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Formally titled 'An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their vindication', the Act declared that people born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. A similar provision was written a few months later in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Regarding citizenship by birth in the U.S.: "...all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States."
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also said that any citizen has the same right as a white citizen to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Persons who denied these rights to former slaves were guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction faced a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.
The statute does not protect foreign visitors, diplomats, or Native Americans in the United States on reservations. It was intended to provide the freedmen (freed slaves) with the full range of civil rights that were enjoyed by citizens.
This statute was a major part of general federal policy during Reconstruction, and was closely related to the Second Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866. According to Congressman John Bingham, "the seventh and eighth sections of the Freedmen's Bureau bill enumerate the same rights and all the rights and privileges that are enumerated in the first section of this bill."
Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 are still in effect in the 21st century, according to the United States Code:
All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
This section of the United States Code is based on section one of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
Read more about this topic: Civil Rights Act Of 1866
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