Civil Rights Act of 1875

{{Infobox U.S. legislation

| name = Civil Rights Act of 1875

| fullname = An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.

| acronym = CRA 1875

| nickname = Enforcement Act, Force Act, and Sumner Civil Rights Bill

| enacted by = 43rd

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| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|18|335}}-337

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| committees = Senate Judiciary

| passedbody1 = House

| passeddate1 = February 4, 1875

| passedvote1 = [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/43-2/h380 162–100]

| passedbody2 = Senate

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| passeddate2 = February 27, 1875

| passedvote2 = [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/43-2/s379 38–26]

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| signedpresident = Ulysses S. Grant

| signeddate = March 1, 1875

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| SCOTUS cases = Civil Rights Cases, {{ussc|109|3|1883}}

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The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act{{efn|Not to be confused with the Enforcement Acts.}} or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the 43rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875. The act was designed to "protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights", providing for equal treatment in public accommodations and public transportation and prohibiting exclusion from jury service. It was originally drafted by Senator Charles Sumner in 1870, but was not passed until shortly after Sumner's death in 1875. The law was not effectively enforced, partly because President Grant had favored different measures to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the Southern United States.

The Reconstruction era ended with the resolution of the 1876 presidential election, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last federal civil rights law enacted until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled in the Civil Rights Cases that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations under the Equal Protection Clause. Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were later re-adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both of which cited the Commerce Clause as the source of Congress's power to regulate private actors.

Legislative history

The drafting of the bill was performed early in 1870 by United States Senator Charles Sumner, a dominant Radical Republican in the Senate, with the assistance of John Mercer Langston, a prominent African American who established the law department at Howard University.{{cite web |title=John Mercer Langston, Representative, 1890–1891, Republican from Virginia, Black Americans in Congress series |url=http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/16682?ret=True#biography |access-date=November 12, 2012}} The bill was proposed by Senator Sumner and co-sponsored by Representative Benjamin F. Butler, both Republicans from Massachusetts, in the 41st Congress of the United States in 1870. Congress removed the coverage of public schools that Sumner had included. The act was passed by the 43rd Congress in February 1875 as a memorial to honor Sumner, who had just died.Hoffer (2010), p. 121 It was signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875.{{cite web |title=Civil Rights Bill of 1875, Legislative Interests, The Fifteenth Amendment in Flesh and Blood, Black Americans in Congress series |url=http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Fifteenth-Amendment/Legislative-Interests/ |access-date=May 5, 2009}}

Enforcement

President Grant had wanted an entirely different law to help him suppress election-related violence against blacks and Republicans in the South. Congress did not give him that, but instead wrote a law for equal rights to public accommodations that was passed as a memorial to Grant's bitterest enemy, the late Senator Charles Sumner.Smith (2002), pp. 566-68 Grant never commented on the 1875 law, and did nothing to enforce it, says historian John Hope Franklin.Franklin (1974), pp. 225-35 Grant's Justice Department ignored it and did not send copies to US attorneys, says Franklin, while many federal judges called it unconstitutional before the Supreme Court shut it down. Franklin concludes regarding Grant and Hayes administrations, "The Civil Rights Act was never effectively enforced."Franklin (1974), p. 235 Public opinion was opposed, with the black community in support.Gillette (1982), p. 201 Historian Rayford Logan looking at newspaper editorials finds the press was overwhelmingly opposed.Logan (1997), p. 173-175

Case law

The Supreme Court, in an 8–1 decision, declared sections of the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases on October 15, 1883. Justice John Marshall Harlan provided the lone dissent. The Court held the Equal Protection Clause within the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination by the state and local government, but it does not give the federal government the power to prohibit discrimination by private individuals and organizations.Gerber and Friedlander (2008){{Page needed|date=April 2019}} The Court also held that the Thirteenth Amendment was meant to eliminate "the badge of slavery," but not to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last federal civil rights bill signed into law until the Civil Rights Act of 1957, enacted during the Civil Rights Movement.

