Amnesty Act

The Amnesty Act of May 22, 1872 was a United States federal law which reversed most of the penalties imposed on former Confederates by the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Act removed voting restrictions and office-holding disqualification against most of the secessionists who rebelled in the American Civil War, except for "senators and Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses and officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of Departments, and foreign ministers of the United States."[1] The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress and the original restrictive Act was passed by the United States Congress in May 1866.[2]

The 1872 Act affected over 150,000 former Confederate troops who had taken part in the American Civil War.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Ulysses S. Grant: Proclamation 208—Suspension of Prosecution for Violations of the Office-Holding Prohibition in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution". www.presidency.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2018-02-22.
  2. ↑ Rawley, James A. (December 1960). "The General Amnesty Act of 1872: A Note". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Organization of American Historians. 47 (3): 480–484. JSTOR 1888879.
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