by Sheli Ellsworth
Andrew Johnson was president of the United States in 1866 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson, later acquitted by the Senate, was the first American president to be impeached. Johnson, who was pro-slavery, was also pro-union and the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state’s secession.
Urged by political moderates to sign the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson broke decisively with them and vetoed it on March 27, 1866. In his veto message, he objected to the bill because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented in the Congress discriminating against whites in favor of African-Americans. Congress over-rode his veto, which was the first major veto in American history. In April 1866, Congress again passed the bill and Johnson again vetoed it. A two-thirds majority in each house overcame the veto and the bill therefore became law. The veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is considered by historians to be the biggest mistake of Johnson’s presidency.
The Civil Rights Act became law on April 9, 1866. It was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and protect the civil rights of persons of African descent who had been born in or brought to America. But what rights were considered civil rights? It was not the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, nor the right to attend the school of one’s choice. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 simply states that people born in the United States (not subject to any foreign power) are entitled to be citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude. Any citizen has the civil right to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, testify in court; inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) was founded April 10, 1886 in New York City by Henry Bergh. Bergh had been appointed by President Lincoln to a diplomatic post in Russia where he was horrified to witness work horses beaten by their drivers. On his way back to America, a visit to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in London awakened his determination to secure a charter not only to incorporate the ASPCA, but to exercise the power to arrest and prosecute violators of the law. He argued that protecting animals was an issue that crossed party lines and class boundaries. “This is a matter purely of conscience; it has no perplexing side issues,” he said. “It is a moral question in all its aspects,” prompting a number of dignitaries to sign his “Declaration of the Rights of Animals.”
April 19, 1866 the first effective animal anti-cruelty law in the United States was passed, allowing the ASPCA to investigate cruelty complaints and to make arrests.
In May of 1866, Congress approved the minting of the nickel. Economic hardship from the Civil War drove gold and silver from circulation causing government issued paper currency. In 1865, Congress abolished the five-cent note when the head of the Currency Bureau, Spencer Clark, placed his own portrait on the denomination. After successful introduction of two- and three-cent pieces without precious metal, Congress authorized a five-cent piece composed of 75% copper and 25% nickel. What could you get for a nickel in 1866? A pound of beef soup. If you wanted rice with it, rice sold for seven cents a pound.
Land was cheap by comparison. The average wage for a laborer in 1866 was .90 a day, which doesn’t seem like much, but since land was $3-$5 dollars an acre, enterprising people could afford to own property. Compare this with today’s wage at $80 a day and an acre of California farmland averaging $7,000 an acre.
By July, the Metric Act of 1866 became law legalizing the use of the metric system in the United States eliminating the need for yardsticks and renaming the inchworm the “measuring worm.”
Prices from the 1800s:
Wheat Flour — $7.14/barrel
Granulated sugar — 8 cents/pound
Roasting beef — 11 cents/pound
Cheese — 13 cents/pound
Eggs — 20 cents/dozen
Hard wood — $6.49/cord
Rent for 4 rooms — $4.45/month
Room and board for men — $2.79/month
Room and board for women — $1.79/month
Famous Births in 1866:
February 26 – Herbert Henry Dow, Canadian chemical industrialist
April 13 – Butch Cassidy, American outlaw
April 14 – Anne Sullivan, American tutor of Helen Keller
July 28 – Beatrix Potter, English children’s author
Sept. 21-H. G. Wells, English writer
Sept. 25 – Thomas Hunt Morgan, American geneticist
Nov. 27 – George H. Reed, African-American screen actor, starred in Huckleberry Finn (1920).
