Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876

CHAPTER XI The Democratic convention assembled in New York on the 4th day of July. It was confronted at the start with the Greenback heresy, and the Democratic platform and nominees. candidacy of the Greenback champion for the presidency, Mr. George H. Pendleton of Ohio. This heresy was in a sentence the doctrine that all the public debt of the United States not made expressly payable in coin should be paid in United States paper, which Congress might order to be stamped, issued, and made legal tender, to any amount it might please. The shibboleth was, "the same currency for the bondholder and the plough-holder." It had taken firm hold in Ohio, and was rapidly spreading through the valley of the Mississippi. The Eastern Democrats, however, looked upon it with disfavor, and were determined to defeat the nomination of Mr. Pendleton. They were obliged, however, to accept the platform, in so far as it related to this subject, as dictated by their Western compatriots. The third plank in the platform read, "... and where the obligations of the Government do not expressly state upon their face, or the law under which they were issued does not provide, that they shall be paid in coin, they ought in right and in justice to be paid in the lawful money of the United States." The fifth plank also read, "one currency for the Government and the people, the laborer and the officeholder, the pensioner and the soldier, the producer and the bondholder." It is true that the platform did not expressly pronounce in favor of an unlimited issue of paper money with which to pay the bonds, but it was generally understood that this was what was meant. The questions then of sound money and of the faithful discharge of the public obligations were thus put in issue. The Democrats also met squarely the Republican doctrine of Reconstruction. They demanded the "immediate restoration of all the States to their rights in the Union under the Constitution, and of civil government to the American people," with "amnesty for all past political offences, and the regulation of the election franchise in the States by their citizens." And they denounced the Radical party, as they termed the Republicans, "for its disregard of right, and the unparalleled oppression and tyranny which have marked its career," declared the Reconstruction Acts to be unconstitutional, revolutionary and void, and lauded President Johnson for his unflinching resistance to "the aggressions of Congress upon the constitutional rights of the States and the people." There is no question that the platform of the Democrats, with its paper money doctrine, and its hostility to Reconstruction and universal Weakness of the platform. suffrage, was a shaky foundation for any party to attempt to stand upon at that juncture. Not much conscience and not much sentiment could be aroused with such tenets. Conscience and sentiment were much more amenable to the appeals of the Republican platform upon these points. Moreover, the tremendous popularity of the Republican candidates had to be reckoned with. Where could the Democrats find a candidate who would both match Grant in the popular affection and overbalance also the weakness of the platform? The New Yorkers in the convention, led by Seymour, Tilden, Schell and Kernan, had their man for this emergency, but they dared not reveal at the outset their plan. They were resolved to nominate Chief Justice Chase. They thought that Chase's well-known devotion to the principles of universal suffrage and his career as Secretary of the Treasury would satisfy the Eastern men in regard to the platform, and that his attachment to the principles of civil government versus militarism would, in some degree at least, neutralize the popularity of the military hero. The delegates from Ohio, Mr. Chase's own "State," suspected the purpose of the New Yorkers, and were determined to foil it. If they could not get Pendleton, they were determined not to have Chase. After the first six ballots without result, Pendleton, however, leading, the New Yorkers brought forward Hendricks of Indiana, in order to break down Pendleton's vote. Having succeeded in this after some six more ballots, the name of Chase was brought before the convention by a half vote from California. The purpose was probably to feel of the convention. It was highly successful. The announcement of the half vote was received with enthusiastic applause. Masking themselves behind Hancock, who was at that juncture in the lead, and Hendricks, the New Yorkers now prepared to present Chase; but the Ohioans were too quick for them. They succeeded in withdrawing Pendleton and presenting Seymour himself as their candidate, before the New Yorkers knew what they were about. Seymour, who was occupying the presidency of the convention, declared from his seat that he could not accept, but the Ohioans stuck to their nomination, and the New Yorkers had to assent. They were fairly caught in their own net. Seymour finally yielded, and the convention addressed itself to the nomination of its candidate for the vice-presidency. The ex-Confederate The nominees. General William Preston of Kentucky presented the name of the noted Union General Francis P. Blair of Missouri for the place. The nomination was seconded by the ex-Confederate General Wade Hampton of South Carolina, and was made by acclamation. While General Blair was a noted Union soldier of high ability and undoubted loyalty, he was a fierce enemy of the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, and was for this reason very popular with the ex-Confederates. In an open letter to Colonel J. O. Brodhead of St. Louis, written five days before the assembly of the Democratic convention, he not only denounced the Reconstruction Acts as unconstitutional, but advanced a method for getting rid of them and their effects in case a Democratic President should be elected. He proposed that the new President should "declare these Acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives." He said, further, that the House of Representatives would contain a majority of Democrats