Among the historical materials appropriate for executive review are President Andrew Johnson’s veto messages concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and related Reconstruction legislation.
Although Congress rejected President Johnson’s constitutional conclusions by overriding his veto, his messages remain among the most significant contemporaneous executive records describing the legislation, the constitutional issues then under debate, and the practical consequences he believed would follow from its enactment.
For that reason, the veto messages possess continuing historical value. They provide a contemporaneous executive description of the legislation’s scope, purpose, and anticipated effect from the perspective of the President charged with its execution.
This memorandum does not ask the Executive Branch to adopt President Johnson’s constitutional reasoning. Indeed, Congress rejected that reasoning in 1866.
Rather, it respectfully recommends that the President’s legal advisors examine the veto messages alongside the enacted statutes, the Reconstruction Amendments, the congressional debates, and other contemporaneous materials in order to better understand the constitutional framework Congress established during Reconstruction.
Faithful execution of existing law is strengthened by careful examination of the historical record surrounding its enactment.
Accordingly, the Executive Branch should regard the Johnson veto messages not as controlling authority, but as important historical evidence informing a comprehensive constitutional review of the Nation’s Reconstruction settlement.