In 1866, during the Thirty-ninth Congress, Bingham was appointed to a subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction tasked with considering suffrage proposals. As a member of the subcommittee, Bingham submitted several versions of an amendment to the Constitution to apply the Bill of Rights to the States. His final submission, which was accepted by the Committee on April 28, 1866, read, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The Committee recommended for the language to become Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It was introduced in the spring of 1866, passing both houses by June 1866.