Matters Respectfully Submitted for Consideration The purpose of this memorandum has not been to prescribe a predetermined constitutional outcome, but to respectfully present historical materials, constitutional questions, and interpretive observations for professional legal examination. Accordingly, the author respectfully submits the following matters for consideration by the President of the United States, the Office of White …
Constitutional Literacy, National Reconciliation, and the Unfinished Work of Reconstruction Looking Forward While Honoring the Past Every generation inherits constitutional questions that it did not create but nevertheless bears responsibility to examine. The generation that enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and proposed the Fourteenth Amendment confronted the immediate legal consequences of slavery, emancipation, …
Article II, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the President’s Executive Responsibilities An Independent Constitutional Question The preceding Part addressed the possibility of further judicial consideration through the procedures established by Rule 44. This Part addresses a different constitutional question. Regardless of whether additional judicial proceedings occur, what responsibilities, if any, does the President …
…and the Request for Further Judicial Consideration: The Limited Purpose of This Request This memorandum does not presume that every disagreement with a judicial decision justifies a petition for rehearing. To the contrary, petitions for rehearing are extraordinary proceedings governed by strict procedural rules and are granted only in limited circumstances. The author’s purpose is …
The Present Controversy and the Request for Further Consideration From History to the Present The preceding Parts of this memorandum have examined the historical and constitutional foundations of Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, President Andrew Johnson’s veto messages, the relationship between the Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, and the subsequent development of Reconstruction …
The Development of Supreme Court Interpretation From Reconstruction to Modern Doctrine The constitutional questions examined in this memorandum cannot be understood solely by studying the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment in isolation. They must also be examined in light of the judicial decisions that have interpreted those enactments over the succeeding …
The First Reconstruction Foundation The Civil Rights Act of 1866 occupies a singular place in American constitutional history. Enacted during the first year following the Civil War, it represented the first comprehensive federal civil-rights legislation adopted after emancipation and the first major legislative effort to define and protect the civil status of those emerging from …
A Contemporary Witness to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 President Andrew Johnson occupies a unique place in the constitutional history of Reconstruction. He opposed many of the measures adopted by the Thirty-Ninth Congress following the Civil War. Among those measures was the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which he vetoed before Congress overrode his …
#7-PART III: PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON’S VETO MESSAGES Read More »
The Reconstruction Settlement Every important constitutional question must first be understood within the historical circumstances that produced it. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Amendments did not arise in isolation. They were enacted during one of the most extraordinary periods in American constitutional history. The Civil War had ended. The institution of …
#6″ PART II THE CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATION Read More »
This memorandum respectfully submits for professional legal examination a series of constitutional and historical questions concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Reconstruction Amendments, and the continuing responsibilities of the Executive Branch under Article II of the Constitution of the United States. It is not written as a judicial brief. Nor is it presented …