History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson [6]
in number of the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election laws of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reestablish a State government which shall be republican, and in no wise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on the application of the legislature, or the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence."
And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that any provision which may be adopted by such State government in relation to the freed people of such State, which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the National Executive.
And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal State government in any State, the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State government.
To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say, that whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any extent with the Executive. And still further, that this proclamation is intended to present to the people of the States wherein the National authority has been suspended; and loyal State governments have been subverted, a mode in and by which the National authority and loyal State governments, may be re-established within said States, or, in any of them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.
Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the eighty-eighth.
[L. S.]
By the President: Abraham Lincoln. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
How the revolted States could be most successfully and expeditiously restored to their constitutional relations to the Union on the cessation of hostilities, was the momentous question of the hour, upon which there were views and schemes as varied and antagonistic as were the mental differences and political disagreements of those who felt called upon to engage in the stupendous work. As history had recorded no similar conditions, and therefore no demand for the solution of such a problem, there were no examples or historic lights for the guidance of those upon whom the task had fallen.
It is apparent that Mr. Lincoln maintained the indestructibility of the States and the indivisibility of the Union--that the resolutions of secession were null and void, and that the States lately in rebellion were never in fact but only in theory out of the Union--that they retained inherently, though now dormant, their State autonomy and constitutional rights as before their revolutionary acts, except as to slavery, and that all their people had to do, to re-establish their former status, as he declared to the Emperor of the French when that potentate was about to recognize the Confederacy, was to resume their duties as loyal, law-abiding
And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that any provision which may be adopted by such State government in relation to the freed people of such State, which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the National Executive.
And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal State government in any State, the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State government.
To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say, that whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any extent with the Executive. And still further, that this proclamation is intended to present to the people of the States wherein the National authority has been suspended; and loyal State governments have been subverted, a mode in and by which the National authority and loyal State governments, may be re-established within said States, or, in any of them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.
Given under my hand at the City of Washington, the eighth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the eighty-eighth.
[L. S.]
By the President: Abraham Lincoln. William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
How the revolted States could be most successfully and expeditiously restored to their constitutional relations to the Union on the cessation of hostilities, was the momentous question of the hour, upon which there were views and schemes as varied and antagonistic as were the mental differences and political disagreements of those who felt called upon to engage in the stupendous work. As history had recorded no similar conditions, and therefore no demand for the solution of such a problem, there were no examples or historic lights for the guidance of those upon whom the task had fallen.
It is apparent that Mr. Lincoln maintained the indestructibility of the States and the indivisibility of the Union--that the resolutions of secession were null and void, and that the States lately in rebellion were never in fact but only in theory out of the Union--that they retained inherently, though now dormant, their State autonomy and constitutional rights as before their revolutionary acts, except as to slavery, and that all their people had to do, to re-establish their former status, as he declared to the Emperor of the French when that potentate was about to recognize the Confederacy, was to resume their duties as loyal, law-abiding