from the North, who would admit the members elected to that body from the South to seats, and that the House with the President would exert such a pressure on the Senate as to cause the doors of that body to be opened to the members from the Southern "States." When General Blair wrote this letter he was being spoken of as a candidate for the presidency, and this letter was taken as the declaration of what he would do if elected to the position of Chief Magistrate of the nation. After his nomination for the vice-presidency, in his speech and letter of acceptance, he announced the chief issue in the contest to be the relief of the South from martial law and negro domination. The ex-Confederates represented it the same way at the South, and threw themselves into the campaign with great enthusiasm for Seymour and Blair. On the other hand, the bland, politic and persuasive Seymour pursued a much more moderate and conciliatory course, and when it became evident that General Blair's violent expressions and revolutionary purposes were ruining the Democratic prospects at the North, he went into the campaign personally, and by his diplomatic manners and fine oratory succeeded in stemming the tide which, running against the Democrats from the moment when their platform was proclaimed, had been driven on to a flood by General Blair's indiscretions, to put it very mildly, in speech and conduct. But while some lost ground was regained, it was evident that the hopes of the Democrats had been blasted. The electoral votes of thirty-four "States" were counted, Virginia, Mississippi and Texas being still regarded by Congress as The election and the electoral vote. unreconstructed. Of these thirty-four, eight cast their votes for Seymour and Blair. These were New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon, Georgia and Louisiana. The rest went for Grant and Colfax. The electoral vote stood eighty for Seymour and Blair and two hundred and fourteen for Grant and Colfax. The popular vote stood two millions seven hundred and three thousand two hundred and forty-nine for Seymour and Blair, and three millions and twelve thousand eight hundred and thirty-three for Grant and Colfax. The exclusion of Virginia, Mississippi and Texas from the vote and the inclusion of the suffrages of the "carpet-baggers" and the negroes, under the protection of the military, in the reconstructed "States," had saved the day for Grant and Colfax. If the electorate of the South had been as in 1860, or probably as it was in the years of the Johnson governments, Seymour and Blair would have triumphed. As it was, but for the Greenback plank in the Democratic platform and the indiscretions of General Blair, they might have triumphed. That is to say, if the Reconstruction policy of Congress had been the sole issue, it is quite possible that the Republicans would have lost the election, even with the most popular man in the North as their standard bearer. Meanwhile the President had continued to ply the Congress with his vetoes and messages and to address the country with his proclamations. The conduct of the President during the campaign. He had thought that he ought to be vindicated by being nominated by the Democrats for the presidency, and had actually received sixty-five votes on the first ballot. His failure before the convention ought to have taught him that he was no longer a factor to be reckoned with in the domain of politics, and that his proper course was to execute quietly the functions of his office to the end of his term, and then retire to private life. But he seemed to think that his political opinions were still of great value, and in a very few days after the adjournment of the Democratic convention he addressed a message to Congress advising a most radical change in the structure of the government by means of constitutional amendment. He therein recommended that Congress should propose to the "States" so to amend the Constitution as to provide for the election of the President and Vice-President by a direct vote of the people, for the ineligibility of these officers for a second term, for the designation of the members of the Cabinet in a certain order, beginning with the Secretary of State, as the persons to discharge the duties of the President in case of a vacancy in the presidential office by the death, resignation or removal of both the President and the Vice-President, for the election of the Senators by the direct vote of the people, and for the limitation of the terms of the United States judges to a period of years. There was sound reason for the third of these suggestions, the designation by the Constitution of the Cabinet officers in a certain order as the successors to the powers and duties of the President, when the country might be without both a President and a Vice-President, and it has since then been made law under the form of a statute of Congress. But the Congress was not then in a mood to hear anything from Mr. Johnson. Two days later, July 20th, the President vetoed the joint Congress and the President. resolution passed by the two Houses, excluding from the electoral college in the coming presidential election the votes of "States" lately in rebellion which should not have been reorganized under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress. In this veto he went over his whole argument once more against the constitutionality of these Acts and in favor of his own method of Reconstruction. But the Congress treated the message with contempt and promptly repassed the resolution. On the 9th of December President Johnson sent his last annual Message to Congress. It was a grave, dignified and statesmanlike document both The President's last annual Message. in form and content. In it he told Congress plainly and respectfully that its Reconstruction policy had arrayed the races against each other at the South, had impaired, if not destroyed, the kindly relations that had previously existed between them, and had given mortal offence to the civilized race by placing the uncivilized race in domination over it; and he urged that legislation which had produced such