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An act to provide for the resumption of specie payments.

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Be it enacted. . . That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and required, as rapidly as practicable, to cause to be coined at the mints of the United States, silver coins of the denominations of ten, twenty-five, and fifty cents, of standard value, and to issue them in redemption of an equal number and amount of fractional currency of similar denominations, or, at his discretion, he may issue such silver coins through the mints, the subtreasuries, public depositaries, and post-offices of the United States; and, upon such issue, he is hereby authorized and required to redeem an equal amount of such fractional currency, until the whole amount of such fractional currency outstanding shall be redeemed.

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SEC. 2. That so much of section . . . [3524] . . . of the Revised Statutes of the United States as provides for a charge of one-fifth of one per centum for converting standard gold bullion into coin is hereby repealed, and hereafter no charge shall be made for that service.

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SEC. 3. That section [5177] . . . of the Revised Statutes of the United States, limiting the aggregate amount of circulatingnotes of national banking-associations, be, and is hereby, repealed; and each existing banking-association may increase its circulatingnotes in accordance with existing law without respect to said aggregate limit; and new banking-associations may be organized in accordance with existing law without respect to said aggregate limit; and the provisions of law for the withdrawal and redistribution of national-bank currency among the several States and Territories are hereby repealed. And whenever, and so often, as circulating-notes shall be issued to any such banking-association, so increasing its capital or circulating-notes, or so newly organized as aforesaid, it shall be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to redeem the legal-tender United States notes in excess only of three hundred million of dollars, to the amount of eighty per centum of the sum of national-bank notes so issued to any such banking-association as aforesaid, and to continue such redemption as such circulating-notes are issued until there shall be outstanding the sum of three hundred million dollars of such legal-tender United States notes, and no more. And on

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and after... [January 1, 1879] the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin, the United States legal-tender notes then outstanding on their presentation for redemption, at the office of the assistant treasurer of the United States in the city of New York,1 in sums of not less than fifty dollars. And to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and provide for the redemption in this act authorized or required, he is authorized to use any surplus revenues, from time to time, in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, and to issue, sell, and dispose of, at not less than par, in coin, either of the descriptions of bonds of the United States described in the . . . [Funding Act of July 14, 1870]. . ., with like qualities, privileges, and exemptions, to the extent necessary to carry this act into full effect, and to use the proceeds thereof for the purposes aforesaid.

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No. 176. Second Civil Rights Act

March 1, 1875

AN amendment offered by Sumner to the amnesty act of May 22, 1872 [No. 173], forbidding discrimination against negroes in certain public places and elsewhere, was lost by a vote of 29 to 30. A bill of similar purport was called up in the Senate December 11, 1872, and passed over. Another bill passed the Senate April 30, 1873, but failed in the House. A third bill was introduced in the House December 18, by Butler of Massachusetts, from the Committee on the Judiciary, and January 7, 1874, was recommitted. A fourth civil rights bill passed the Senate May 22, but was not acted on by the House. A substitute for Butler's bill was reported December 16, and February 4, 1875, passed the House with amendments, the vote being 162 to 100, 27 not voting. The bill was reported in the Senate on the 15th without amendment, and passed the same day by a vote of 38 to 26.

REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XVIII., 335-337. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 43d Cong., 2d Sess., and the Cong. Record.

An act to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights.

Whereas, it is essential to just government we recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold-that it is the duty of government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and

1 An act of March 3, 1887, chap. 378, added San Francisco.

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exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political; and it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great fundamental principles into law: Therefore, Be it enacted That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement; subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude.

SEC. 2. That any person who shall violate the foregoing section by denying to any citizen, except for reasons by law applicable to citizens of every race and color, and regardless of any previous condition of servitude, the full enjoyment of any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, or privileges in said section enumerated, or by aiding or inciting such denial, shall, for every such offense, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved thereby, to be recovered in an action of debt, with full costs; and shall also, for every such offense, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars, or shall be imprisoned not less than thirty days nor more than one year . . .

SEC. 3. That the district and circuit courts of the United States shall have, exclusively of the courts of the several States, cognizance of all crimes and offenses against, and violations of, the provisions of this act . . .

SEC. 4. That no citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and any officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors who shall exclude or fail to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not more than five thousand dollars.

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No. 177. Electoral Count Act

January 29, 1877

THE result of the presidential election of 1876 turned on the counting of the electoral votes of South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, and Oregon, from each of which States there were double returns. December 7, 1876, George W. McCrary of Iowa offered in the House a resolution for the appointment of a committee of five, to act with a similar committee of the Senate, with instructions to report a bill for the counting of the electoral vote. The Committee on the Judiciary, to which the resolution was referred, reported on the 14th a substitute increasing the number of members to seven, which resolution was agreed to. A similar committee of seven was appointed by the Senate on the 18th. A committee was also appointed in the Senate to investigate the recent election, and in the House to inquire into the powers of the House in regard to counting the electoral vote. January 18 the joint committee reported a bill to regulate the electoral count. The bill passed the Senate without amendment on the 24th by a vote of 47 to 17, and the House on the 26th by a yote of 191 to 86, 14 not voting. The approval of President Grant was communicated in a special message. The count began February 1, and the result was announced in the early morning of March 2. The result of the count showed 185 votes for Hayes and Wheeler, the Republican candidates, and 184 votes for Tilden and Hendricks, the Democratic candidates. REFERENCES. Text in U.S. Statutes at Large, XIX., 227-229. For the proceedings see the House and Senate Journals, 44th Cong., 2d Sess., and the Cong. Record. The report of the commission is in the Record, ibid., Vol. 5, Part IV.; it was also published separately. A large amount of documentary evidence was introduced in the debates. The other documentary literature is extensive.

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An act to provide for and regulate the counting of votes for President and Vice-President, and the decision of questions arising thereon, for the term commencing . . . [March 4, 1877].

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Be it enacted. That the Senate and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of Representatives, at the hour of one o'clock post meridian, on the first Thursday in February, . . . [1877]; and the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer. Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate, and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the certificates, and papers purporting to be certificates, of the electoral votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented, and acted upon in the alpha

betical order of the States, beginning with the letter A; and said tellers having then read the same in the presence and hearing of the two houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been ascertained and counted as in this act provided, the result of the same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall thereupon announce the state of the vote, and the names of the persons, if any, elected, which announcement shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the persons elected President and Vice-President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes, be entered on the journals of the two houses. Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper when there shall be only one return from a State, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State from which but one return has been received shall be rejected except by the affirmative vote of the two Houses. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the question submitted.

SEC. 2. That if more than one return, or paper purporting to be a return from a State, shall have been received by the President of the Senate, purporting to be the certificates of electoral votes given at the last preceding election for President and VicePresident in such State, (unless they shall be duplicates of the same return,) all such returns and papers shall be opened by him in the presence of the two Houses when met as aforesaid, and read by the tellers, and all such returns and papers shall thereupon be submitted to the judgment and decision as to which is the true and lawful electoral vote of such State, of a commission constituted as follows, namely: During the session of each House on

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