308 



CONGRESS, F. S. 



would be involved, but a question of the recog- 

 nition, or the refusal to recognize the organiza- 

 tion of a State government in Arkansas. That 

 question I am not willing to have passed upon 



The bill did not therefore become a law ; and it is, there- 

 fore, nothing. 



The proclamation is neither an approval nor a veto of the 

 bill; it is, therefore, a document unknown to the .aws and 

 Constitution of the United States. 



So far as it contains an apology for not signing the bill, it 

 is a political manifesto against the friends of the Govern- 

 ment. 



So far as it proposes to execute the bill which is not a 

 law, it is a grave Executive usurpation. 



It is fitting that the facts necessary to enable the friends 

 of the Administration to appreciate the apology and the 

 usurpation be spread before them. 



The proclamation says : 



" And whereas the said bill was presented to the Presi- 

 dent 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 " 



If that be accurate, still this bill was presented with other 

 bills which were signed. 



Within that hour the time for the sine die adjournment 

 was three times postponed by the votes of both Houses ; and 

 the least intimation of a desire for more time by the Presi- 

 dent to consider this bill would have secured a farther post- 

 ponement. 



Yet the committee sent to ascertain if the President had 

 any further communication for the House of Representatives 

 reported that he had none ; and the friends of the bill, who 

 had anxiously waited on him to ascertain its fate, had already 

 been informed that the President had resolved not to sign it. 



The time of presentation, therefore, had nothing to do 

 with his failure to approve it. 



The bill has been discussed and considered for more than a 

 month in the House of Representatives, which it passed on 

 the 4th of May. It was reported to the Senate on the 27th 

 of May, without material amendment, and passed the Senate 

 absolutely as it came from the House on the 2d of July. 



Ignorance of its contents is out of the question. 



Indeed, at his request, a draft of a bill substantially the 

 same in material points, and identical in the points objected 

 to by the proclamation, had been laid before him for his con- 

 sideration in the winter of 1862-1863. 



There is, therefore, no reason to suppose the provisions of 

 the bill took the President by surprise. 



On the contrary, we have reason to believe them to have 

 been so well known that this method of preventing the bill 

 from becoming a law without the constitutional responsibil- 

 ity of a veto, had been resolved on long before the bill 

 passed the Senate. 



We are informed by a gentleman entitled to entire con- 

 fidence, that before the 22d of June, in New Orleans, it was 

 stated by a member of General Banks's staff, in the presence 

 of other gentlemen in official position, that Senator Doolittle 

 had written a letter to the department that the House Re- 

 construction bill would be staved off in the Senate to a 

 period too late in the session to require the President to 

 veto it in order to defeat it, and that Mr. Lincoln would re- 

 tain the bill, if necessary, and thereby defeat it. 



The experience of Senator Wade, in his various efforts to 

 get the bill considered in the Senate, was quite in accordance 

 with that plan ; and the fate of the bill was accurately pre- 

 dicted by letters received from New Orleans before it had 

 passed the Senate. 



Had the proclamation stopped there, it would have been 

 only one other defeat of the will of the people by the Execu- 

 tive perversion of the Constitution. 



But it goes further. The President says : 



" And whereas the said bill contains, among other things, 

 a plan for restoring the States in rebellion to their proper 

 practical relation in the Union, which plan expresses the 

 sense of Congress upon that subject, and which plan it is 

 now thought fit to lay before the people for their considera- 

 tion" 



By what authority of the Constitution ? In what forms ? 

 The result to be declared by whom ? With what effect when 

 ascertained ? 



Is it to be a law by the approval of the people, without the 

 approval of Congress, at the will of the President ? 



Will the President, on his opinion of the popular approval, 

 execute it as a law ? 



Or is this merely a device to avoid the serious responsi- 

 bility of defeating a law on which so many loyal hearts re- 

 posed for security ? 



But the reasons now assigned for not approving the bill 

 wre full of ominous significance. 