Legacy

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 is notable as the last major piece of legislation related to Reconstruction that was passed by Congress during the Reconstruction era. These include the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the four Reconstruction Acts of 1867 and 1868, the three Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871, and the three Constitutional Amendments adopted between 1865 and 1870.{{cite web |title=Summary of Constitutional Amendments and Major Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress |url=http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Constitutional-Amendments-and-Legislation/ |access-date=November 20, 2012}}

Provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were later readopted by Congress during the Civil Rights Movement as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The 1964 and 1968 acts relied upon the Commerce Clause contained in Article One of the Constitution of the United States rather than the Equal Protection Clause within the Fourteenth Amendment.

Notes

References

Bibliography

{{cite journal|last=Franklin|first=John Hope| author-link=John Hope Franklin |title=The Enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1875|url=http://studylib.net/doc/8205613/the-enforcement-of-the-civil-rights-act-of-1875|journal=Prologue Magazine|date=Winter 1974|volume=6|issue=4|pages=225–235}}
{{cite book |last1=Gerber |first1=Richard A. |last2=Friedlander |first2=Alan |title=The Civil Rights Act of 1875: A Reexamination |date=2008 |publisher=Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences |isbn=9781878508287}}
{{cite book|last1=Gillette|first1=William|title=Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869--1879|date=1982|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=9780807110065|pages=259–279|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=45jBEQvINEYC|chapter=Insignificant Victory: The Civil Rights Act of 1875|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=45jBEQvINEYC&pg=PA259}}
{{cite book |last1=Hoffer |first1=Williamjames Hull |title=The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War |date=2010 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |isbn=9780801899577 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_NPbXpW9fTEC}}
{{cite book |last1=Logan |first1=Rayford Whittingham |title=The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson |date=1997 |orig-year=1965 |publisher=DaCapo Press |isbn=9780306807589}}
{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Jean Edward |author-link=Jean Edward Smith |title=Grant |date=2002 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=9780684849270 |url=https://archive.org/details/grant00smit|url-access=registration }}
{{cite book |last1=Douglass |first1=Frederick |author-link=Frederick Douglass |title=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass |title-link=Life and Times of Frederick Douglass|date=1892 |publisher=De Wolfe, Fiske & Co.}}, Third Part, Chapter VI, "The Supreme Court Decision."

=Books=

==Encyclopedias==

{{cite book|last=Atwell|first=Mary Welek|chapter=Civil Rights Act of 1875 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7lyAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA262|title=The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N7lyAwAAQBAJ|year=2012|publisher=SAGE|isbn=9781412988780|pages=262–263|editor=Wilbur R. Miller}}
{{cite book|last=Bitzer|first=J. Michael|chapter=Civil Rights Act of 1875|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXoKAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA300 |title=The Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TXoKAgAAQBAJ|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781135947057|page=300|editor=Paul Finkelman|editor-link=Paul Finkelman}}
{{cite book|last=Rivera|first=Alicia|chapter=Civil Rights Act of 1875|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C&pg=PA285 |title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From The Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, vol. 1, A-E|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C|year=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=9780195167771|pages=285–287|editor=Paul Finkelman}}

==Monographs==

{{cite book |last1=Friedlander |first1=Alan |last2=Gerber |first2=Richard Allan |title=Welcoming Ruin: The Civil Rights Act of 1875 |date=2018 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9789004384071|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cdJ7DwAAQBAJ}}
{{cite book|last1=Higginbotham|first1=A. Leon Jr.|title=Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process|date=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198028673|pages=94–107|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NM_rf6TndMsC&pg=PP1|chapter=The Supreme Court's Sanction of Racial Hatred: The 1883 Civil Rights Cases}}
{{cite book|last=Howard|first=John R.|title=The Shifting Wind: The Supreme Court and Civil Rights from Reconstruction to Brown|url=https://archive.org/details/shiftingwindsupr0000howa|url-access=registration|year=1999|publisher=State University of New York Press|location=New York|isbn=9780791440896|pages=[https://archive.org/details/shiftingwindsupr0000howa/page/66 66]–68}}
{{cite book|last=Sandoval-Strausz|first=A. K.|title=Hotel: An American History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OUxZkZqDASEC|year=2007|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=9780300106169|pages=284–311|chapter=Accommodating Jim Crow: The Law of Hospitality and the Struggle for Civil Rights|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OUxZkZqDASEC&pg=PA284}}
{{cite book|last=Tsesis|first=Alexander|author-link=Alexander Tsesis|title=The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment|year=2010|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=9780231141444|pages=172–181|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l6li0QzO4XAC&q=%22Civil+Rights+Act+of+1875%22|chapter="Badges and Incidents of Slavery" In the Supreme Court|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l6li0QzO4XAC&pg=PA172}}
{{cite book|last=Wilson|first=Kirt H.|title=The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870-1875|year=2002|publisher=Michigan State University Press|location=East Lansing|isbn=9780870136177}}
{{cite book|last=Wynn|first=Linda T.|contribution=Civil Rights Act of 1875 |title= Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lNHVLB7Xc9IC|year=2009|publisher=Visible Ink Press|isbn=9781578592609|pages=165–167|editor=Jessie Carney Smith, Linda T. Wynn}}

