MISSISSIPPI. 



581 



should be found to need it, and of promoting recon- 

 ciliation between the Northern and Southern people, 

 are now prominent duties before us, so that we may 

 hereafter live in the more secure and perfect enjoy- 

 ment of the great patrimony left us by our fathers, 

 and so that those who are to come after us may long 

 enjoy in their fullest functions the inestimable bless- 

 ing of civil liberty, the best birthright and noblest 

 inheritance of mankind. 



Done at the city of Jackson, on the 1st day of July, 

 A. D. 1865. 



W. L. SHARKEY. 

 . By the Governor : 



JAMES R. YERGER, Secretary of State. 



On the 17th of July the Governor ordered a 

 tax of one dollar on each bale of cotton sent to 

 market, toward paying the expenses of the 

 State Convention provided for as above, and on 

 the 21st issued an order doubling the tax in cases 

 where payment was refused, and authorizing 

 the sheriff to seize and sell at public auction a 

 sufficient quantity of cotton to pay the tax. 

 The election of delegates was characterized by 

 an unusual degree of quiet, and, pursuant to the 

 Governor's proclamation, the Convention, the 

 first to meet under the call of a provisional Gov- 

 ernor, assembled at Jackson on the 14th of 

 August. James E. Yerger was chosen pres- 

 ident, and made a short address, in which he 

 expressed the hope that they were entering on 

 an era of restoration, peace, and prosperity, and 

 of security to the generations to come after 

 them. 



After the election of a secretary, the oath to 

 support the Constitution of the United States 

 was administered to all the delegates. On the 

 17th a memorial was adopted, to be presented 

 to the President of the United States, praying 

 him not to garrison the State with negro troops. 

 This was presented to Gen. Osterhaus, to be 

 forwarded. On the 21st the following amend- 

 ment to the State Constitution was adopted, 

 after an earnest debate, by a vote of 86 to 11 : 



The institution of slavery having been abolished 

 by the State of Mississippi, neither slavery nor in- 

 voluntary servitude, otherwise than in punishment 

 of crime, of which the party shall have been duly 

 convicted, shall hereafter exist in this State ; and 

 the Legislature at the next session, and thereafter, 

 as the public welfare may require, shall provide for 

 the protection and security of the persons and prop- 

 erty of the freedmen of this State, and guard them 

 and the State against the evils that may arise from 

 their sudden emancipation. 



On the same day an ordinance was passed, 

 providing for a general election according to 

 the constitution, and the election laws of the 

 State as they existed on the 1st of January, 

 1861, for Representatives in Congress, State offi- 

 cers, and members of the Legislature, and for 

 a special election of county, district, judicial, 

 and ministerial officers, both to be held on the 

 2d of October. On the. 22d an ordinance was 

 passed, declaring the ordinance of secession null 

 and void, and repealing all the ordinances of 

 the Convention of 1861, except the revenue 

 ordinance, which was left for the Legislature 

 to act upon. O'n the 23d an ordinance was 

 passed, ratifying all laws and official acts passed 



since the act of secession, not repugnant to the 

 Constitutions- of the United States and Missis- 

 sippi, prior to January, 1861, except the laws 

 concerning crimes and the acts enabling rail- 

 roads to pay moneys borrowed by them ; also 

 repealing all laws authorizing the payment of 

 dues to the State in Confederate scrip, and all 

 laws authorizing the distillation of spirits on 

 State account; ratifying all official accounts, 

 proceedings, judgments, decrees, etc., of the 

 several courts ; legalizing all sales made by ad- 

 ministrators and others acting in a judicial 

 capacity ; authorizing executors and others to 

 compromise with persons against whom they 

 held notes, as to the real value of the property 

 for which such notes were given ; authorizing 

 ex parte testimony to be taken to prove whether 

 or not contracts which had been made contem- 

 plated specie or currency payments ; ratifying 

 all marriages consummated since January, 1861, 

 whether celebrated with the usual forms or not. 

 On the 24th Governor Sharkey sent in to the 

 Convention the following despatch from Presi- 

 dent Johnson : 



EXECUTIVE MA.SSIOST, ) 

 WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 15, 1S65. f 



Gov. Wm. L. STiarlcey, Jackson, Miss. : 



I am gratified to see that you have organized your 

 convention without difficulty. I hope that without 

 delay your convention will amend your State consti- 

 tution, abolishing slavery and denying to all future 

 Legislatures the power to legislate that there is prop- 

 erty in man ; also that they will adopt the amendment 

 to the Constitution of the United states abolishing 

 slavery. If you could extend the elective franchise 

 to all persons of color who can read the Constitution 

 of the United States in English and write their names, 

 and to all persons of color who own real estate valued 

 at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay 

 taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the ad- 

 versary and set an example the other States will fol- 

 low. This you can do with perfect safety, and you 

 would thus place Southern States in reference to free 

 persons of color upon the same basis with the free 

 States. I hope and trust your convention will do 

 this, and as a consequence the radicals, who are wild 

 upon negro franchise, will be completely foiled in 

 their attempts to keep the Southern States from re- 

 newing their relations to the Union by not accepting 

 their Senators and Representatives. 



ANDREW JOHNSON, President United States. 



On the same day, after laying on the table a 

 proposition to submit the constitutional amend- 

 ment to the people for ratification or rejection, 

 and nominating Judge E. S. Fisher for Gov- 

 ernor, the Convention adjourned sine die. At 

 an informal meeting of the delegates in their in- 

 dividual capacity, a petition to President John- 

 son, praying him to pardon Jefferson Davis and 

 Gov. Clarke, was read, and a resolution was 

 adopted requesting the President of the Con- 

 vention to forward the memorial to the Presi- 

 dent of the United States. 



A good deal of excitement was occasioned by 

 the taking of a man, named Potter, out of the 

 custody of a civil magistrate, by Gen. Osterhaus, 

 while he was undergoing trial for shooting a 

 negro in the act of robbery. Gen. Osterhaus 

 published, in the Jackson " News " of the 2d of 

 September, a reply to some strictures made in 



