tion, appointment or authority derived from, or granted by, or claimed under, any so-called State or the government thereof, or any municipal or other division thereof, and upon such suspension or removal such commander, subject to the disapproval of the General as aforesaid, shall have power to provide from time to time for the performance of the said duties of such officer or person so suspended or removed, by the detail of some competent officer or soldier of the army, or by the appointment of some other person, to perform the same, and to fill vacancies occasioned by death, resignation, or otherwise.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the General of the army of the United States shall be invested with all the powers of suspension, removal, appointment, and detail granted in the preceding section to district commanders.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the acts of the officers of the army already done in removing in said districts persons exercising the functions of civil officers, and appointing others in their stead, are hereby confirmed: Provided, That any person heretofore or hereafter appointed by any district commander to exercise the functions of any civil office, may be removed either by the military officer in command of the district, or by the General of the army. And it shall be the duty of such commander to remove from office as aforesaid all persons who are disloyal to the government of the United States, or who use their official influence in any manner to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper administration of this act, and the acts to which it is supplementary.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the boards of registration provided for in the act entitled "An Act supplementary to an Act entitled ́An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,' passed March two, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and to facilitate restoration, passed March twenty-three, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, shall have power, and it shall be their duty before allowing the registration of any person, to ascertain, upon such facts or information as they can obtain, whether such person is entitled to be registered under said act, and the oath required by said act shall not be conclusive on such question, and no person shall be registered unless such board shall decide that he is entitled thereto; and such board shall also have power to examine, under oath (to be administered by any member of such board), any one touching the qualification of any person claiming registration; but in every case of refusal by the board to register an applicant, and in every case of striking his name from the list as hereinafter provided, the board shall make a note or memorandum, which shall be returned with the registration list to the commanding general of the district, setting forth the grounds of such refusal or such striking from the list: Provided, That no person shall be disqualified as member of any board of registration by reason of race or color.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the true intent and meaning of the oath prescribed in said supplementary act is (among other things), that no person who has been a member of the legislature of any State, or who has held any executive or judicial office in any State, whether he has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States or not, and whether he was holding such office at the commencement of the rebellion, or had held it before, and who has afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, is entitled to be registered or to vote; and the words "executive or judicial office in any State" in said oath mentioned shall be construed to include all civil offices created by law for the administration of any general law of a State, or for the administration of justice.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That the time for completing the original registration provided for in said act may, in the discretion of the commander of any district, be extended to the first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven; and the boards of registration shall have power, and it shall be their duty, commencing fourteen days prior to any election under said act, and upon reasonable public notice of the time and place thereof, to revise, for a period of five days, the registration lists, and upon being satisfied that any person not entitled thereto has been registered, to strike the name of such person from the list, and such person shall not be allowed to vote. And such board shall also, during the same period, add to such registry the names of all persons who at that time possess the qualifications required by said act who have not been already registered; and no person shall, at any time, be entitled to be registered or to vote by reason of any executive pardon or amnesty for any act or thing which, without such pardon or amnesty, would disqualify him from registration or 'voting.

SEC. 8. And be it further euacted, That section four of said last-named act shall be construed to authorize the commanding general named therein, whenever he shall deem it needful, to remove any member of a board of registration and to appoint another in his stead, and to fill any vacancy in such board.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all members of said boards of registration and all persons hereafter elected or appointed to office in said military districts, under any so-called State or municipal authority, or by detail or appointment of the district commanders, shall be required to take and to subscribe the oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the United States.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That no district commander or member of the board of registration, or any of the officers or appointees acting under them, shall be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of the United States.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That all the provisions of this act and of the acts to which this is supplementary shall be construed liberally, to the end that all the intents thereof may be fully and perfectly carried out.

SCHUYLER COLFAX,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

B. F. WADE,

President of the Senate pro tempore.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE, 187.S.,

The President of the United States having returned to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, the bill entitled "An Act supplementary to an act entitled 'An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,' passed on the second day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and the act supplementary thereto passed on the twenty-third day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven," with his objections thereto, the House of Representatives proceeded, in pursuance of the Constitution, to reconsider the same; and

Resolved, That the bill do pass, two thirds of the House of Representatives agreeing to pass the same.