==Dissertations and theses==

{{cite thesis|degree=M.A.|last1=Lionel Rowe|first1=Robert Lionel|title=State Response to the Civil Right Issue, 1883-1885|date=1974|publisher=Portland State University|url=http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3015&context=open_access_etds|oclc=40319075}}
{{cite book|last=Luckett|first=Barbara N.|title=The Civil Rights Act of 1875: A Failure Reconsidered|year=1972|publisher= (M.A. thesis) University of Nebraska at Omaha|oclc=14633686}}
{{cite thesis|degree=M.A.|last1=Weaver|first1=Valerie Whittemore|title=The Civil Rights Act of 1875: Reactions and Enforcement|date=1966|publisher=University of California|oclc=920414960}}
{{cite thesis|degree=M.A.|last1=White|first1=Carolyn Iona|title=Georgia's Reaction to the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883|date=1971|publisher=Atlanta University|url= https://radar.auctr.edu/islandora/object/cau.td:1971_white_carolyn_i|hdl = 20.500.12322/cau.td:1971_white_carolyn_i|oclc=889990672}}

=Journals=

{{cite journal|last=Avins|first=Alfred|title=The Civil Rights Act of 1875: Some Reflected Light on the Fourteenth Amendment and Public Accommodations|journal=Columbia Law Review|date=May 1966|volume=66|issue=5|pages=873–915|doi=10.2307/1121057|jstor=1121057}}
{{cite journal |last1=François |first1=Anderson Bellegarde |title=The Brand of Inferiority: The Civil Rights Act of 1875, White Supremacy, and Affirmative Action |journal=Howard Law Journal |date=Winter 2014 |volume=57 |issue=2 |pages=573–599}}
{{cite journal|last=Gudridge|first=Patrick O.|title=Privileges and Permissions: The Civil Rights Act of 1875|journal=Law and Philosophy|date=April 1989|volume=8|issue=1|pages=83–130|doi=10.2307/3504632|jstor=3504632|s2cid=147599621 }}
{{cite journal|last=Jager|first=Ronald B.|title=Charles Sumner, the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875|journal=The New England Quarterly|date=September 1969|volume=42|issue=3|pages=350–372|doi=10.2307/363614|jstor=363614}}
{{cite journal|last1=Kaczorowski|first1=Robert J.|title=To Begin the Nation Anew: Congress, Citizenship, and Civil Rights after the Civil War|journal=The American Historical Review|date=February 1987|volume=92|issue=1|pages=45–68|doi=10.2307/1862782|jstor=1862782|url=https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1751&context=faculty_scholarship}}
{{cite journal|last=McPherson|first=James M.|title=Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875|journal=Journal of American History|date=December 1965|volume=52|issue=3|pages=493–510|doi=10.2307/1890844|jstor=1890844}}
{{cite journal|last=Murphy|first=L.E.|title=The Civil Rights Law of 1875|journal=Journal of Negro History|date=April 1927|volume=12|issue=2|pages=110–127|doi=10.2307/2714050|jstor=2714050|s2cid=149856037}}
{{cite journal|last=Spackman|first=S. G. F.|title=American Federalism and the Civil Rights Act of 1875|journal=Journal of American Studies|date=December 1976|volume=10|issue=3|pages=313–328|doi=10.1017/s0021875800003182|s2cid=144751982 }}
{{cite journal|last=Weaver|first=Valeria W.|title=The Failure of Civil Rights 1875–1883 and its Repercussions|journal=Journal of Negro History|date=October 1969|volume=54|issue=4|pages=368–382|doi=10.2307/2716730|jstor=2716730|s2cid=149517761}}
{{cite journal|last=Wyatt-Brown|first=Bertram|title=The Civil Rights Act of 1875|journal=Western Political Quarterly|date=December 1965|volume=18|issue=4|pages=763–765|doi=10.1177/106591296501800403|s2cid=154418104}}

