[REDCLOUD]

This was originally part of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and deals with civil rights and property owneship absed upon race discrimination. It was directed at what were called black codes. The US code has been updated. If you read on in SUBCHAPTER I and Sec. 1980 you will see how it has been changed.

TITLE 42 > CHAPTER 21 > SUBCHAPTER I > § 1982 Prev | Next

§ 1982. Property rights of citizens
Release date: 2005-12-27

All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.

Here is the original.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, passed by one vote over President Andrew Johnson's veto, granted full citizenship to all persons born on American soil, except Native Americans who were exempt from taxation. The law gave former slaves the rights to own property, enforce contracts, and give evidence in courts--rights not specifically guaranteed in the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1866

Act of April 9, 1866

An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.

Most of these provisons have been spread to many other parts of the Code.

If nobody has a right to own property does that equate to everyone having the same right (i.e., none at all)? Are you a white citizen or a U.S. citizen? Evidently it is not possible to be both by the construction of this paragraph. If you were both you would have a double right, wouldn't you? JRB, Shoonra, IDOKNOW, help!!!

If you were black (Negroe was then the term), you were, in fact, not a citizen, and could not hold property. You were property. Only white citizens could hold property prior to this, including title to black people known as slaves. A great war was fought over this called the Civil War. Full civil rights were not reached until 1968 and have only recently become widespread.