be a dificulty in completing the registration within the time limited, it is not intended that the registration be an indispensable pre-requisite to the qualification of the voter; and in such cases, where it is impracticable, and where the voter is of known and established loyalty, he shall be entitled to vote, notwithstanding he may not have registered his name as required by the foregoing resolution.

The election shall be opened, conducted, returns made, etc., in all respects as provided by the 4th chapter of the "Code of Tennnessee," except so far as the same is modified by this proclamation.

But in cases where the County Court fail or neglect to appoint inspectors or judges of election, and there is no Sheriff or other civil officer in the county qualified by law to open and hold said election, the registrating agents, hereto appended, may act in his stead, and in all respects discharge the duties imposed in such cases upon sheriffs.

In like manner it is declared the duty of the military officers commanding Tennessee regiments, battalions, or detached squads, and surgeons in charge of the hospitals of Tennessee. soldiers to open and hold elections on the day aforesaid, under the same rules and regulations herein before prescribed, and at such suitable places as will be convenient to the soldiers who are hereby declared entitled to vote without registration.

In testimony whereof, I, Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of the State of Tennessee do hereunto set [L. 8.] my hand, and have caused the great seal of the State to be affixed at this Department, on the 30th day. of September, A. D. 1864.

By the Governor :

EDWARD H. EAST, Secretary of State.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

[The names of superintendents of election in the several counties, and the extracts from the Tennessee code are omitted here.]

At the time these papers were presented as before stated, I had never seen either of them, nor heard of the subject to which they relate, except in a general way, only one day previously. Up to the present moment nothing whatever upon the subject has passed between Governor Johnson, or any one else connected with the proclamation and myself. Since receiving the papers as stated, I have given the subject such brief consideration as I have been able to do in the midst of

so many pressing public duties. My conclusion is that I can have nothing to do with the matter, either to sustain the plan as the Convention and Governor Johnson have initiated it, or to revoke or modify it as you demand. By the Constitution and laws, the President is charged with no duty in the conduct of a presidential election in any State; nor do I, in this case, perceive any military reason for his interference in the matter. The movement set on foot by the Convention and Governor Johnson does not, as seems to be assumed by you, emanate from the National Executive. In no proper sense can it be considered other than as an independent movement of at least a portion of the loyal people of East Tennessee. I do not perceive in the plan any menace of violence or coercion toward any one. Governor Johnson like any other loyal citizen of Tennessee, has the right to favor any political plan he chooses, and, as Military Governor, it is his duty to keep the peace among and for the loyal people of the State. I can not discern that by this plan he purposes any more. But you object to the plan. Leaving it alone will be your perfect security against it. It is not proposed to force you into it. Do as you please on your own account peacefully and loyally, and Gov. Johnson will not molest you; but will protect you against violence so far as in his power.

I presume that the conducting of a Presidential election in Tennessee in strict accordance with the old code of the State is not now a possibility. It is scarcely necessary to add that if any election shall be held, and any votes shall be cast in the State of Tennessee for President and Vice-President of the United States, it will belong, not to the military agents nor yet to the Executive Department, but exclusively to another department of the Government, to determine whether they are entitled to be counted; in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Except it be to give protection against violence, I decline to interfere in any way with any Presidential election.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

However important this question might be regarded by either side, on general grounds, it was already sufficiently manifest that it had no practical bearing on the grand result of the Presidential election. It might well be doubted how far, in a close contest, it would have been expedient or just to insist on an electoral majority, obtained by throwing into either

scale the votes of States in the condition of Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas; but, that the loyal people of those States should be protected in their purpose of presenting their votes for the acceptance or rejection of the two Houses of Congress, manifestly follows from the measures already taken to secure to them the enjoyment of a loyal republican State government; and, to any fair exercise of this privilege of voting, it is difficult to see how they could have dispensed with safeguards like those proposed by Governor Johnson. The McClellan ticket was, however, declared to be withdrawn, and and the opponents of the Administration in Tennessee mostly abstained from voting.

Great exertions were made by the Opposition to carry the State of New York for McClellan, and to re-elect Governor Seymour. The Rebel Benjamin's project of "colonizing voters" from Canada, may or may not have been actually undertaken. Certain it is, that a gigantic fraud was attempted, under the peculiar law of New York, in regard to the voting of soldiers by proxy-a fraud requiring no small expenditure of money for its execution. The parties convicted of this

crime were manifestly but the tools of others unknown, from whom they received the means and the incitement. There is reason to believe that, but for the discovery of this enormity before the plot was fully carried out, the actual voice of the people of New York would have been annulled, and a false majority returned. It is not uncommon for charges of fraud or unfair-` ness in elections to be loosely made on both sides. It would certainly be unjust to hold any party, as such, responsible for all that designing individuals may do in its behalf. But the statements made in this instance are based on definite proof, and the facts fall in, not unnaturally, with the conduct of many of the men who were zealously striving for the defeat of Mr. Lincoln.

On the 8th day of November, the people expressed their sovereign will in regard to the Presidency and Vice-Presidency for another term. In the midst of the struggle with a powerful rebellion, at the close of a canvass in which the party

administering the government, had been assailed in the most violent and threatening terms, and at a time when on-looking nations might naturally expect ruinous convulsions and a lapse into anarchy or despotism, the election in every city, village, and precinct of the loyal States, proceeded with an order and decorum scarcely equalled in the most peaceful times. Even the soldier who was just going into battle remembered the day, and was careful to exercise the right of a freeman. The spectacle was impressive. Its lesson could nowhere be mistaken.

In 1860, Mr. Lincoln had received the electoral votes of seventeen States, (that of New Jersey being divided,) in all 180 votes, and an aggregate popular vote of 1,866,452. In 1864, the number of States that voted for him was twenty-two,* having a total electoral vote of 213, while he received an aggregate popular vote of 2,203,831. The whole number of votes cast for Mr. Lincoln in 1860, in the slave-holding States was 26,430. In 1864, he received in those States (including Maryland, West Virginia and Missouri, which became non-slaveholding during his administration) an aggregate vote of 169,728. These several statements do not include Tennessee, Louisiana or Arkansas, the votes of which were excluded in the official canvass by Congress.

Only three States voted for Gen. McClellan, namely: New Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, giving an aggregate electoral vote of 21. Mr. Lincoln thus received more than ten to one in the electoral college. The total popular vote for McClellan was 1,797,019. The majority for Mr. Lincoln on the popular vote was 406,812.

This includes the States of Kansas and Nevada, admitted into the Union since 1860, and of West Virginia, formed by the division of the State of Virginia.

The vote of the several States may be seen in the following

On the evening of November 10th, a procession, with music, banners and transparencies, marched to the White House to pay their compliments to President Lincoln. A national salute was fired, and cheers, prolonged and earnest, greeted the appearance of the President at the window from which he was accustomed to speak when thus called out by his friends. On this joyous occasion, free from any manifestations of merely

The official report of the Canvassing Committee, on the second Wednesday in February, as printed in the Globe, gives but two electoral votes for Nevada, and a total for Mr. Lincoln of 212.

M'Clellan