baleful consequences ought to be abrogated. He also told Congress that it had seriously impaired the power of the President to exact the necessary accountability of the public officers by its Tenure-of-Office Act, and had embarrassed the Executive in the exercise of his constitutional military functions by the Act of March 2d, 1867; and he urged the repeal of both of these measures. He also gave a most serious and startling account of the condition of the public finances, and of the consumption of the wealth of the Nation by the bondholders, officials and pensioners. He pointed out that the public debt, which in 1860 was 64,000,000 dollars, had become 2,527,129,552 dollars; that the annual expenditure, which was, in 1860, 63,000,000 dollars, had become 336,000,000 dollars and more, and that the expenditure per capita, which was two dollars in 1860, had become nearly ten dollars. And he suggested the ways in which this threatening condition might be relieved, viz., by a refunding of the bonds at a lower interest, by a speedy resumption of specie payment, by a reduction of the army and of the horde of Reconstruction officials in the South, and by a strict accountability of the revenue officials to their superiors and of these latter to the President. From the point of view of sound political science, good public policy and true patriotism all of these suggestions were at least worth consideration, but Congress took no more notice of them than it did of the distant murmurs of the waters of the Potomac. Only once again did the Congress break over its apparent resolve to ignore the President, and that was upon the occasion of his issue of The President's amnesty proclamation of December 25th, 1868. his universal and unconditional pardon and amnesty to all persons who had participated, either directly or indirectly, in the rebellion, with the restoration of all their rights, privileges and immunities under the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof. The date of this document was December 25th, 1868. On the 5th of January, 1869, the Senate called him to account for this by a resolution calling upon him "to transmit to the Senate a copy of any proclamation of amnesty made by him since the last adjournment of Congress, and also to communicate to the Senate by what authority of law the same was made." The President replied on the 18th, sending a copy of his proclamation of December 25th, 1868, and declaring that he issued it by authority of the second section of Article second of the Constitution, which vested in the President the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment, and in accordance with precedents established by his predecessors in office, Washington, Adams, Madison and Lincoln. The Senate did not say that he had no right to claim any constitutional prerogative, and that he was not worthy to act under precedents set by Washington, Adams, Madison, and Lincoln, but most of the Senators evidently so thought. The proclamation had no effect upon the qualifications for suffrage in the face of the Reconstruction Acts and the "State" constitutions framed and established in accordance with them. It was little more than the bull against the comet. As a sort of final stroke the President vetoed the bill concerning the transfer of the control of the colored schools in the District of The President's veto of the Bill in regard to the colored schools in the District of Columbia. Columbia, and the bill for raising the duties on imported copper and copper ores. He gave excellent reasons for both of these vetoes, but Congress had long ceased to be guided by reason in matters which related to the President. On its side it was busy with a project which, though not intended as a blow at him particularly, was not in accordance with his view that the The Fifteenth Amendment. regulation of the suffrage within the "States" was, and should be, left to the "States" respectively, and exclusively, viz., the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Reference has already been made to the inconsistent doctrine, we might almost say the timorous subterfuge, of the Republican platform on the matter of negro suffrage, and to the growing conviction on the part of the Republicans during the campaign that this question must be settled for the entire country alike, and by a constitutional amendment. At the opening of Congress in December, and during the first days of the session, the proposition was presented which finally took on the form given it by the conference committee of the two Houses in the words: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." It was passed by both Houses with the requisite two-thirds majority on the 26th of February and sent to the legislatures of the "States" for ratification. The Republicans had at last come to the view that the emancipation of the freedmen involved their civil equality with the whites, and that such equality could not be maintained unless they possessed the elective franchise, and that it was cowardly for the "States" of the North to force negro suffrage on the South without accepting it for themselves. It is certainly true that full freedom implies civil liberty and civil equality, but there was another way, and a better way, to have secured Criticism of the Republican view. these than by the immediate and universal suffrage of the newly emancipated in all their ignorance, immorality and poverty, and that was by the nationalization of civil liberty, and its protection and enforcement by the United States courts. Most of the Republicans believed, at that moment, that that had been secured by the Fourteenth Amendment; and there can be little question that a very important consideration with such was the fear that after Reconstruction should be accomplished, the Southern "States" might amend negro suffrage out of their "State" constitutions, and thus destroy the Republican party in these "States," unless the Constitution of the United States should be so amended as to prevent it. The most radical among them were no doubt moved chiefly by the extravagant humanitarianism of the period, which had developed in their