Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

by Kate Masur

Trumbull’s Civil Rights Bill contained nine clauses concerning enforcement, an indication of the thoroughness with which he and the Senate Judiciary Committee approached the challenges Congress faced in trying to nationalize the principle of racial equality before the law. It was no small thing to devise a system by which matters traditionally left to the states—such as who could testify in court, or which criminal penalties were associated with which crimes—were made issues of federal concern. Rather than demand directly that states repeal racially discriminatory laws—which would heighten the infringement on state sovereignty as conventionally understood—the Civil Rights Bill made it a crime to enforce such laws. State officials who enforced discriminatory laws would be subject to fines or jail time, and individuals who faced discrimination in local or state courts would be permitted to move their cases into federal court. In provisions modeled on the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, the bill established federal marshals to oversee enforcement and, when needed, bring charges against state officials who violated the law. As one contemporary writer explained, it was “more than poetic justice” that the Civil Rights Bill used “the very means once employed to repress and crush the negro for his defense and elevation.”