CONGRESS, U. S. 



307 



Sprague, Sumner, TenEyck, Trnmbull, Van Win- 

 kle, Wade, Wilkinson, and Wilson 26. 



NAYS Messrs. Davis, Powell, and Saulsbury 3. 



ABSENT Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Carlile, 

 Clark, Collamer, Cowan, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, 

 Foster, Harding, Hendricks, Hicks, Howard, Howe, 

 Merrill, Nesinith, Richardson, Willey, and Wright 

 20, 



The House non-concurred in the amendment 

 of the Senate, and asked a Committee of Con- 

 ference, when the Senate receded from its 

 amendment yeas, 18; nays, 14. 



The bill then went to the President for his 

 approval. On July 9th he issued the following 

 proclamation relative to it : 



Whereas, At the late session, Congress passed a bill 

 to guarantee to certain States whose Governments 

 have been usurped or overthrown a republican form 

 of government, a copy of which is hereunto annexed; 



And whereas, The said bill was presented to the 

 President of the United States for his approval less 

 than one hour before the sine die adjournment of said 

 session, and was not signed by him ; 



And whereas, The said bill contains, among other 

 things, a plan for restoring the States in rebetlion to 

 their proper practical relation in the Union, which 

 plan expressed the sense of Congress upon that sub- 

 ject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay be- 

 fore the people for their consideration ; 



Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of 

 the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make 

 known that while I am as I was in December last, 

 when by proclamation I propounded a plan for resto- 

 ration unprepared by_ a formal approval of this bill 

 to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of res- 

 toration; and while I am also unprepared to declare 

 that the free-State Constitutions and Governments, 

 already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louis- 

 iana shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby 

 repelling and discouraging the loval citizens who 

 have set up the same as to further edbrt, or to declare 

 a Constitutional competency in Congress to abolish 

 shivery in the States, but am at the same time sin- 

 cerely" hoping and expecting that a Constitutional 

 amendment abolishing slavery throughout the nation 

 may be adopted ; 



Nevertheless, I am fully satisfied with the system 

 for restoration contained in the bill as one very 

 proper for the loyal people of any State choosing to 

 adopt it ; and that I am, and at all'times shall be, pre- 

 pared to give the executive aid and assistance to any 

 such people, so soon as military resistance to the 

 United States shall have been suppressed in any such 

 State, and the people thereof shall have sufficiently 

 returned to their obedience to the Constitution and 

 the Laws of the U nited States in which cases Military 

 Governors will be appointed, with directions to pro- 

 ceed according to the HM. 



In testimony wherer.f, I have hereunto set my 

 hand, and caused the sea', of the United States to be 

 affixed. 



Done at the City of Washington, this 8th day of 

 July, in the year of oar Lord one thousand eight 

 hundred and sixty-four, and of the independence of 

 the Uiiited States the eighty-ninth. 



[L. a.] ABRAHAM LINCOLN.* 



Bv the Provident. 



WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State. 



In the House, on the 16th of February, Mr. 

 Dawes, of Massachusetts, called up the case of 

 James M. Johnson, claiming to be a Representa- 

 tive from Arkansas, and stated the facts to be 

 as follows : " The gentleman himself, his broth- 

 er, and brother-in-law, the present Provisional 

 Governor of Arkansas under the new constitu- 

 tion lately adopted, were residents of the same 

 town and congressional district, and in the first 

 month of the war, in 1861, they were driven 

 from the State and from their homes by the 

 rebels because of the course they took at the 

 threshold against the rebellion. From that 

 moment they entered into the Union armies. 

 This gentleman has served in those armies, and 

 in many battles of the Southwest he has had 

 the honor, as a colonel of one of the Union 

 regiments of Arkansas, to distinguish himself. 

 He holds a commission in that capacity at this 

 moment. While he was absent in the army, 

 never being able to set his foot in his own 

 State .except at the head of the forces of 

 the Union, the loyal people of the State of 

 Arkansas met in convention and adopted a 

 State constitution, and sent him here as the 

 bearer of the constitution of a free State, the 

 first unwilling fruit which this rebellion has 

 borne. In his absence, and without his knowl- 

 edge, the voters of the second congressional 

 district of Arkansas, numbering four or five 

 thousand, elected himself as their Representa- 

 tive upon this floor. He offers his credentials 

 through the ordinary channels of the House, 

 and though he has had the honor of bearing 

 here the first free-State constitution out of the 

 fire and smoke of this war, and though he comes 

 here covered with honorable scars won in de- 

 fence of the flag of his country, with a com- 

 mission as a Representative elect to this House, 

 he is denied so much as a hearing. 



"The State of Arkansas was districted ac- 

 cording to the law of the United States before 

 the rebellion broke out ; and it was divided into 

 three congressional districts according to the 

 number assigned by the last census. 



" I know not whether upon an investigation 

 by the Committee of Elections there will be 

 sufficient law or sufficient facts to justify the 

 admission of this gentleman to a seat upon the 

 floor as a Representative from Arkansas. It is 

 because I want to know whether there is law 

 or constituency enough to justify us in admit- 

 ting him here that I move that these credentials 

 be referred to the Committee of Elections." 



Mr. Davis, of Maryland, said : "I made this 

 motion to lay on the table because, as I sup- 

 posed, as now it turns out to be the fact, that it 

 is not a mere question of election law which. 



* PEOTEST OF SEXATOR WADE AKD IL WINTER DAVIS. M.C. 

 To the supporters of the Government: 



"We have read without surprise, but not without indigna- 

 tion, the proclamation of the President of the 8th of July, 

 1864. 



The supporters of the Administration are responsible to 

 the country foi- its conduct ; and it is their right and duty to 

 sheck the encroachments of the Executive on the authority 

 of Congress, and to require it to confine itself to its proper 

 sphere. 



It is impossible to pass in silence this proclamation with- 

 out neglecting that duty ; and, having taken as much respon- 

 sibility as any others in supporting the Administration, we 

 are not disposed to foil in the other duty of asserting the 

 rights of Congress. 



Jho President did not sign the bill " to guarantee to cer- 

 tain States whose government have been usurped, a Repub- 

 lican form of government" passed by the supporters of his 

 Administration in both Houses of Congress after mature 

 deliberation. 



