Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction 39th Congress, 1865-1867

THE COMMITTEE THAT DRAFTED THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, THE RECONSTRUCTION ACT AND THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT President Andrew Johnson's failure to pursue an aggressive Reconstruction policy incited Congress to supplant his authority by establishing the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction, which drafted the Civil Rights Act (1866), the Reconstruction Act (1867) and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), which contains the important and oft-debated "due process" clause. The committee's journal was never printed by the government. Brought home by Senator William Pitt Fessenden, one of the committee's members, it remained in his family until it was sold at auction. It was finally acquired by Columbia University, where it remains today. Kendrick offers the complete text of the journal (166 pages) and an extensive history of the committee's work. Published originally in the Columbia University series Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, this work is cited frequently in the literature on Reconstruction. It is a primary reference, for example, in Raoul Berger's landmark study Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment (1977). BENJAMIN B. KENDRICK [1884-1946] was a professor of history at the University of North Carolina. He was also the author of The South Looks at its Past (1935) and co-author (with Louis M. Hacker) of The United States Since 1865 (1935).