<P> President Andrew Johnson Vetoed the Civil Rights bill of 1866 amid concerns (among other things) that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to pass such a law . Such doubts were one factor that led Congress to begin to draft and debate what would become the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . Moreover, Congress wanted to protect white Unionists who were under personal and legal attack in the former Confederacy . The effort was led by the Radical Republicans of both houses of Congress, including John Bingham, Charles Sumner, and Thaddeus Stevens . The most important among these, however, was Bingham, a Congressman from Ohio, who drafted the language of the Equal Protection Clause . </P> <P> The Southern states were opposed to the Civil Rights Act, but in 1865 Congress, exercising its power under Article I, section 5, clause 1 of the Constitution, to "be the Judge of the...Qualifications of its own Members," had excluded Southerners from Congress, declaring that their states, having rebelled against the Union, could therefore not elect members to Congress . It was this fact--the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted by a "rump" Congress--that allowed the Equal Protection Clause to be passed by Congress and proposed to the states . Its ratification by the former Confederate states was made a condition of their reacceptance into the Union . </P> <P> During the debate in Congress, more than one version of the clause was considered . Here is the first version: "The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure...to all persons in the several states equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property ." Bingham said about this version: "It confers upon Congress power to see to it that the protection given by the laws of the States shall be equal in respect to life and liberty and property to all persons ." The main opponent of the first version was Congressman Robert S. Hale of New York, despite Bingham's public assurances that "under no possible interpretation can it ever be made to operate in the State of New York while she occupies her present proud position ." </P> <P> Hale ended up voting for the final version, however . When Senator Jacob Howard introduced that final version, he said: </P>

Supreme court cases based on equal protection clause