Civil Rights Act of 1866

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is a United States federal law that declared all persons born in the United States, with limited exceptions, to be citizens, and affirmed that citizens of every race and color were entitled to the same rights to make contracts, sue, give evidence, and buy, sell and inherit property as white citizens. It was the first major piece of civil rights legislation in the United States and was enacted by Congress specifically to protect the rights of formerly enslaved African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode his veto, marking the first time in United States history that Congress overrode a presidential veto to pass major legislation. Concerned that the act could later be repealed or challenged as unconstitutional, its framers pushed to embed its core guarantees permanently in the Constitution, which became the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868.