minds to the point of justifying not only the political equality of the races, but the political superiority, at least in loyalty to the Union, the Constitution and republican government, of the uncivilized negroes over the whites of the South; but that this conviction was not very strong among the masses of them can be readily concluded from the fact that that party is to-day the party which is following the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon uncivilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world. No party can, in so short a time, so completely change its fundamental principle of political ethics when it is really and conscientiously believed in by the masses of the party. This proposed Fifteenth Amendment was not sent to the President for his approval, but went, according to custom, to the Secretary of State, to Johnson's retirement from the presidency. be submitted to the "State" legislatures. The President was now within a very few days of the end of his term. His sun had fairly set, and the disrespect felt for him by the members of the dominant party in Congress and out of Congress was expressed in the rude and quite unprecedented refusal of General Grant to sit in the same carriage with him in the procession from the White House to the Capitol, on the 4th of March, for the ceremonies of the inauguration of the new President. Discredited, despised, and scoffed at, as a traitor to his party, to his political creed, and to his country, Mr. Johnson stepped down from the high office which he had occupied during one of the two most critical periods in American history since the establishment of the present Constitution. And yet it is certainly true that the Republican party had left him rather than that he had left the party. This party began simply as a The President and the Republican party. Union party and an anti-slavery extension party. Mr. Johnson, an original Democrat, joined with the Republicans upon this basis, and he never left it. On the other hand, when the necessities of the war for the Union made it evident that the slaves within the Southern communities which had declared secession, and were engaged in rebellion, must be proclaimed free, Mr. Johnson still went with the Republicans in the justification of this measure. And when, finally, the war was ended and the Union was preserved, and the Republicans decided that the legitimate outcome of the victory was the prohibition of slavery everywhere within the United States by an amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Johnson still marched with them, at the head of the column. It was only when they became more and more radical in their policy, and insisted upon transforming rather than restoring the "States" of the South, by placing civil rights under national protection instead of "State" protection, disfranchising the whites of the South, and enfranchising the negroes, and upon overcoming the Executive's objections to these movements not simply by overriding the veto, but by generally subordinating the Executive to Congress—it was only then that he separated from them and fell back naturally on such support as he could get, which was chiefly from the Democratic party. No fair mind can claim that the Republicans in their quarrel with the President had not departed from their solemn declaration made in Congress assembled in those dark July days of 1861, just after the first great defeat of the Union arms, "That this war is not waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the Southern States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired." And it was upon the basis of this understanding that the Democrats in Congress, Mr. Johnson among them, stood with the Republicans in the prosecution of the war. It is indeed a serious question of political casuistry as to how far declarations of policy are binding upon a political party. They are certainly not like agreements entered into between sovereign states, and the law of development rather than the law of contract must be the constructive force in party creed. But this, at least, must be held, viz., that a man originally not of a given political party, but acting with it upon the basis of a given creed, cannot be accused of being an apostate from that party if he does not continue with it when it adopts a new creed in many respects the very opposite of that given creed, except in the most groveling sense of machine politics; and that when he and it do part company, more by its own departures from the given creed than by his, he is certainly not on that account to be necessarily considered as a traitor to his country. The truth is, that while all men who occupy high station are peculiarly subject to wanton, as well as ignorant, assaults upon their purposes and their conduct, few men that have occupied so high a station have ever been so unreasonably slandered and vilified as Andrew Johnson. His own unfortunate and irritating manners and methods will account for a good deal of the misunderstanding of his character, but the violence of the times was the occasion of a great deal more of it. The true Union men of Tennessee will, however, never forget the hope, and encouragement, and support which he gave to them, when they were left in the lurch by their own natural leader, John Bell; and the Nation should for this, if nothing else, write his name in the book of its heroes. CHAPTER XI PRESIDENT GRANT AND RECONSTRUCTION The Situation at the Moment of Grant's Accession to Power — The Georgia Question — The Attitude of the New President toward Reconstruction — The Virginia Case — Grant's Message to Congress of April 7th, 1869, and His Proclamation of May 14th — Ratification of the Virginia Constitution and Election of "State" Officers under it — The Restoration of Virginia to Her Federal Relations — Ratification of the Mississippi Constitution and Election of "State" Officers and Legislative Members under it — The Restoration of Mississippi to Her Federal Relations — Ratification of the Texas Constitution and Election of "State" Officers and Legislative Members under it—Restoration of Texas to Her Federal