The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act 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.
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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.
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.[1] 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.[2] It was signed into law by United States President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1875.[3]
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.[4] Grant never commented on the 1875 law, and did nothing to enforce it, says historian John Hope Franklin.[5] 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."[6] Public opinion was opposed, with the black community in support.[7] Historian Rayford Logan looking at newspaper editorials finds the press was overwhelmingly opposed.[8]
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.[9][page needed] 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.
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.[10]
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.
Franklin (1974), pp. 225-35
Gerber and Friedlander (2008)
- Franklin, John Hope (Winter 1974). "The Enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1875". Prologue Magazine. 6 (4): 225–235.
- Gerber, Richard A.; Friedlander, Alan (2008). The Civil Rights Act of 1875: A Reexamination. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. ISBN 9781878508287.
- Gillette, William (1982). "Insignificant Victory: The Civil Rights Act of 1875". Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869--1879. LSU Press. pp. 259–279. ISBN 9780807110065.
- Hoffer, Williamjames Hull (2010). The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801899577.
- Logan, Rayford Whittingham (1997) [1965]. The Betrayal of the Negro: From Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson. DaCapo Press. ISBN 9780306807589.
- Smith, Jean Edward (2002). Grant. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780684849270.
- Douglass, Frederick (1892). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., Third Part, Chapter VI, "The Supreme Court Decision."
Books
Monographs
- Friedlander, Alan; Gerber, Richard Allan (2018). Welcoming Ruin: The Civil Rights Act of 1875. Brill. ISBN 9789004384071.
- Higginbotham, A. Leon Jr. (1998). "The Supreme Court's Sanction of Racial Hatred: The 1883 Civil Rights Cases". Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process. Oxford University Press. pp. 94–107. ISBN 9780198028673.
- Howard, John R. (1999). The Shifting Wind: The Supreme Court and Civil Rights from Reconstruction to Brown. New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 66–68. ISBN 9780791440896.
- Sandoval-Strausz, A. K. (2007). "Accommodating Jim Crow: The Law of Hospitality and the Struggle for Civil Rights". Hotel: An American History. Yale University Press. pp. 284–311. ISBN 9780300106169.
- Tsesis, Alexander (2010). ""Badges and Incidents of Slavery" In the Supreme Court". The Promises of Liberty: The History and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment. Columbia University Press. pp. 172–181. ISBN 9780231141444.
- Wilson, Kirt H. (2002). The Reconstruction Desegregation Debate: The Politics of Equality and the Rhetoric of Place, 1870-1875. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 9780870136177.
- Wynn, Linda T. (2009). "Civil Rights Act of 1875". In Jessie Carney Smith, Linda T. Wynn (ed.). Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience. Visible Ink Press. pp. 165–167. ISBN 9781578592609.
Journals
- Avins, Alfred (May 1966). "The Civil Rights Act of 1875: Some Reflected Light on the Fourteenth Amendment and Public Accommodations". Columbia Law Review. 66 (5): 873–915. doi:10.2307/1121057. JSTOR 1121057.
- François, Anderson Bellegarde (Winter 2014). "The Brand of Inferiority: The Civil Rights Act of 1875, White Supremacy, and Affirmative Action". Howard Law Journal. 57 (2): 573–599.
- Gudridge, Patrick O. (April 1989). "Privileges and Permissions: The Civil Rights Act of 1875". Law and Philosophy. 8 (1): 83–130. doi:10.2307/3504632. JSTOR 3504632. S2CID 147599621.
- Jager, Ronald B. (September 1969). "Charles Sumner, the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875". The New England Quarterly. 42 (3): 350–372. doi:10.2307/363614. JSTOR 363614.
- Kaczorowski, Robert J. (February 1987). "To Begin the Nation Anew: Congress, Citizenship, and Civil Rights after the Civil War". The American Historical Review. 92 (1): 45–68. doi:10.2307/1862782. JSTOR 1862782.
- McPherson, James M. (December 1965). "Abolitionists and the Civil Rights Act of 1875". Journal of American History. 52 (3): 493–510. doi:10.2307/1890844. JSTOR 1890844.
- Murphy, L.E. (April 1927). "The Civil Rights Law of 1875". Journal of Negro History. 12 (2): 110–127. doi:10.2307/2714050. JSTOR 2714050. S2CID 149856037.
- Spackman, S. G. F. (December 1976). "American Federalism and the Civil Rights Act of 1875". Journal of American Studies. 10 (3): 313–328. doi:10.1017/s0021875800003182. S2CID 144751982.
- Weaver, Valeria W. (October 1969). "The Failure of Civil Rights 1875–1883 and its Repercussions". Journal of Negro History. 54 (4): 368–382. doi:10.2307/2716730. JSTOR 2716730. S2CID 149517761.
- Wyatt-Brown, Bertram (December 1965). "The Civil Rights Act of 1875". Western Political Quarterly. 18 (4): 763–765. doi:10.1177/106591296501800403. S2CID 154418104.
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Other
- 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
- "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
- 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
- Summary of Constitutional Amendments and Major Civil Rights Acts passed by Congress Part of the 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
- "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
- "How Some People Regard the Passage of the Civil Rights Bill" Published in the Daily Graphic on March 3, 1875. From the Old Fulton website. Presents a detractors view on the outcome of the Civil Right Bill. Retrieved July 5, 2014
- 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
- "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
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