This is the third installment of our Deep Dive into the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Section 1 of the Act was the enduring Citizenship Clause. Section 2, almost as important, created criminal penalties for the violations of the civil rights of persons who had been “held in a condition of slavery.” Here is the section:
Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both…
This clause established former slaves as a special class of citizens entitled to legal protections. It recognized the widening violence against freedpeople and created new criminal penalties for the violations of black people’s rights.
While incredibly progressive for the day, the behaviors it outlawed were only misdemeanors and the penalties were capped at a year in jail. This would not be enought to staunch the increasing use of terror by Southern whites to control the region’s black population.
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