RECONSTRUCTION. In the House as early as Dec. 15, 1863, Henry Winter Davis moved that so much of the President's message as relates to the duty of the United States to guaranty a Republican form of government to the States in which the governments recognized by the United States have been abrogated or overthrown, be referred to a select committee of nine to report the bills necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing guarantee, was passed, and on May 4th, 1864, the House adopted the first reconstruction bill by 74 yeas to 66 nays—a strict party vote.* The Senate passed it by yeas 18, nays 14-Doolittle, Henderson, Lane of Indiana, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, and Van Winkle voting with the Democrats against it. ernor shall so certify to the President, who, shall, by proclamation, recognize the gov after obtaining the assent of Congress, ernment as established, and none other, as and from the date of such recognition, and the constitutional government of the State; and electors for President and Vice-Presinot before, Senators and Representatives dent may be elected in such State. Until shall enforce the laws of the Union and of re-organization the Provisional Governor the State before the rebellion. The remaining sections are as follows: SEC. 12. That all persons held to involuntary servitude or labor in the States charged therefrom, and they and their posaforesaid are hereby emancipated and disterity shall be forever free. And if any such persons or their posterity shall be reclaim to such service or labor, the courts strained of liberty, under pretence of any of the United States shall, on habeas corpus, discharge them. more than twenty years. The bill authorizes the President to appoint in each of the States declared in rebellion, a Provisional Governor, with the pay and emoluments of a brigadier; to be charged with the civil administration until SEC. 13. That if any person declared free a State government therein shall be recog- or any proclamation of the President, be by this act, or any law of the United States, nized. As soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been sup-in or reduced to involuntary servitude or restrained of liberty, with intent to be held pressed, and the people sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitu- labor, the person convicted before a court tion and laws, the Governor shall direct of competent jurisdiction of such act shall the marshal of the United States to enroll be punished by fine of not less than $1,500, all the white male citizens of the United and be imprisoned not less than five, nor States, resident in the State in their respective counties, and whenever a majority of them take the oath of allegiance, the loyal people of the State shall be entitled to elect delegates to a convention to act upon the re-establishment of a State government the proclamation to contain details prescribed. Qualified voters in the army may vote in their camps. No person who has held or exercised any civil, military, State, or Confederate office, under the rebel occupation, and who has voluntarily borne arms against the United States, shall vote or be eligible as a delegate. The convention is required to insert in the constitution provisions— hereafter hold or exercise any office, civil SEC. 14. That every person who shall or military, except offices merely ministerial and military offices below the grade Confederate, is hereby declared not to be of colonel, in the rebel service, State or a citizen of the United States. Lincoln's Proclamation on Reconstruction bill because it reached him less than one President Lincoln failed to sign the above hour before final adjournment, and thereupon issued a proclamation which closed as follows: 1st. No person who has held or exercised Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, any civil or military office, (except offices President of the United States, do promerely ministerial and military offices be- claim, declare, and make known, that, low a colonel,) State or Confederate, under while I am (as I was in December last, the usurping power, shall vote for, or be when by proclamation I propounded a plan a member of the legislature or governor. for restoration) unprepared, by a formal 2d. Involuntary servitude is forever pro-approval of this bill, to be inflexibly comhibited, and the freedom of all persons is mitted to any single plan of restoration; guarantied in said State. 3d. No debt, State or Confederate, cre- that the free State constitutions and govand, while I am also unprepared to declare ated by or under the sanction of the usurp-ernments already adopted and installed in ing power, shall be recognized or paid by the State. Upon the adoption of the constitution by the convention, and its ratification by the electors of the State, the Provisional Gov McPherson's History, page 317. Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for nought, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort, or to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in States, but am at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendment | admit the Arkansas Senators raised an is abolishing slavery throughout the nation sue which partially divided the Republimay be adopted, nevertheless I am fully cans in both Houses, some of whom fasatisfied with the system for restoration vored forcible reconstruction through the contained in the bill as one very proper aid of Military Governors and the machinplan for the loyal people of any State ery of new State governments, while others choosing to adopt it, and that I am, and at opposed. The views of those opposed to all times shall be, prepared to give the Ex- the President's policy are well stated in a ecutive aid and assistance to any such peo- paper signed by Benjamin F. Wade and ple, so soon as the military resistance to Henry Winter Davis, published in the New the United States shall have been sup- York Tribune, August 5th, 1864. From pressed in any such State, and the people this we take the more pithy extracts: thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and laws of the United States, in which cases Military Governors will be appointed, with directions to proceed according to the bill." Admission of Arkansas. On the 10th of June, 1864, introduced a joint resolution for the recognition of the free State government of Arkansas. A new State government had then been organized, with Isaac Murphy, Governor, who was reported to have received nearly 16,000 votes at a called election. The other State officers are: Lieutenant Governor, C. C. Bliss; Secretary of State, R. J. T. White; Auditor, J. B. Berry; Treasurer, E. D. Ayers; Attorney General, C. T. Jordan; Judges of the Supreme Court, T. D. W. Yowley, C. A. Harper, E. Baker. The Legislature also elected Senators, but neither Senators nor Representatives obtained their seats. Trumbull, from the Senate Judiciary Committee, made a long report touching the admission of the Senators, which closed as follows: The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a law, holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at the dictation of his personal ambition. If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be supposed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will acquiesce? If the rebel majority assert their su premacy in those States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Government, will we not repel his claims? And is not civil war for the Presidency inaugurated by the votes of rebel States? Seriously impressed with these dangers, Congress, "the proper constitutional authority," formally declared that there are no State governments in the rebel States, and provided for their erection at a proper time; and both the Senate and the House of Representatives rejected the Senators and Representatives chosen under the authority of what the President calls the free constitution and government of Arkansas. The President's proclamation "holds for naught" this judgment, and discards the authority of the Supreme Court, and strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of the 8th of December inaugu If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives which induced the President to "hold for naught" the will of Congress rather than his gov ernment in Louisiana and Arkansas. "When the rebellion in Arkansas shall have been so far suppressed that the loy-rated. al inhabitants thereof shall be free to reestablish their State government upon a republican foundation, or to recognize the one already set up, and by the aid and not in subordination to the military to maintain the same, they will then, and not before, in the opinion of your committee, be entitled to a representation in Congress, and to participate in the administration of the Federal Government. Believing that such a state of things did not at the time the claimants were elected, and does not now, exist in the State of Arkansas, the committee recommend for adoption the following resolution: "Resolved, That William M. Fishback and Elisha Baxter are not entitled to seats as Senators from the State of Arkansas." 1864, June 29-The resolution of the Committee on the Judiciary was adopted -yeas 27, nays 6. President Lincoln was known to favor the immediate admission of Arkansas and Louisiana, but the refusal of the Senate to That judgment of Congress which the President defies was the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congress by the Constitution to determine what is the established government in a State, and in its own nature and by the highest judicial authority binding on all other departments of the Government. * * * * A more studied outrage on the legisla|tive authority of the people has never been perpetrated. Congress passed a bill; the President refused to approve it, and then by proclamation puts as much of it in force as he sees fit, and proposes to execute those parts by officers unknown to the laws of the United States and not subject to confirmation of the Senate! The bill directed the appointment of the following article be proposed to the Provisional Governors by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The President has greatly presumed on the forbearance which the supporters of his Administration have so long practiced, in view of the arduous conflict in which we are engaged, and the reckless ferocity of our political opponents. Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of said Legislatures, shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely: [Here follows the 14th amendment. See Book IV.] Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, But he must understand that our sup- North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, port is of a cause and not of a man; that Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, the authority of Congress is paramount Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is and must be respected; that the whole necessary that peace and good order body of the Union men of Congress will should be enforced in said States until not submit to be impeached by him of loyal and republican State_governments rash and unconstitutional legislation; and can be legally established: Therefore if he wishes our support, he must confine Be it enacted, &c., That said rebel States himself to his executive duties-to obey shall be divided into military districts and and execute, not make the laws-to sup-made subject to the military authority of press by arms armed rebellion, and leave the United States, as hereinafter prescribed, political reorganization to Congress. and for that purpose Virginia shall consti If the supporters of the Government tute the first district; North Carolina and fail to insist on this, they become responsi- South Carolina the second district; Georble for the usurpations which they fail to gia, Alabama, and Florida the third dis rebuke, and are justly liable to the indig-trict; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth nation of the people whose rights and district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth security, committed to their keeping, they district. sacrifice. Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and, having found it, fearlessly execute it. SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the dis The question, as presented in 1864, now passed temporarily from public consideration because of greater interest in the closing events of the war and the Presi-trict to which he is assigned. dential succession. The passage of the 14th or anti-slavery amendment by the States also intervened. This was officially announced on the 18th of December 1865, by Mr. Seward, 27 of the then 36 States having ratified, as follows: Illinois, Rhode Island, Michigan, Maryland, New York, West Virginia, Maine, Kansas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Nevada, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Tennessee, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia. TEXT OF THE RECONSTRUCTION MEASURES. 14th Constitutional Amendment. Joint Resolution proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid to protect all persons in their rights of person and property, to suppress insurrection. disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals, and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose; and all in terference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act shall be null and void. SEC. 4. That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted; and no sentence of any military Be it resolved by the Senate and House of commission or tribunal hereby authorized, Representatives of the United States of affecting the life or liberty of any person, America, in Congress assembled, (two- shall be executed until it is approved by thirds of both houses concurring,) That the officer in command of the district, and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions: Provided, That no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President. SEC. 5. That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion, or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oaths prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention. SEC. 6. That until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under any such provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said constitutional amendment. Passed March 2, 1867. Supplemental Reconstruction Act of For tieth Congress. AN ACT supplementary to an act entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and to facilitate restoration. 