Mississippi v. Johnson

71 U.S. 475 (1866)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts after the Civil War. Ps file a bill in the name of the State praying this court perpetually to enjoin and restrain President Johnson (D) and his officers and agents appointed from enforcing the Acts. The Acts recited that no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas, and that it was necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in them until loyal and republican State governments could be legally established. The States were divided into five military districts. It allowed military officers to essentially rule their districts under martial law until the governments in the states were reconstituted. Ps' bill recited 'that forever after it was impossible for her people, or for the State in its corporate capacity, to dissolve that connection with the other States, and that any attempt to do so by secession or otherwise was a nullity;' and she 'now solemnly asserted that her connection with the Federal government was not in anywise thereby destroyed or impaired;' and she averred and charged 'that the Congress of the United States cannot constitutionally expel her from the Union, and that any attempt which practically does so is a nullity.' Ps questioned the ability of Congress to control, modify, and even abolish the state government and exert sovereign power over it and rule over it under military law. The Attorney-General objected on the ground that no bill which makes a President a defendant, and seeks an injunction against him to restrain the performance of his duties as President, should be allowed to be filed in Supreme Court.