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was signed into law by President Grant on March 1, 1875. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 made discrimination illegal for transportation companies, hotels, and theaters. Under the law if someone was discriminated against by one of these businesses, the business would have to pay them for damages, as well as pay a fine to the government.
A number of court cases were caused by the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which makes sense, if you were a person who was told you could sue a company that discriminated against you, would you sue them?
A number of those businesses argued they should not have to pay the fine because they felt the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was Unconstitutional.
These cases were: United States v. Stanley (discrimination by hotel), United States v. Ryan (discrimination by theater), United States v. Nichols (discrimination by hotel), United States v. Singleton (discrimination by theater) , and Robinson v. Memphis & Charleston Railroad
These cases were grouped together and tried by the Supreme Court of the United States in the “Civil Rights Cases” in 1883.
Documents from those trials can be found on your second Civil Rights Case Study, on this page
In the 1883 Supreme Court ruling, the Court struck down the Act as Unconstitutional. As a result, these forms of discrimination remained legal. It would not be until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that such forms of discrimination became illegal.