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IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES,
January 16, 1866,

Resolved, That the House concur in the foregoing resolution of the Senate.
Attest:

EDWARD MCPHERSON, Clerk.

On motion of Mr. Wilson,

IN THE HOUSE of RepresENTATIVES,

December 14, 1865.

Resolved, That all papers which may be offered relative to the representation of the late so-called Confederate States of America, or either of them, shall be referred to the joint com mittee of fifteen without debate, and no members shall be admitted from either of said socalled States until Congress shall believe such States, or either of them, entitled to representation.

Attest:

EDWARD MCPHERSON, Clerk.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

January 22, 1866.

Resolved, That, until otherwise ordered, all papers presented to the Senate relating to the condition and title to representation of the so-called Confederate States shall be referred to the joint committee upon that subject.

Attest:

J. W. FORNEY, Secretary.

The following joint resolution and bills were reported to the Senate and House of Repre sentatives April 30, 1866, viz:

JOINT RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following article be proposed to the 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:

ARTICLE

SECTION 1. 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.

SECTION 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But whenever in any State the elective franchise shall be denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in such State shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens not less than twenty-one years of age.

SECTION 3. Until the fourth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States.

SECTION 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.

SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

A BILL to provide for restoring to the States lately in insurrection their ull political rights. Whereas it is expedient that the States lately in insurrection should, at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safety of the Union, be restored to full participation in all political rights; and whereas the Congress did, by joint resolution, propose for ratification to the legislatures of the several States, as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, an article in the following words, to wit:

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"SECTION 1. 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 to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

"SECTION 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But whenever, in any State, the elective franchise shall be denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twentyone years of age, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in such States shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens not less than twentyone years of age.

"SECTION 3. Until the fourth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and seventy, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States.

"SECTION 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.

"SECTION 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article:"

Now, therefore

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever the above-recited amendment shall have become part of the Constitution of the United States, and any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the same, and shall have modified its constitution and laws in conformity therewith, the senators and representatives from such State, if found duly elected and qualified, may, after having taken the required oaths of office, be admitted into Congress as such.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That when any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the foregoing amendment to the Constitution, any part of the direct tax under the act of August five, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, which may remain due and unpaid in such State, may be assumed and paid by such State; and the payment thereof, upon proper assurances from such State to be given to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, may be postponed for a period not exceeding ten years from and after the passage of this act.

A BILL declaring certain persons ineligible to office under the government of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That no person shall be eligible to any office under the government of the United States who is included in any of the following classes, namely:

First. The President and Vice-President of the Confederate States of America, so called, and the heads of department thereof.

Second. Those who in other countries acted as agents of the Confederate States of America, so called.

Third. Heads of departments of the United States, officers of the army and navy of the United States, and all persons educated at the Military or Naval Academy of the United States, judges of the courts of the United States, and members of either house of the thirtysixth Congress of the United States, who gave aid or comfort to the late rebellion.

Fourth. Those who acted as officers of the Confederate States of America, so called, above the grade of colonel in the army or master in the navy; and any one who, as governor of either of the so-called Confederate States, gave aid or comfort to the late rebellion.

Fifth. Those who have treated officers or soldiers or sailors of the army or navy of the United States, captured during the late war, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war.

The following is the joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as passed finally June 13, 1866:

JOINT RESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring,) That the following article be posed to the 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:

ARTICLE 14.

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SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereo', are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 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.

SEC. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress. the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime; the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

SEC. 3. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, 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, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.

SEC. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

REPORT

OF THE

JOINT COMMITTEE ON RECONSTRUCTION.

The Joint Committee of the two houses of Congress appointed under the concurrent resolution of December 13, 1865, with direction to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress, with leave to report by bill or otherwise," ask leave to report:

That they have attended to the duty assigned them as assiduously as other duties would permit, and now submit to Congress, as the result of their deliberations, a resolution proposing amendments to the Constitution, and two bills, of which they recommend the adoption.

Before proceeding to set forth in detail their reasons for the conclusion to which, after great deliberation, your committee have arrived, they beg leave to advert, briefly, to the course of proceedings they found it necessary to adopt, and to explain the reasons therefor.

