Mississippi v. Johnson 1867

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Mississippi v. Johnson 1867

Plaintiff: State of Mississippi

Defendants: U.S. President Andrew Johnson, General Edward O. C. Ord P laintiff's Claim: That the president should be stopped from enforcing the Reconstruction Act of 1867 because it violated the U.S. Constitution.

Chief Lawyers for Plaintiff: W.L. Sharkey, R. J. Walker

Chief Lawyer for the Defense: U.S. Attorney General Henry Stanberry

Justices for the Court: Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, David Davis, Stephen J. Field, Robert C. Grier, Samuel F. Miller, Samuel Nelson, Noah H. Swayne, James M. Wayne

Justices Dissentig:

Date of Decision: April 15, 1867

Decision: Ruled in favor of President Johnson by finding that the Constitution's separation of powers prevents the Court from stopping the President in carrying out his executive duties.

Significance: The Court refused to limit a president's power to carry out the laws passed by Congress, keeping the separation of powers intact. The ruling was important in defining the executive's immunity from lawsuits designed to block his political duties. The decision also held that the Court could not stop a president from enforcing an act of Congress, but could rule on the constitutionality of an act once executed.

Executive immunity refers to a concept highly important to the nation's chief executive, the president. While exercising his executive powers, executive immunity shields the president from judicial (the courts) interference. A court cannot demand or require a president to take action or, on the other hand, stop action on any specific political duty such as enforcing laws made by Congress. The concept is part of the Constitution's system of separation of power. The three branches of federal government, the executive (president), the legislature (Congress), and the judicial (courts), are each protected from undue influence by the others. However, the president's immunity has limits from all challenge. Under Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. Congress may impeach and remove a president from office if it finds him guilty of "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

A key U.S. Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity, Mississippi v. Johnson (1867), came during a difficult time in American history.

Reconstructing the South

Following the devastating Civil War (1861–1865), the country was trying to heal and address problems that came with the end of slavery. The governmental programs designed to restore order and rebuild the South were called Reconstruction.

Although the post-Civil War battles were fought with words and laws, not cannons and guns, Reconstruction policies pitted North against South, almost as fiercely as the war itself. The North, as the Civil War victor, clearly held an advantage. Following in the footsteps of President Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865), President Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) tried to make Reconstruction a healing process. But, by 1867 a group of politicians in Congress known as the Radical Republicans had taken control. Most of the Republicans had been strong abolitionists (anti-slavery) before the war. Controlling the beaten Confederacy (Southern states) and establishing rights of newly freed slaves was their primary concern and mission.

Reconstruction Act of 1867

One of the Radical Republicans' first major pieces of legislation was the Reconstruction Act of 1867. The act divided the Southern states into five military districts and required the President to assign an army officer as military governor to each district. Military courts would hear civil (nonmilitary) disputes. Further, the President was to provide a sufficient military force to assist the officer in enforcing his authority within his district. As a condition for reentering the Union, the act required states to draft new constitutions giving former slaves the right to vote.

South Outraged

The Reconstruction Act outraged the South. Within a month of its passage, the state of Mississippi charged the act was overwhelmingly unconstitutional and challenged the president's authority to carry out its programs. The state asked the Supreme Court to issue a permanent injunction (court order to stop an action) to stop President Johnson and their area's military governor, Edward O. C. Ord, from carrying out the congressional programs outlined in the Reconstruction Act. Never before had an acting president been named as a defendant in a case heard before the Supreme Court.

The federal government had been in constitutional trouble only a year earlier by using military authority in civil issues. Calling it a "gross" misuse of power, the Court ruled in Ex Parte Milligan (1866) that the government could not declare martial law (military rule) in an area outside a war zone that already had existing civil governments and courts. Mississippi was no longer at war with the federal government and had its own civil government in place. Therefore, the Milligan ruling gave the South hope that the Court would also strike down the Reconstruction Act programs.

Before the Court, Mississippi referred to the precedent (previous ruling) of Marbury v. Madison. In that famous 1803 decision, Chief Justice John Marshall held that the Court could command executive officials to carry out "ministerial" duties in order to fulfill their legal obligations. A ministerial duty was thought of as a rather simple duty not open to an individual's personal judgement. Mississippi claimed carrying out the Reconstruction Act programs was merely ministerial and, therefore, the Court could order the president to stop them.