66 Be it enacted, &c., That before the first day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, the commanding general in each district defined by an act entitled An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States," passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixtyseven, shall cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, resident in each county or parish in the State or States included in his district, which registration shall include only those persons who are qualified to vote for delegates by the act aforesaid, and who shall have taken and subscribed the following oath or affirmation: "I, do solemnly swear, (or affirm,) in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State of ; that I have resided in said State for next preceding this day, and now reside in the county of or the parish of months in said State, (as the case may be ;) that I am twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony commited against the laws of any State or of the United States; that I have never been a member of any State legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office in any State and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, encourage others so to do, so help me God;" which oath or affirmation may be administered by any registering officer. SEC. 2. That after the completion of the registration hereby provided for in any State, at such time and places therein as the commanding general shall appoint and direct, of which at least thirty days' public notice shall be given, an election shall be held of delegates to a convention for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil government for such State loyal to the Union, said convention in each State, except Virginia, to consist of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the State legislature of such State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes of such State by the commanding general, giving to each representation in the ratio of voters or registered as aforesaid, as nearly as may be. The convention in Virginia shall consist of the same number of members as represented the territory now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch of the legislature of said State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be appointed as aforesaid. SEC. 3. That at said election the registered voters of each State shall vote for or against a convention to form a constitution therefor under this act. Those voting in favor of such a convention shall have written or printed on the ballots by which they vote for delegates, as aforesaid, the words "For a convention," and those voting against such a convention shall have written or printed on such ballots the words "Against a convention." The person appointed to superintend said election, and to make return of the votes given thereat, as herein provided, shall count and make return of the votes given for and against a convention; and the commanding general to whom the same shall have been returned shall ascertain and declare the total vote in each State for and against a convention. If a majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a convention, then such convention shall be held as hereinafter provided; but if a majority of said votes shall be against a conventiou, then no such convention shall be held under this act: Provided, That such convention shall not be held unless a majority of all such registered voters shall have voted on the question of holding such con vention. gates according to the returns of the officers who conducted said election, and make proclamation thereof; and if a majority of the votes given on that question shall be for a convention, the commanding general, within sixty days from the date of election, shall notify the delegates to assemble in convention, at a time and place to be mentioned in the notification, and said convention, when organized, shall proceed to frame a constitution and civil government according to the provisions of this act and the act to which it is supplementary; and when the same shall have been so framed, said constitution shall be submitted by the convention for ratification to the persons registered under the provisions of this act at an election to be conducted by the officers or persons appointed or to be appointed by the commanding general, as hereinbefore provided, and to be held after the expiration of thirty days from the date of notice thereof, to be given by said convention; and the returns thereof shall be made to the commanding general of the district. SEC. 5. That if, according to said returns, the constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified as herein specified, cast at said election, (at least one-half of all the registered voters voting upon the question of such ratification,) the president of the convention shall transmit a copy of the same, duly certified, to the President of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the same to Congress, if then in session, and if not in session, then immediately upon its next assembling; and if it shall, moreover, appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified electors in the State had an opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud; and if the Congress shall be satisfied that such constitution meets the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the State, and if the said constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the provisions of the act to which this is supplementary, and the other provisions of said act shall have been complied with, and the said constitution shall be approved by Congress, the State shall be declared entitled to representation, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted there from as therein provided. SEC. 4. That the commanding general of each district shall appoint as many boards SEC. 6. That all elections in the States of registration as may be necessary, con- mentioned in the said "Act to provide for sisting of three loyal officers or persons, to the more efficient government of the rebel make and complete the registration, su- States," shall, during the operation of said perintend the election, and make return to act, be by ballot; and all officers making him of the votes, lists of voters, and of the the said registration of voters and conductpersons elected as delegates by a plurality ing said elections shall, before entering of the votes cast at said election; and upon upon the discharge of their duties, take receiving said returns he shal! open the and subscribe the oath prescribed by the pame, ascertain the persons elected as dele-act approved July second, eighteen hun |