present, or reward, or any promise, understanding, obligation, or security for the payment or delivery of any money, goods, right in action, bribe, present, or reward, or any other valuable thing whatever, to influence his vote at any election hereafter to be held in the District of Columbia, shall, on conviction, be imprisoned not less than one year and be forever disfranchised.

"SEC. 10. That all acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act be, and the same are hereby, repealed."

The President vetoed this bill, and in a long, severely characteristic message, dated January 5, 1867, gave his reason for so doing. On the same day (January 7th) that the President sent in this veto the Senate repassed the bill by a vote of twenty-nine to ten; and on the next day the House also passed it over the President's veto, by the requisite twothirds, and the Speaker declared the bill a law. Among the one hundred and thirteen yeas there was no Democrat, but of the thirty-eight nays four were classed with the Repulicans.

At the former session Congress had passed an act for the admission of Colorado, and the President had vetoed it. In January, 1867, another bill for the same purpose was sent to the President; but this he also very properly, and for statesman-like reasons, negatived. No further action was taken on the matter. In the same month a bill was also presented for his signature for the admission of Nebraska. This, too, he vetoed. But both Houses repassed it over his veto, and on the 9th of February, 1867, the Speaker pronounced the bill a law. In due time the President issued his proclamation,

declaring that a new State had been added to the Union.

On the 20th of February, the House, by a vote of one hundred and twenty-eight to forty-six, and the Senate by thirty-five yeas, one of which was Reverdy Johnson, the only Democrat who went with the majority, against seven nays, passed the following reconstruction act, and a few days later the appended supplementary act :

"AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE MORE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES.

"WHEREAS, No legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exist in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and

"WHEREAS, It is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: therefore,

"Be it enacted, etc., That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts, and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed, and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

"SEC. 2. That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned.

"SEC. 3. That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as aforesaid to protect all persons in their rights of person and property; to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals; and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when

in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose; and all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act shall be null and void.

"SEC. 4. That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted; and no sentence of any military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district; and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its provisions: Provided, that no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President.

"SEC. 5. That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said State twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the Rebellion, or for felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the same, and when said State, by a vote of its Legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as Article Fourteen, and when said article shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Represent

atives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oaths prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State: Provided, that no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States shall be eligible to election as a member of the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such convention.

"SEC. 6. That until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under any such provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said Constitutional amendment.

"Passed March 2, 1867."

"AN ACT

"SUPPLEMENTARY TO AN ACT ENTITLED AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE MORE EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES,' PASSED MARCH SECOND, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN, AND TO FACILITATE

RESTORATION.

"Be it enacted, etc., That before the first day of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, the commanding general in each district defined by an Act entitled 'An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,' passed March second, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, shall cause a registration to be made of the male citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and upwards, resident in each county or parish in the State or States included in his district, which registration shall include only those persons who are qualified to vote for delegates by the act aforesaid, and who shall have taken and subscribed the following oath or affirmation: 'I,, do solemnly swear (or affirm), in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State of -; that I have resided

months next preceding this day, and or the parish of

in

in said State for now reside in the county of said State (as the case may be); that I am twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States, nor for felony committed against the laws of any State or of the United States; that I have never been a member of any State Legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office in any State, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress of the United States, 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, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to the best of my abil ity, encourage others so to do, so help me God;' which oath or affirmation may be administered by any registering officer.

"SEC. 2. That after the completion of the registration hereby provided for in any State, at such time and places therein as the commanding general shall appoint and direct, of which at least thirty days' public notice shall be given, an election shall be held of delegates to a convention for the purpose of establishing a constitution and civil government for such State loyal to the Union, said convention in each State, except Virginia, to consist of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the State Legislature of such State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned among the several districts, counties, or parishes of such State by the commanding general, giving to each representation in the ratio of voters registered as aforesaid, as nearly as may be. The convention in Virginia shall consist of the same number of members as represented the territory now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch of the Legislature of said State in the year eighteen hundred and sixty, to be apportioned as aforesaid.

"SEC. 3. That at said election the registered voters of each