As Prussia and Austria drifted towards war, Prussia offered the German states of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Kassel, all considered as potential allies of Austria, membership in the new Prussian-led German Confederation.  All three refused and all three were invaded the following day.  Saxony and Hesse were occupied without resistance. Hanover fought back, but despite an emphatic victory over the Prussians at Langensalza in central Germany on this day, the Hanoverian army was forced to surrender two days later, marking the end of the kingdom as an independent state. (By John Osborne)

As Prussia and Austria drifted towards war, Prussia offered the German states of Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Kassel, all considered as potential allies of Austria, membership in the new Prussian-led German Confederation.  All three refused and all three were invaded the following day.  Saxony and Hesse were occupied without resistance and although Hanover fought back, and despite a Hanoverian victory at Langensalza on June 27, 1866, its army was forced to surrender. This saw the end of the kingdom as a seperate state. (By John Osborne)

Governor Charles Jenkins of Georgia had argued against the Fourteenth Amendment and a joint committee of the state legislature agreed, arguing in part that Georgia, as a founding member of the United States had not lost that status now that the Civil War had ended and therefore the Fourteenth Amendment had been passed through the Congress without proper representation.  The state house voted the same day as the committee reported, 147 votes to two, not to ratify, as did the state senate, unanimously.  Georgia later voted ratification in July 1868 but under significant changed political circumstances.  (By John Osborne)

Texas became the first state in the Union to reject ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment when its legislature voted down the measure by wide margins, seventy to five in the state house and twenty-seven to one in the state senate.  Reports of legislative committees stressed that a state's right to determine who would or would not be a citizen was as old as the nation and the federal government held no power to dictate that black Texans were citizens with all the rights that entailed.  The first to reject, Texas was also the last state to ratify the amendment during the nineteenth century, under very different political circumstances, in February 1870. (By John Osborne) 

In a message to the South Carolina legislature, Governor James Orr had called for the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, saying that it spelled the end of the constraint guaranteed in the "limited powers" of the federal government.  The legislature agreed and on this day rejected ratification of the amendment in an almost unanimous negative vote.  South Carolina eventually did ratify the change in July 1868, three weeks before it became an official part of the Constitution, but then under very different political circumstances. (By John Osborne)  

In a message to the South Carolina legislature, Governor James Orr called for the rejection of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, saying that giving other states the right to dictate who should be a citizen in South Carolina spells the end of the constraint guaranteed in the "limited powers" of the federal government.  The legislature agreed and rejected ratification of the amendment in an almost unanimous negative vote.  South Carolina eventually did ratify the change in July 1868, three weeks before it became an official part of the Constitution, but then under very different political circumstances. (By John Osborne)  

The Arkansas governor, Republican Isaac Murphy, had recommended that his state ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as the best that could be hoped for at the time but committees of both houses of the state legislature sat and issued scathing reports demanding rejection.  The senate committee report was adopted on December 15, 1866, by a vote of twenty-four to one, and two days later the house report was adopted by a vote of sixty-eight votes to two.  Accordingly, the amendment was not submitted to a ratification vote until April 1868 and under very different circumstances. (By John Osborne)

When the Fourteenth Amendment had been sent to the states, Governor Jonathan Worth of North Carolina, like other southerners, reacted strongly against it, considering it the end of the sovereignty of the states. A legislative committee was appointed which offered on December 6, 1866 a lengthy and scathing negative recommendation stating above all that the change would "swallow up all the states" and concentrate power in federal hands.  The state legislature voted on this day to reject the amendment; forty-three to one in the senate and ninety-three to ten in the house.  (By John Osborne) 

The Vermont Legislature ratified the Fourteenth Amendment with little debate or opposition, becoming the sixth state to do so.  The measure passed in the state senate unanimously the week before and then a vote of 196 to 11 in the state house on this day completed the process.  The Fourteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on July 28, 1868.  (By John Osborne)