What Was The Turning Point Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1866

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The Thirteenth Amendment took some time to pass. Johnson really didn’t want blacks to have rights. He did everything in his power to make sure African Americans didn’t have freedom. After slavery was abolished the black codes came up in the summer of 1865 in the South. These codes were basically promoting slavery once again but using a different name. Nothing would have happen to abolish the black codes if it weren’t for the moderates. In 1866 the moderates produced two bills. The first bill was Freedman’s Bureau Bill. This bill distributed food, supervised labor contracts, and sponsored school for freedman. Big surprise, Johnson vetoed the bill. Congress tried to override Johnson’s veto but failed. The second bill the moderates proposed was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. This bill basically got rid …show more content…

Tennessee approved the amendment and congress began to let senators and representatives back in. But it wasn’t that easy, Johnson didn’t want this to happen at all so he made it a pressing issue in the election of 1866. This started to cause violence to occur. A mob in New Orleans broke out and 34 black people died. In Memphis white mobs killed about 46 people. This is the turning point of this issue. If violence didn’t occur than the Northerners wouldn’t have been extremely upset. The republicans kept fighting it. This is a key provision in getting this amendment accepted. People like Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Thaddeus Stevens demanded civil and political equality. They weren’t taking no for an answer. In March 1867, congress overturned Johnson’s state government and initiated military rule in the south. The military reconstruction act basically forced the southern states to begin to accept that black people had equal rights as they did. Apart of the act was getting blacks the right to vote. Once this happened republicans believed that the voting power of ex-slaves would bring up a revolution in the south, which is a part of the constitutional

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