Relations — Grant and the Tenure-of-Office Act — Congress and the Tenure-of-Office Act after Grant's Accession to the Presidency — The Modification of the Tenure-of-Office Act — The President's Dissatisfaction with the Measure — The Facts in the Georgia Case — New Conditions Imposed on Georgia — The Final Restoration of Georgia to Her Federal Relations — Negro Rule in the South from the Point of View of Political Science and Ethnical Principle . At the moment of Grant's accession to power, four of the Southern communities were still denied recognition as "States" upon the floor of The situation at the moment of Grant's accession to power. Congress. Three of the four had not yet adopted "State" constitutions, viz.: Virginia, Mississippi and Texas; and the fourth, Georgia, the representatives from which to the lower House of Congress had been admitted in December of 1868, was still unrepresented in the Senate, for the reason that the legislature of Georgia, after electing United States Senators, had rejected the negro members-elect of that body on the ground that negroes were not eligible to legislative seats in Georgia. When the news of this procedure reached Washington, the Senate held back from admitting the Senators-elect from Georgia to seats and did The Georgia question. not admit them during the last session of the Fortieth Congress; and at the opening of the Forty-first Congress, on March 4th, 1869, the day of Grant's inauguration, one of the first acts of the respective Houses was to refuse admittance to the representatives from Georgia to either House , and to refer their credentials to the Committee of each House on Elections. In his inaugural Address the new President made no reference to these questions, but he had hardly been one month in the presidential office The attitude of the new President toward Reconstruction. before he recognized the difficulties with which his predecessor had been beset, and asked and almost demanded of Congress relief from them. On the 7th day of April he addressed a message to Congress requesting that body to provide for submitting to the voters of Virginia the "State" constitution drafted and adopted by a constitutional convention at Richmond nearly a year before, and recommending that "a separate vote be taken upon such parts as might be thought expedient," and that the constitution, " or such parts thereof as shall have been adopted by the people, " should be submitted to Congress on the first Monday of the following December, and that the officers provided for under the said constitution should be chosen at the same election. The President also suggested that the constitution framed by the convention in Mississippi and rejected by the voters might be resubmitted in the same way. The events in Mississippi culminating in the rejection of the proposed State constitution by the voters in June of 1868 have been already related. The case of Virginia, on the other hand, which differed in several material respects from that of any of the others, has not been as yet The Virginia case. sufficiently stated for a clear understanding of the President's meaning in his recommendations to Congress of April 7th. It will be remembered that a loyal government of Virginia, with its seat first at Wheeling and then at Alexandria, existed during the entire period of the Civil War, and that from 1861 to 1864 Virginia, under this government, had been represented in Congress, and that it was this government which consented to the partition of Virginia recognized by Congress. On the 23d day of May, 1865, this government transferred itself from Alexandria to Richmond, having been recognized by President Johnson on May 9th as the true government of Virginia. The legislative department of it met in session on the 20th of June following. The Governor, Mr. Pierpont, recommended, in his message to that body, that a constitutional amendment should be drafted, and proposed by it to the voters for ratification, which would enfranchise, and qualify for office, a much larger proportion of the people than was the case under the revised constitution of Virginia of 1864, adopted by the loyal convention at Alexandria. The legislature followed the Governor's advice and proposed an amendment to the voters which granted suffrage and eligibility substantially to the old ante-bellum electorate and eligibles on the condition of future loyalty to the United States. This proposition was voted on at the elections held on the 12th of October for the choice of members of the legislature and of the lower House of Congress, and was ratified by a large majority. The election was held in every county and the result was fairly representative of the people. There was lacking but one thing more for the complete restoration of the "State" to its federal relations, viz., the admission of the Senators and Representatives from it to seats in Congress. They presented themselves at the opening of the Congressional session on the first Monday of December following, and were excluded, along with the Senators and Representatives from the other "Johnson States," by the Stevens resolution. For more than a year, however, this government continued to act as the "State" government of Virginia, under the limitations placed upon it by the presence of the military of the United States, and the interference of the commanding general in behalf of the freedmen. On January 15th, The Vagrant Act. 1866, the legislature chosen at the October elections of the preceding year passed the vagrant act, which defined as vagrants "all persons who, not having wherewith to maintain themselves and their families, live idly and without employment, and refuse to work for the usual and common wages given to the laborers in the like work in the place where they are," and which authorized the condemned vagrant to be hired out, and his wages applied to his own use or the use of his family, and, in case of his running away from the hirer, to be apprehended on the warrant of a justice and returned to the hirer, who should have one month of service extra, and without wages, for the interruption of the service contracted