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  1. Overview: United States Fourteenth Amendment & The Civil Rights Act of 1866
  2. Full Record: United States Fourteenth Amendment & The Civil Rights Act of 1866
  3. Committee:The House of Representatives
  4. Session: 1866-07-20 12:00:00
  5. Event type: CREATE

United States Fourteenth Amendment & The Civil Rights Act of 1866

An amendment to the Constitution of the United States that granted citizenship and equal rights, both civil and legal, to Black Americans, including those who had been emancipated by the thirteenth amendment.

The House of Representatives

The House of Representatives of the Thirty-Ninth Session of Congress

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Document introduced in:

Session 14402: 1866-07-20 12:00:00

Mr. Stevens tries to report H. 543 again as H. R. 790, but the House votes to lay it on the table.

Document View:

H. R. 790

There is 1 proposed amendment related to this document on which a decision has not been taken.

A BILL

To provide for restoring to the States lately in insurrection their full political rights.

Whereas it is expedient that the States lately in insurrection should, at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safety of the Union, be restored to full participation in all political rights; and whereas the Congress did, by joint resolution, propose for ratification to the legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, an article in the following words, to wit:

"ARTICLE XIV.

"SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; not 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.

"SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

"SEC. 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.

"SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void.

"SECTION 5. That Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

Now, therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the above-recited amendment shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, and any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the same, and shall have modified its constitution and laws in conformity therewith, the Senators and Representatives from such State, if found duly elected and qualified, may, after having taken the required oaths of office, be admitted into Congress as such.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That when any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the foregoing amendment to the Constitution, any part of the direct tax under the act of August five, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, which may remain due and unpaid in such State, may be assumed and paid by such State; and the payment thereof, upon proper assurances from such State to be given to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, may be postponed for a period not exceeding ten years from and after the passage of this act.

Decisions yet to be taken

  • Motion for the Previous Question (introduced on 1866-07-20 12:00:00 - PROCEDURE - e902370)

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