Editing Reconstruction era (section)

===Johnson's vetoes===
[[File:Freedman's bureau.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|The debate over Reconstruction and the [[Freedmen's Bureau]] was nationwide. This 1866 Pennsylvania election poster alleged that the bureau kept the Negro in idleness at the expense of the hardworking white taxpayer. A racist [[caricature]] of an African American is depicted.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section4/section4_11.html |work=America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War |title=The Freedman's Bureau, 1866 |at=image 11 of 40 |publisher=Digital History Project, University of Houston |access-date=October 11, 2006 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060924004559/http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/section4/section4_11.html |archive-date=September 24, 2006 |url-status=dead}}</ref>]]
[[File:Harper's Weekly cover 1865 July 29.jpg|thumb|''Harper's Weekly'' cover of July 29, 1865; the text in the planter's [[speech balloon]] reads "My boy, we've toiled and taken care of you long enough. Now you've got to work!"]]
Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27, 1866. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented and attempted to fix by federal law "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every state of the Union". Johnson said it was an invasion by federal authority of the rights of the states; it had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. It was a "stride toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the national government".{{sfnp|Rhodes|1920|loc=v. 6: p. 68}}

The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, North and South, supported Johnson.{{sfnp|Trefousse|1989|p={{page needed|date=October 2021}}}} However, the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto (the Senate by the close vote of 33–15, and the House by 122–41) and the [[Civil Rights Act of 1866|civil rights bill]] became law. Congress also passed a watered-down Freedmen's Bureau bill; Johnson quickly vetoed as he had done to the previous bill. Once again, however, Congress had enough support and overrode Johnson's veto.<ref name="Alexander Rucker"/>

The last moderate proposal was the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]], whose principal drafter was Representative [[John Bingham]]. It was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution, but it went much further. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except [[Native Americans in the United States|Indians]] on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most important, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. It guaranteed the federal war debt would be paid (and promised the Confederate debt would never be paid). Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states since three-fourths of the states were required for ratification (the amendment was later ratified). The moderate effort to compromise with Johnson had failed, and a political fight broke out between the Republicans (both Radical and moderate) on one side, and on the other side, Johnson and his allies in the Democratic Party in the North, and the groupings (which used different names) in each Southern state.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}