April 9, 1866: When Congress Overrode a Veto to a Key Civil Rights Law

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 enacted core civil rights for freed slaves, free blacks—and all other minorities. It created voting rights. The right to be on a jury. The right to make and enforce contracts.  The right to public accommodations without racial exclusion. In many states, only free whites enjoyed those rights.

President Andrew Johnson had long history of viewing blacks and foreigners as an inferior race. Listen to his voice (in his veto message to Congress) … and compare him to the likes of Rep. Steven King and Stephen Miller:

By the first section of the bill all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called Gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people, of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood. 

Every individual of these races, born in the United States, is by the bill made a citizen of the United States. It does not purport to declare or confer any other right of citizenship than federal citizenship. It does not purport to give these classes of persons any status as citizens of States, except that which may result from their status as citizens of the United States. The power to confer the right of State citizenship is just as exclusively with the several States as the power to confer the right of federal citizenship is with Congress.

I emphasized his last sentence to underscore his meaning: A state could deny citizenship to a black person, a Chinese person, and other racial and ethnic minorities. To Johnson, the South never lost the Civil War.

Johnson's veto message is the essence of the nation’s policies on immigration as administered by the 45^th president. 

He, and the 17^th president, had much in common.

On April 9, 1866, Congress stood up to racism and xenophobia.

On April 9, 2019, the Senate would likely refuse to take up a similar resolution.