Attest:

EDWD. MCPHERSON,
Clerk H. R. U. S.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, July 19, 1867. The Senate having proceeded, in pursuance of the Constitution, to reconsider the bill entitled "An Act supplementary to an act entitled 'An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,' passed on the second day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, and the act supplementary thereto, passed on the twenty-third day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven," returned to the House of Representatives by the President of the United States, with his objections, and sent by the House of Representatives to the Senate, with the message of the President returning the bill:

Resolved, That the bill do pass, two thirds of the Senate agreeing to pass the same. Attest: J. W. FORNEY, Secretary.

By W. J. McDonald,
Chief Clerk.

The history of the three classes of military or provisional governments which have been erected over the rebel districts is well known. The first were created by President Lincoln as commander-in-chief, flagrante bello, as a means of conducting hostilities against the enemy, and of holding conquered districts by his military forces. The second were created by President Johnson, under a plan or policy adopted by him, as an organism for reconstruction, or restoration of the rebels to the Union. The third were military governments instituted by laws of Congress, under its war powers, for the purpose of more effectual control of our enemies, and of facilitating and prescribing the conditions of their return to the Union. The circumstances which led to the passage of these acts may be most conveniently stated in language used upon another occasion.*

"While the war was going on, and as our armies recovered possession of the hostile country, President Lincoln, as commander-in-chief, by virtue of his war powers, erected provisional or temporary military governments over it, to establish law and order, and to protect the rights of loyal or peaceable citizens who were found therein.

"Andrew Johnson, when chosen Vice-President, was acting as military governor of Tennessee, and was in the exercise of all the powers which were bestowed upon any military governor in the rebel States, and, as I have occasion to know, was fully satisfied that he was acting in strict accordance with the Constitution. Very soon after he became President, he undertook to lay down or resign his war powers as commander-in-chief, to terminate all the military governments which had been erected by President Lincoln, and, in place of these, to construct local State governments, according to a scheme of his own. This he assumed to do by virtue of a clause in the Constitution which reads thus: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' He undertook to execute that guarantee by withdrawing military governments from all the States; by proclamations of peace, by pardons and amnesties, and by causing or allowing such of the inhabitants of rebel districts as he saw fit to select to

* See Address by the author, printed August 15, 1868.

form local governments over the several States, prescribing what laws they should pass, what Constitutions they should form, what amendments of our Constitution they should ratify; asserting that these States had never been out of the Union (or, in other words, had never lost any rights by the rebellion), and were as fully entitled under the Constitution to send senators and representatives to Congress, as though they had never become public enemies. Although the President, as commander-in-chief of the army in time of civil war, lawfully recognized as such, may erect and maintain over the public enemies of the United States military governments, and may administer those governments according to his will and pleasure, subject to the laws of Congress 'concerning captures on land and water,' and 'for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces,' yet, if in fact the President lays down his war power, as commander-in-chief, by declaring that war no longer exists, and if he claims, by virtue of his office as chief executive, to act as governor of one or of eleven States in this Union, or if he claims the right to elect or to appoint governors over States, or to give authority to any man or to any number of men, in any district of this country, to elect governors or other officers, or to organize governments in any place, I am unable to find in the Constitution of the United States any provision or any suggestion which authorizes or sustains such claims.

“When President Johnson first entered upon the plan of erecting State governments, the Secretary of State announced that, as they had been initiated during the recess of Congress, they would be provisional only, and that this plan of reconstruction would be submitted to Congress at its next session for approval or rejection. This pledge the President refused to perform; and instead of consulting he resisted Congress. He conferred on governors of his own appointment a greater power than he had ever intrusted to generals in command of military districts; for, in his proclamation in 1865, in reference to North Carolina, he subjected the military power to the command of his civil governor. He orders,

"That the military commander of the department, and all officers and persons in the military and naval service, aid and assist the said provisional governor in carrying into effect this proclamation.’