The resolution under which your committee was appointed directed them to inquire into the condition of the Confederate States, and report whether they were entitled to representation in Congress. It is obvious that such an investigation, covering so large an extent of territory and involving so many important considerations, must necessarily require no trifling labor, and consume a very considerable amount of time. It must embrace the condition in which those States were left at the close of the war; the measures which have been taken towards the reorganization of civil government, and the disposition of the people towards the United States; in a word, their fitness to take an active part in the administration of national affairs.

As to their condition at the close of the rebellion, the evidence is open to all and admits of no dispute. They were in a state of utter exhaustion. Having protracted their struggle against federal authority until all hope of successful resistance had ceased, and laid down their arms only because there was no longer any power to use them, the people of those States were left bankrupt in their public finances, and shorn of the private wealth which had before given them power and influence. They were also necessarily in a state of complete anarchy, without governments and without the power to frame governments except by the permission of those who had been successful in the war. The President of the United States, in the proclamations under which he appointed provisional governors, and in his various communications to them, has, in exact terms, recognized the fact that the people of those States were, when the rebellion was crushed, "deprived of all civil government," and must proceed to organize anew. In his conversation with Mr. Stearns, of Mas

sachusetts, certified by himself, President Johnson said, "the State institutions are prostrated, laid out on the ground, and they must be taken up and adapted to the progress of events." Finding the southern States in this condition, and Congress having failed to provide for the contingency, his duty was obvious. As President of the United States, he had no power, except to execute the laws of the land as Chief Magistrate. These laws gave him no authority over the subject of reorganization, but by the Constitution he was commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. The Confederate States embraced a portion of the people of the Union who had been in a state of revolt, but had been reduced to obedience by force of arms. They were in an abnormal condition, without civil government, without commercial connexions, without national or international relations, and subject only to martial law. By withdrawing their representatives in Congress, by renouncing the privilege of representation, by organizing a separate government, and by levying war against the United States, they destroyed their State constitutions in respect to the vital principle which connected their respective States with the Union and secured their federal relations; and nothing of those constitutions was left of which the United States were bound to take notice. For four years they had a de facto government, but it was usurped and illegal. They chose the tribunal of arms wherein to decide whether or not it should be legalized, and they were defeated. At the close of the rebellion, therefore, the people of the rebellious States were found, as the President expresses it," deprived of all civil government."

Under this state of affairs it was plainly the duty of the President to enforce existing national laws, and to establish, as far as he could, such a system of government as might be provided for by existing national statutes. As commander-in-chief of a victorious army, it was his duty, under the law of nations and the army regulations, to restore order, to preserve property, and to protect the people against violence from any quarter until provision should be made by law for their government. He might, as President, assemble Congress and submit the whole matter to the law-making power; or he might continue military supervision and control until Congress should assemble on its regular appointed day. Selecting the latter alternative, he proceeded, by virtue of his power as commander-in-chief, to appoint provisional governors over the revolted States. These were regularly commissioned, and their compensation was paid, as the Secretary of War states, "from the appropriation for army contingencies, because the duties performed by the parties were regarded as of a temporary character, ancillary to the withdrawal of military force, the disbandment of armies, and the reduction of military expenditure, by provisional organizations for the protection of civil rights, the preservation of peace, and to take the place of armed force in the respective States." It cannot, we think, be contended that these governors possessed, or could exercise, any but military authority. They had no power to organize civil governments, nor to exercise any authority except that which inhered in their own persons under their commissions. Neither had the President, as commander-in-chief, any other than military power. But he was in exclusive possession of the military authority. It was for him to decide how far he would exercise it, how far he would relax it, when and on what terms he would withdraw it. He might properly permit the people to assemble, and to initiate local governments, and to execute such local laws as they might choose to frame not inconsistent with, nor in opposition to, the laws of the United States. And, if satisfied that they might safely be left to themselves, he might withdraw the military forces altogether, and leave the people of any or all of these States to govern themselves without his interference. In the language of the Secretary of State, in his telegram to the provisional governor of Georgia, dated October 28, 1865, he might "recognize the people of any State as having resumed the relations of loyalty to the Union," and act in his military capacity on this hypothesis. All this was within his own discretion, as

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