The President proceeds : 



on the collateral matter of the investigation of 

 the right of a gentleman to a seat on this 

 floor." 



Mr. Mallory, of Kentucky, said: "Does the 



"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 proclama- 

 tion I propounded a plan for restoration) unprepared by a 

 formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to 

 any single plan of restoration." 



That is to say, the President is resolved that people shall 

 not by law take any securities from the rebel States against 

 a renewal of the rebellion, before restoring their power to 

 govern us. 



His wisdom and prudence are to be our sufficient guaran- 

 tees ! He further says : 



" And while I am also unprepared to declare that the free- 

 State constitutions and governments already adopted and in- 

 stalled in Arkansas and Louisiana shall be set aside and held 

 for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal 

 citizens who have set up the same as to further effort " 



That is to say, the President persists in recognizing those 

 shadows of governments in Arkansas and Louisiana which 

 Congress formally declared should not be recognized whose 

 representatives and senators were repelled by formal votes 

 of both Houses of Congress which it was declared formally 

 should have no electoral vote for President and Vice-Presi- 

 dent. 



They are mere creatures of his will. They are mere oli- 

 garchies, imposed on the people by military orders under 

 the form of election, at which generals, provost marshals, 

 soldiers and camp-followers were the chief actors, assisted 

 by a handful of resident citizens, and urged on to premature 

 action by private letters from the President. 



In neither Louisiana nor Arkansas, before Banks's defeat, 

 did the United States control half the territory or half the 

 population. In Louisiana General Banks's proclamation 

 candidly declared : " The fundamental law of the State is 

 martial law.'' 



On that foundation of freedom he erected what the Presi- 

 dent calls li the free constitution and Government of Lou- 

 isiana." 



But of this State, whose fundamental law was martial 

 law, only sixteen parishes out of forty-eight parishes were 

 held by the United States; and in five of the sixteen we held 

 only our camps. 



The eleven parishes we substantially held had 233,185 in- 

 habitants ; the residue of the State not held by us, 575.617. 



At the farce called an election the officers of General Banks 

 returned that 11,346 ballots were cast ; but whether any or 

 by whom the people of the United States have no legal as- 

 surance ; but it is probable that 4,000 were cast by soldiers or 

 employes of the United States, military or municipal, but 

 none according to any law, State or national, and 7,000 ballots 

 represent the State of Louisiana. 



Such is the free constitution and Government of Louisiana ; 

 and like it is that of Arkansas. Nothing but the failure of a 

 military expedition deprived us of a like one in the swamps 

 of Florida; and before the Presidential election like ones 

 may be organized in every rebel State where the United 

 States have a camp. 



The President, by preventing this bill from becoming a 

 law, holds the electoral votes of the rebel States at the dicta- 

 tion of his personal ambition. 



If those votes turn the balance in his favor, is it to be sup- 

 posed that his competitor, defeated by such means, will 

 acquiesce ? 



If the rebel majority assert their supremacy in those 

 States, and send votes which elect an enemy of the Govern- 

 ment, will we not repel his claims ? 



And is not that civil war for the Presidency inaugurated 

 by the votes of rebel States ? 



Seriously impressed with these dangers Congress, "the 

 proper constitutional authority," formally declared that there 

 are no State governments in the rebel States, and provided for 

 their erection at a proper time ; and both the Senate and the 

 House of Representatives rejected the senators and repre- 

 sentatives chosen under the authority of what the President 

 calls the free constitution and government of Arkansas. 



The President's proclamation "holds for naught" this 

 judgment, and discards the authority of the Supreme Court, 

 and strides headlong toward the anarchy his proclamation of 

 the 8th of December inaugurated. 



If electors for President be allowed to be chosen in either 

 of those States, a sinister light will be cast on the motives 

 which induced the President to "hold for naught" the will 

 of Congress rather than his government in Louisiana and 

 Arkansas. 



That judgment of Congress which the President defies was 

 the exercise of an authority exclusively vested in Congren 



