3.

That involuntary servitude, except for crime, is abolished, and ought not to be reëstablished, and that the negro race among us should be treated with justice, humanity and good faith, and every means that the wisdom of the Legislature can devise should be used to make them useful and intelligent members of society.

4. That Alabama will not voluntarily consent to change the adjustment of political power, as fixed by the Constitution of the United States, and to constrain her to do so in her present prostrate and helpless condition, with no voice in the councils of the nation, would be an unjustifiable breach of faith; and that her earnest thanks are due to the President for the firm stand he has taken against amendments of the Constitution, forced through in the present condition of affairs.

The Legal End of the War

Richardson, Messages and Papers, vol. vi, p. 431. Proclamation of President Johnson, April 2, 1866. Texas was excepted until August 20, 1866.

[1866] AND whereas there now exists no organized armed resistance of misguided citizens or others to the authority of the United States in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida, and the laws can be sustained and enforced therein by the proper civil authority, State or Federal, and the people of the said States are well and loyally disposed, and have conformed or will conform in their legislation to the condition of affairs growing out of the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting slavery within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States:

And whereas, in view of the before recited premises, it is the manifest determination of the American people that no State, of its own will has the right or power to go out of, or separate itself from, or be separated from the American Union, and that therefore each State ought to remain and constitute an integral part of the United States;

And whereas the people of the several before mentioned States have, in the manner aforesaid, given satisfactory evidence

that they acquiesce in this sovereign and important resolution of national unity;

And whereas it is believed to be a fundamental principle of government that people who have been overcome and subdued, must either be dealt with so as to induce them voluntarily to become friends, or else they must be held by absolute military power, or devastated, so as to prevent them from ever again doing harm as enemies, which last named policy is abhorrent to humanity and freedom;

And whereas the Constitution of the United States provides for constituent communities only as States and not as Territories, dependencies, provinces, or protectorates;

And whereas such constituent States must necessarily be and by the constitution and laws of the United States are made equals and placed upon a like footing as to political rights, immunities, dignity, and power, with the several States with which they are united;

And whereas the observance of political equality as a principle of right and justice is well calculated to encourage the people of the aforesaid States to be and become more and more constant and persevering in their renewed allegiance;

And whereas standing armies, military occupation, military law, military tribunals, and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus are, in time of peace, dangerous to public liberty, incompatible with the individual rights of the citizen, contrary to the genius and spirit of our free institutions, and exhaustive of the national resources, and ought not, therefore, to be sanctioned or allowed, except in cases of actual necessity, for repelling invasion or suppressing insurrection or rebellion;

And whereas the policy of the Government of the United States, from the beginning of the insurrection to its overthrow and final suppression, has been in conformity with the principles herein set forth and enumerated:

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the insurrection which heretofore existed in the States of Georgia, South Caro

lina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Florida is at an end, and is henceforth to be so regarded.

A Southern Opinion of the "Johnson" Governments MS. Letter of Wade Hampton to Andrew Johnson.

[1866]

-

Temples

HAVING acceded to the terms laid down by your Excellency, they supposed that they would be restored to all their rights as citizens of the U. S. and they believed fully whether justly or not that they were entitled to receive these rights, their allegiance to the Government being renewed and all their duties to it being . . exacted, but the construction which the South placed upon the covenant which had been made, seems not to have been the one received by the authorities at Washington, for no sooner had the South conformed to the terms of your Proclamation than other conditions were imposed. . . First, she found all her state authorities set aside - her Governors imprisoned her legislatures broken up - — her Judiciary suppressed her press muzzled - her closed — all by the arbitrary hand of military power. Then came the appointment of Presidential Governors, an anomaly heretofore unknown in a Government composed of states which were once supposed to possess some at least of the attributes of sovereignty. By the exercise of an authority . . — whence derived has never been clearly explained these Presidential Governors called conventions in their several states and new Legislatures were ordered to be chosen. These conventions, once the highest tribunals recognized by sovereign states, the great High Courts of a free people -met, registered the decrees framed at Washington and disappeared. After an existence as inglorious as it was brief, "unwept, unhonored and unsung" each convention was followed by its own bastard offspring, the Legislature of its creation, a political "nullius filius" a body somewhat "after the order of Melchesidec, without father, without mother, without descent," fit successors of most unhonored predecessors. I speak of these bodies in

their political and collective capacity, not of the individuals composing them, for that these latter were actuated in most instances by the highest patriotism is evidenced by the fact that for the sake of the country, they consented to serve in Mr. Seward's Legislatures. When these Legislatures met in what was literally "extraordinary session" what a spectacle was presented! In these halls where once the free representatives of sovereign states were wont to discuss the highest questions of polity, all subjects were strictly tabooed save such as were dictated from Washington, and it required no great stretch of imagination to fancy that one heard in the votes but the echoes of Mr. Seward's "little bell." The telegraph lines offered a ready means by which that manipulator could use to its fullest extent his "judicious admixture of pressure and persuasion,' and under this new but convenient system the proceedings of the Legislatures consisted solely in recording the dicta of the Supreme Justice in Washington.

3. OPPOSITION OF CONGRESS

Congress Rejects the President's Work

Statutes at Large, vol. xiv, p. 27. Passed over the President's veto it was later incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment. This was the first important measure passed over Johnson's veto. The next was the Freedmen's Bureau Act.

[April 9, 1866]

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, That a joint committee of fifteen members shall be appointed, nine of whom shall be members of the House and six members of the Senate, who shall enquire into the conditions 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 at any time by bill or otherwise; and until such report shall have been made and finally acted upon by Congress, no member shall be received into either House from any of the said so-called Confederate States; and all papers relating to the representation of the said States shall be referred to the said committee without debate.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Statutes at Large, vol. xiv, p. 27. Passed over the President's veto on April 6 by the Senate and on April 9 by the House. In principle it was later incorporated in the Fourteenth Amendment. This was the first important measure passed over Johnson's veto. The next was the Freedmen's Bureau Act. [April 9, 1866]

Be it enacted, . . That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of