11. Protecting Full and Equal Rights

Safeguarding Fundamental Rights: Judicial Incursion into Legislative Authority

“…Given that a super-majority was needed to override President Andrew Johnson's vetoindeed-in fact, this was the first veto override of any major law in United State history-Reverdy Johnson's view was only shared by a relatively small minority. 246 Most congressmen believed that the Amendment had dramatically altered the federal-state relationship. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 went so far as to provide criminal penalties for the abridgment of core American rights, a step that indicated that Congress, immediately after ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, conceived itself to no longer to be hamstrung by the federalism of a bygone era, when the racist administration of criminal law was a state prerogative.…”