Mississippi Denied

The Supreme Court unanimously denied Mississippi's request for an injunction. Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, writing for the Court, held that the judiciary (courts) could not stop the president from enforcing the Reconstruction Act, even if the act was unconstitutional. The Court chose not to focus on the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act, but rather on its enforcement by the president. To prevent a president from enforcing acts of Congress would stop a president from carrying out his constitutional responsibilities to the legislative branch.

In his reasoning Chief Justice Chase first distinguished between "ministerial" duties and "political" duties. Chase defined ministerial duty as, " . . . one in respect to which nothing is open to discretion [judgement or question]. It is a simple, definite duty, arising under conditions admitted or proved to exist, and imposed by law." Chase continued by defining political duties,

Very different is the duty of the President in the exercise of power to see that the laws are faithfully executed, and among these laws the [Reconstruction Act} . . . {H}e is required to assign generals to command in the several military districts, and to detail sufficient military force to enable such officers to discharge their duties under the law . . . The duty thus imposed on the President is in no sense just ministerial. It is purely executive and political.

Therefore, Chase disagreed with Mississippi that the actions required to set the Reconstruction Acts in motion were simply ministerial duties which, according to the Marbury decision, the Court could order the president to carry out or, in this case, to stop acting on. Rather, these duties were political requiring the exercise of political judgement. Any attempt by the Court to direct how a president must carry out his political duties was, in the language of John Marshall, "an absurd and excessive" interference with another branch of government. Preventing the president from acting on congressional legislation would cause a "collision . . . between executive and legislative departments of the government." The House would then have grounds for impeachment against the president. With this reasoning the Court kept the separation of powers intact.

Concerning the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, the Court pointed out that the Constitution requires Congress to pass laws, the president to execute (carry out) them, and the Court to review them once they have been put into action. The Court had no power to review the Reconstruction Acts before they had even been put into action.

SALMON PORTLAND CHASE

S almon Portland Chase (1808–1873) was born in New Hampshire, the eighth of eleven children. He served as the sixth chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1864 to 1873. Chase presided over the Court through America's bitter years of Reconstruction. His rulings generally empowered Congress to direct Reconstruction and rebuild the nation.

Chase graduated Phi Beta Kappa (with high honors) from Dartmouth College at eighteen years of age and built a successful law practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. By the 1830s slavery, which Chase fiercely opposed, was the burning issue. A deeply religious man, Chase was morally incensed by the treatment of slaves and defended those who protected runaway slaves. Elected to the Senate in 1849, he quickly became a leader of the antislavery movement helping to create the Republican Party. President Lincoln appointed Chase secretary of the treasury in 1860 and chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1864 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Roger B. Taney. His firm leadership and commitment to hard work helped regain some of the Court's prestige lost with Taney's Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. Chase pushed for voting rights for blacks, but took a moderate approach to Reconstruction winning the support of Democrats. It fell to Chase to preside over the impeachment trial of President Johnson. His fair legal procedure probably saved the Johnson presidency.

Chase was passed over three times for a presidential nomination in 1856, 1860, and 1868. Although his fellow justices often complained of what they considered his excessive political ambition, they regarded him as a strong, efficient leader with superior judicial abilities.

A Presidential Shield

Following the Mississippi decision, President Johnson did carry out the Reconstruction Act and in 1868 the state of Georgia filed a similar suit. At that point the Court could properly examine the act's constitutionality. The Court let the act stand continuing to allow Congress to rebuild the nation in whatever ways it believed appropriate.

In a legal sense, Mississippi helped shape the notion of executive immunity. The president was now immune (shielded) from suits that tried to prevent him from carrying out a law. Ironically, President Johnson was personally very opposed to the Reconstruction Act but had felt Mississippi's action was a direct threat to presidential power. Therefore, he had ordered the U.S. attorney general to oppose the state's request.

In Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982) the Court expanded presidential immunity by ruling that the president was immune to personal liability (responsibility) lawsuits for actions he took while carrying out his duties in office.