On April 9, 1866 the Congress engaged constitutional process to override a presidential veto to enact law declaring nearly 13% of the American population “to be citizens of the United States.” The 1860 federal census counted 26,957,471 “white”; 488,070 “free Colored”; and a “Black Slave Population” numbering 3,953,760. A first 20 African slaves landed at Jamestown in 1619.
Neither 1863's Emancipation Proclamation nor 1865’s 13th Amendment slavery abolition freed anyone into “citizenship.” Dred Scott's saying that the “negro African race ** had no rights that the white man was bound to respect” continued under law until the Civil Rights Act of 1866. For 246 years, human slave status was “legal” - “fugitive slaves” through scores of decades were “illegal.”
Let morality rule today!