"In the summer of 1865, and during the whole of the year 1866, Mr. Johnson prosecuted his efforts to carry out his policy, and the result was, that every southern State fell into the hands of disloyal enemies of the Union; disorder and violence prevailed; northerners, supporters of the government, were murdered, robbed, exiled, unless under military protection; stay laws, laws for bringing back slavery in fact, laws authorizing cruel punishments, laws disfranchising the colored population, were passed, and every conceivable wrong and oppression were, inflicted upon those who had served in the Union armies; murderers of Union men went openly unpunished, and every crime of which a society utterly disorganized was capable was practised with impunity. In such a condition of affairs, with leading rebels pardoned and promoted, the punishment of treason stopped and confiscation ended, such encouragement was given by the President to the rebels that they claimed to have as good a right as citizens of the loyal States to come up to Washington and assume the reins of government. Under the lead of President Johnson's governors, they went on to form State governments with rebel and disloyal officers, and to elect senators and representatives who had the impudence to knock for admission at the doors of Congress. Some of these would-be members were red-handed traitors, who, by reason of their crimes, were ineligible to office by the laws of the country. Yet the President insisted on urging them in, and reiterated ad nauseam his opinion that it was the duty of Congress to recognize these

sham governments, created by his dictation, in violation of the law, the Constitution, and the expressed will of the people. Congress was thus compelled either to allow the control of the rebel States to pass back into the hands of the rebels themselves, and to accept as senators and representatives the ringleaders of the rebellion, and thus to perpetuate disunion, or to take speedy and decisive measures to overthrow these governments. Having hesitated long in coming to an open rupture with President Johnson, having resorted to persuasion, entreaty, and remonstrance in vain, Congress was reluctantly constrained to use its power and perform its duty in preventing the President from any further violation of the Constitution by continuing his illegal governments in the Southern States. Therefore, on the 2d of March, 1867, after thorough debate, was passed an Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States.' This was followed, on the 22d of March, by a supplementary Act to facilitate restoration.' And to these a recent amendment has been added.

"These statutes, passed by overwhelming majorities over the President's vetoes, are called the Reconstruction Acts. They declared the rebel States still subject to the military authority' of the United States, divided them into military districts, required the President to assign army officers to the command of each district, and to detail sufficient military force to enable them to enforce their authority. They made it the duty of such officers' to protect all persons in their rights of person and property,' 'to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence; to punish criminals either by aid of civil tribunals or by military commissions.' They declared that all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this Act (March 2) shall be null and void.'

"These acts also provided for the formation of constitutions by delegates to conventions of male citizens of lawful age,' without distinction of race, color, or previous condition,' who had been residents in such States one year prior to the election, excepting only felons and those who might be disfranchised as rebels. If these constitutions thus to be formed should be so framed as to conform to the Constitution of the United States, and if they should provide that the elective franchise should be enjoyed by all male citizens of these States, twenty-one years of age, who had resided in such States one year before election, except felons and disfranchised rebels, and if such constitutions should be ratified by a majority of persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors of delegates, and if such constitutions should be approved by Congress, and if the respective State legislatures should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, then, when such Article XIV. should become a part of the Constitution of the United States, each State, on complying with these conditions, shall be entitled to representation in Congress. It was also provided that rebels excluded from holding office by the Fourteenth Amendment should not vote for or be members of the constitutional conventions. "The act of March 2d asserted supreme military authority over the rebel States until their re-admission to representation in Congress, declared all these civil governments then existing as provisional only, and subject to the right of Congress to remove or overthrow them, and designated who should and who should not have the right to vote or be eligible to office. Subsequent acts provided for registration of voters, and somewhat modified the requirement as to the number of voters by whom constitutions might be adopted. The inhabitants of the rebellious districts, under the provisions of these Reconstruction Acts, have formed State constitutions, have organized new State governments, and, with the exception of three States, have conformed to all the requirements of law, and are now re-admitted to representation in Congress and to full standing with the other loyal States.