1866 One Hundred And Twenty-five Years Ago

To revive its Civil Rights Act of 1866, vetoed in late March, the Senate on April 9 mustered its first override ever of a presidential veto. In part a response to the Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 Dred Scott decision as well as to the black codes being enacted by many Southern legislatures, the act guaranteed the rights of citizenship for “all persons born in the U.S. and not subject to any foreign powers, excluding Indians not taxed …”