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. . 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. . . 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.

The boards of registration provided for in the act entitled "An act supplementary to an act. passed March 23, 1867, 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. . . 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. . . 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 1st day of October, 1867; 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 for registration or voting.

Sec. 8. . . 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. 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 subscribe the [“iron clad" oath].

Sec. 10. . . 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. . . 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.

Fourth Reconstruction Act

Acts and Resolutions, 40 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 10. According to the act of March 2, sec. 5, and of March 23, sec. 5, a majority of the registered voters must vote on the Constitution or it would fail. In Alabama the people had defeated the new Constitution by staying away from the polls. This law was to prevent rejection by other states. It became a law without the signature of the President. [March 11, 1868]

Be it enacted. . That hereafter any election authorized by the act passed March 23, 1867 . shall be decided by a majority of votes actually cast; and at the election in which the question of the adoption or rejection of any constitution is submitted, any person duly registered in the State may vote in the election district where he offers to vote when he has resided therein for ten days next preceding such election, upon presentation of his certificate of registration, his affidavit, or other satisfactory evidence, under such regulations as the district commanders may prescribe.

Sec. 2. . . The constitutional convention of any of the States mentioned in the acts to which this is amendatory may

provide that at the time of voting upon the ratification of the constitution the registered voters may vote also for members of the House of Representatives of the United States, and for all elective officers provided for by the said constitution; and the same election officers who shall make the return of the votes cast on the ratification or rejection of the constitution, shall enumerate and certify the votes cast for members of Congress.

2.

THE SOUTH'S RECEPTION OF THE

POLICY OF CONGRESS

Whites Promise Co-operation

Montgomery Mail, April 21, 1867. Resolutions adopted at a public meeting in Mobile. [April 19, 1867]

Resolved, Without expressing any opinion as to the [Reconstruction Acts] . . we hereby manifest our gratification at the spirit of moderation which the major-general [Pope] commanding the Third District brings to the discharge of the responsible duties and to the exercise of the great powers committed to him; and that we feel called upon to meet him in a like spirit and hereby to express to him our purpose to throw no obstacle in the path of his official duties, but that in all that tends to a genuine desire for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution . . we pledge ourselves to a most earnest and cordial co-operation.

We recommend to all who are qualified to register and vote under the provision of the law, to do so as early as convenient after the opportunity is offered for that purpose, and to scrupulously abstain from any act which might be construed into a disposition to hinder or disturb any other person in the discharge of any duty or the exercise of any privilege conferred by law. .

.

We find nothing in the changed political condition of the white and black races in the South that ought to disturb the harmonious relations between them; that we are ready to accord to the latter every right and privilege to which they are entitled under the laws of the land; that we sincerely desire their prosperity and their improvement in all the moral and intellectual qualities that are necessary to make them useful members of society; that we are their friends, both from gratitude for their fidelity in the past - in war as well as in peaceand because our interests in the future are inseparably connected with their well-being.