Editing Civil Rights Act (section)

===Content===
With an [[incipit]] of "An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their vindication", the act declared that all people born in the United States who are not subject to any foreign power are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] or involuntary servitude.<ref name=text /> A similar provision (called the [[Citizenship Clause]]) was written a few months later into the proposed [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]].<ref>{{cite web |first1=Akhil Reed |last1=Amar |first2=John C. |last2=Harrison |title=Common Interpretation: The Citizenship Clause |url=https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xiv/clauses/700 |publisher=The National Constitution Center |access-date=December 24, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102221433/https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/amendment-xiv/clauses/700 |archive-date=November 2, 2021}}</ref>

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 also said that any citizen has the same right that a white citizen has to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. Additionally, the act guaranteed to all citizens the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and ... like punishment, pains, and penalties..." Persons who denied these rights on account of race or previous enslavement were guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction faced a fine not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.<ref name=text />

The act used language very similar to that of the [[Equal Protection Clause]] in the newly proposed Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, the act discussed the need to provide "reasonable protection to all persons in their constitutional rights of equality before the law, without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. ..."<ref name=text />

This statute was a major part of general federal policy during  [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]], and was closely related to the [[Freedmen's Bureau bills|Second Freedmen's Bureau Act of 1866]]. According to Congressman [[John Bingham]], "the seventh and eighth sections of the Freedmen's Bureau bill enumerate the same rights and all the rights and privileges that are enumerated in the first section of this [the Civil Rights] bill."<ref>Halbrook, Stephen. ''Freedmen, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Right to Bear Arms'', 1866–1876, [https://books.google.com/books?id=0Pt2rd3w32IC&q=%22The%20same%20rights%20and%20all%20the%20rights%20and%20privileges%22&pg=PA29 page 29] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107232950/http://books.google.com/books?id=0Pt2rd3w32IC&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=%22The+same+rights+and+all+the+rights+and+privileges%22&source=bl&ots=qpZpJ5ggtU&sig=16ity6KHIaF_Mt667bm5rxqP9D0&hl=en&ei=EMF6TY_nM4jUgQfPwcHkCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22The%20same%20rights%20and%20all%20the%20rights%20and%20privileges%22&f=false |date=January 7, 2014 }} (Greenwood Publishing Group 1998).</ref>

Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 are enforceable into the 21st century,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?401420-1%2Fpolitics-reconstruction|date=December 9, 2015|title=Politics of Reconstruction|work=C-SPAN|location=Washington, D.C.|author-link=Eric Foner|last=Foner|first=Eric|access-date=March 17, 2016|archive-date=March 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160323095534/http://www.c-span.org/video/?401420-1%2Fpolitics-reconstruction|url-status=live}}</ref> according to the [[United States Code]]:<ref>{{USC|42|1981}}</ref>

{{blockquote|All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.}}

One section of the United States Code (42 U.S.C. §1981), is §1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as revised and amended by subsequent Acts of Congress. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was reenacted by the [[Enforcement Act of 1870]], ch. 114, § 18, 16 Stat. 144, codified as sections 1977 and 1978 of the Revised Statutes of 1874, and appears now as 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981–82 (1970).  Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as subsequently revised and amended, appears in the US Code at 18 U.S.C. §242. After the fourteenth amendment became effective, the 1866 Act was reenacted as an addendum to the Enforcement Act of 1870 in order to dispel any possible doubt as to its constitutionality. Act of May 31, 1870, ch. 114, § 18, 16 Stat. 144.<ref>Greenfield and Kates, 663–664.</ref>