External links

=Congressional Records=

[https://books.google.com/books?id=wrs-AAAAYAAJ&dq=%22s.+no.+1%22+%22civil+rights%22+sumner&pg=PR237 Congressional Record: Congressional Globe (1833–1873)] Provides an index to the "History of Senate Bills and Joint Resolutions" for Senate bill S. 1 during 1873. Retrieved November 18, 2012
[https://books.google.com/books?id=f6RJAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22h.r.+no.+796%22+%22civil+rights%22&pg=PR75 Congressional Record: House Proceedings, 1874] Provides an index to the "History of Senate Bills and Joint Resolutions" for House bill H.R. 796 during 1874. Retrieved November 18, 2012

=Other=

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141023203305/http://cdm.msmary.edu:2011/cdm/ref/collection/Booklets/id/107 Benjamin F. Butler, "Civil Rights: Speech of Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, January 7, 1874,"] From the Digital Archive Collections of the Mount St. Mary's University. Retrieved October 15, 2014
[http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Fifteenth-Amendment/Legislative-Interests/ "Civil Rights Bill of 1875", The Fifteenth Amendment in Flesh and Blood: Legislative Interests] Provides a detailed description of the history of the bill from 1870 until its passage by Congress in 1875. Retrieved November 18, 2012
[http://blogs.archives.gov/prologue/?p=8543 History Crush: Charles Sumner, Prologue: Pieces of History, The National Archives.gov] Provides a short biographical account of Sen. Charles Sumner including details surrounding his efforts to pass the Civil Rights bill in Congress. Includes images of Sumner, personal documents, and bill S. 1 that would later lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Retrieved November 18, 2012
[http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Constitutional-Amendments-and-Legislation/ Summary of Constitutional Amendments and Major Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress] Part of the [http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Black-Americans-in-Congress/ Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007] series. Provided by the Office of History and Preservation under the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved November 18, 2012
[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/0227.html "The Trouble has Commenced - A Tale of Anxiety"] by Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly. From The New York Times "On This Day" series. Recounts the events on the floor of the House in the United States Congress involving the Civil Rights Bill on February 27, 1875. Retrieved March 16, 2013
[http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2011/New%20York%20NY%20Daily%20Graphic/New%20York%20NY%20Daily%20Graphic%201875%20March-Aug%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Daily%20Graphic%201875%20March-Aug%20Grayscale%20-%200028.pdf "How Some People Regard the Passage of the Civil Rights Bill"] Published in the Daily Graphic on March 3, 1875. From the [http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html Old Fulton] website. Presents a detractors view on the outcome of the Civil Right Bill. Retrieved July 5, 2014
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130318124850/http://media.nara.gov/nwl/S.1_12-1-1873_Civil_Rights_HR_43A-C1.pdf Digitized image] of Charles Sumners' senate bill S. 1 as introduced during the 43rd United States Congress. From the Records of the U.S. House of Representatives. Retrieved May 18, 2015
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160308025244/http://loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr093.html "Some Memories of A Long Life"] An excerpt from the memoir of Malvina Shanklin Harlan, the wife of Justice John Marshall Harlan. The excerpt chronicles the effort that Justice Harlan placed into writing an opinion for the Civil Rights Cases (1883). From the Library of Congress. Retrieved May 18, 2015