for, and other trouble and expense, and should also have the right, by permission of the justice, to work the returned vagrant with ball and chain, in order to prevent a repetition of his flight. On the 24th, just nine days after the passage of the act, General Terry's order setting aside the Vagrant Act. General Terry, the military commander at Richmond, issued an order setting aside this measure as to the freedmen. He based his order on the tendency of the statute to influence employers to combine for the purpose of lowering the wages of the freedmen to a point that would pauperize them and drive them into vagrancy, and create thus the very situation which, under the operation of the measure, would lead to a species of servitude worse than the old domestic slavery. He had no reliable facts of experience upon which to base his theory. It was a bit of political and economic prophecy on his part. It was sufficient, however, to call down maledictions from the Congress at Washington and the people of the North upon the legislature at Richmond and the people of Virginia and of the South generally. Congress, however, gave this legislature one more opportunity to redeem itself. The proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was submitted to it for ratification in June of 1866. After long deliberation upon it, the legislature rejected it on the 9th of January, 1867. This act sealed the fate of that legislature. Virginia was brought, with the other Southern communities which had rejected or not adopted the proposed Amendment, under the Reconstruction Acts of March, 1867, and became the first military Virginia made a Military District. district under those Acts, with General Schofield as commander. Schofield ordered the election for delegates to a constitutional convention, by the voters designated in the Reconstruction Acts, to be held in November of 1867, and ordered the delegates so elected to assemble in Richmond on the 3d of the following December. These orders were successfully executed under the supervision and control of the military. Schofield himself appeared in the convention, and urged the delegates to be moderate in the propositions for the disfranchisement and disqualification of those who had participated in rebellion. But the delegates elected under the Reconstruction Acts, and by the electorate created through them, were not only radical, but bent upon retaliation. They would not listen to the wise counsel of Schofield, but drafted and adopted such provisions in regard to suffrage qualifications and eligibility to office and mandate as would have put the "State" government, based on such a constitution, in the hands of negroes, "scalawags" and "carpet-bag" adventurers. The opposition to these provisions on the part of the commander and the Administration at Washington was, however, sufficiently effective to delay indefinitely the submission of the constitution to the voters. Near the end of the year 1868, a conference of prominent Virginians assembled at Richmond and appointed a committee, and sent its members to Washington to petition Congress to allow the disfranchising and disqualifying clauses, and the clauses in reference to county organization, to be voted on separately from the other parts of the proposed constitution. This committee proceeded to Washington in January of 1869, and argued their case before committees of both of the Houses of Congress, and also presented the same to the new President-elect, General Grant. It was in consequence of such representations and prayers, that President Grant sent his message of April 7th to Congress, requesting Grant's message to Congress of April 7th, 1869, and his proclamation of May 14th. authority to accede to the petition of the Virginians, and that Congress immediately conferred the authority upon him. Armed with this authority, the President issued a proclamation on the 14th day of May, 1869, commanding the "State" constitution framed for Virginia by the convention which assembled on December 3d, 1867, at Richmond, to be submitted to the voters, on July 6th, 1869, for ratification or rejection, and also commanding that those provisions disqualifying persons from voting and holding office who had in any way aided the rebellion against the United States should be separately submitted. Ratification of the Virginia Constitution. At the election ordered by the President, the constitution without these clauses was ratified, and the conservative Republican candidates for office and legislative membership were elected. At the next session of Congress, in December of 1869, the Senators and Representatives presented themselves for admission. Their claims were The restoration of Virginia to her Federal relations. sustained by the President, who reported to Congress that Virginia had fulfilled all of the conditions required of her for readmission to her full privileges as a member of the Union, having among other things ratified by legislative acts both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and urged the admission of the Senators and Representatives from the "State" to Congress. After a good deal of discussion and some wrangling, the bill for the accomplishment of this object was passed, and, in the last days of January of 1870, Virginia was restored to her proper federal relations, on the conditions that the constitution of the "State" should never be so amended as to deprive any person enfranchised therein of the suffrage, or any citizen or class of citizens of the United States of the educational rights and privileges provided therein, or any citizen of the United States of the equal right to hold office, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, or of the school rights provided in the constitution of the "State." The Congressional Act also undertook to purge the new "State" legislature by requiring that every member must take an oath that he was not disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, or that, if he had been, he had also been relieved by the Congressional Act authorized for the case in the Amendment.

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