In Nashville, the Tennessee state house voted to follow the state's upper house the previous day and to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  On a vote of forty-three to eleven, the state became the first former Confederate state to accept the measure and the third overall, after New Hampshire and Connecticut. (By John Osborne)

In Nashville, the Tennessee state senate voted with a ballot of fifteen "yeas" and six "nays" to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The lower house followed the next day on a vote of forty-three to eleven and the state became the first former Confederate state to accept the measure and the third overall, after New Hampshire and Connecticut. (By John Osborne)

Following Texas and Georgia, Florida over three days debated the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and voted unanimously not to ratify.  The state house voted unanimously, thirty-nine votes to zero on December 1, 1866 and the state senate voted twenty votes to none to reject. Florida later ratified the amendment on June 9, 1868, in radically transformed political circumstances.  (By John Osborne) 

The Alabama legislature, following those of Texas, Georgia, and Florida, voted not to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  Both houses voted overwhelmingly on this day to reject the measure.  The Senate voted two votes for and twenty-seven against, while the State House voted eight to sixty-nine to reject.  Alabama later voted to ratify, on July 13, 1868, in radically transformed political circumstances.(By John Osborne)

The second "lame duck" session of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States opened in Washington, D.C. It sat until its two week holiday recess that began on December 21, 1866 and then reconvened on January 3, 1867. Schuyler Colfax, Republican of Indiana, continued as Speaker of the House. (By John Osborne)

William Wright, a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, was a veteran politician, having sat in the House of Representatives as a Whig and friend of Henry Clay during the 1840s and in the Senate as a Democrat in the following decade.  He had once again returned to the U.S. Senate in 1863 but died at his home in Newark after a long illness before he could complete his term.  He was seventy-one years old.  New Jersey Governor Ward named his fellow Republican Frederick Frelinghuysen to fill the unexpired term, thus increasing his party's majority in the U.S. Senate.  (By John Osborne)

Included on the ballot for the election for township officers in West Virginia was the proposed state constitutional amendment that banned from citizenship any resident of the state who had willingly supported the Confederate cause after June 1861. West Virginia Republicans justified this measure, saying "We look only to the adoption of such a policy as will secure to us the legitimate results of the dearly-bought victory by which at the last loyalty triumphed over treason on the field of battle." The amendment was adopted and resulted in significant voter suppression, especially in the southern sections of the state, and sealed a sweeping victory for Republicans in the October elections.  (By John Osborne) 

In the West Virginia state elections, held under the effect of the recent state constitutional amendment barring from citizenship anyone who had given aid to the Confederacy since 1861, resulted in a predictable Republican victory.  The incumbent governor, Arthur Boorman, was re-elected and the state legislature numbered majorities of eighteen to four in the upper house and forty-five to eleven seats in the lower.  Republicans Chester Hubbard, Bethuel Kitchen, and Daniel Polsley, went to the U.S. House of Representatives to fill the three West Virginia seats. (By John Osborne)

In the Vermont general election, Republicans swept almost all the state races and elected the three U.S. Representatives sent to the Fortieth Congress. Lieutenant Governor Paul Dillingham was elected governor with more than three-quarters of the votes cast and his party again controlled the state legislature, holding all thirty seats in the upper house and 224 of the 237 seats in the lower.  Worthington Smith and retiring U.S. Senator Luke Poland went to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time and Frederick Woodbridge was re-elected there.  (By John Osborne)

Vermont Democrats met to nominate candidates for the September 1866 elections. Charles Davenport was selected as the gubernatorial hopeful and Charles D. Lindsley as his running mate. Both men lost heavily in the fall in a state almost completely under the control of the Republican Party.  Delegates also passed resolutions declaring their support for President Johnson and his policies and decrying the actions of the "hypocritical faction" in Congress resisting the readmission of the former Confederate states to representation.  (By John Osborne)