riT.LIC DOCUMENTS. 



to know Ha own value, and not to ace that capital 



;>:i\ that \.iluc. This bill frustrates this adjust- 



uos between capital und lubor, and 



aettle questions of political economy 



!i tho agency of numerous officials, whose in- 



lit discord between the two 



. for us tin' lne.ich idens their employment 



will continue, iiml when it id closed their occupation 



will terminate. 



our hi-tory, in nil our experience as a people 

 living iiiiiii-r 1-Vderal and State law, no such i 

 a* that contemplated by the details of this bill haa 

 >r adopted. They estab- 



li-h, i n.ty of the colored race, safeguards 



\\lii.-h u.i intiniti-ly bc\ ond any that the General 

 :imeiit has ever provided for the white race. 

 In fact, the distinction of race and color is, by tho 

 bill, uncle to operate in favor of the colored and 

 the white race. They interfere with the mu- 

 :i!i >:i of the States, with the relations 

 ^ exclusively between a State and its citizens, 

 inhabitants of the same State an absorp- 

 tion and assumption of power by the General Gov- 

 :;t \\hirh, if acquiesced in, must sap and de- 

 iir federative system of limited powers, and 

 break down tho barriers which preserve the rights 

 of the States. It is another step, or rather stride, 

 toward centralization and the concentration of all 

 tegialatire power in the national Government. The 

 tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit 

 of rebellion, and to arrest the progress of those in- 

 fluences which are more closely drawing around the 



s the bonds of union and peace. 

 .My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of 

 t of January, 1863, ordered and declared that 

 all persons held as slaves within certain States and 

 f States therein designated, were and thence- 

 : d should be free, and, further, that the Ex- 

 i- Government of the United States, including 

 the military and naval authorities thereof, would 

 recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. 

 This guaranty has been rendered especially obli- 

 gatory and sacred oy the amendment of the Consti- 

 tution abolishing slavery throughout the United 

 States. I therefore fully recognize the obligation 

 to protect and defend that class of our people when- 

 ever and wherever it shall become necessary, and to 

 the full extent compatible with the Constitution of 

 the United States. 



Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for 

 me to say, that I will cheerfully coSperate with Con- 

 gress in any measure that may be necessary for the 

 protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well 

 us those of all other classes of persons throughout 

 the I'nited States, by judicial process under equal 

 and impartial laws, in conformity with the provisions 

 of the Federal Constitution. 



I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret that 

 in considering the bills and joint resolutions forty- 

 two in number which have been thus far submitted 

 for mv approval, I am compelled to withhold my as- 

 Bent from a second measure that has received the 

 sanction of both Houses of (V>n<rr 



AMtKKNV JOIIXSON. 

 'WASHINGTON, D. C, March 27, 1864. 



Majority Report of the Joint Committee on 7,V- 

 construction to the two House* of Congress^ 

 made June 8, 1866. 



The joint committee of the two Houses of Con- 



gress, appointed under the concurrent resolution of 

 eccmber 13, 1865, with directions to inquire into 

 the condition of the States which formed the so- 

 callod Confederate States of America, and report 

 whether they or any of them are entitled to be rep- 

 reseated in either house of Congress, with leave to 

 report by bill or otherwise, ask leave to report : 

 That they have attended to the duties assigned 



them as amid u mi My as other dutfei would permit, 

 and now submit to CongTMi as the result of tln-ir 

 dnlilierutions a resolution proponing amendment < t>> 

 the Constitution, and two Dills, of which they i 

 mend the adoption. 



Before proceeding to set forth in detail the reasons 

 to which, after great deliberation, your con 

 have arrived, they beg leave to advert briefly to th- 

 course of proceedings they found it necessary to 

 adopt, and to explain the reasons therefor. 



Toe resolution under which your committee was 

 appointed directed them to inquire into the condi- 

 tion of the Confederate States, and report whether 

 they were entitled to representation in Congress. It 

 is obvious that such an investigation, covering no 

 Jorge an extent of territory and involving so many 

 important considerations, must necessarily require 

 DO trifling labor and consume a very considerable 

 amount of time. It must embrace the condition in 

 which those States were left at the close of the war, 

 the measures which had been taken toward the re- 

 organization of civil government, and the disposition 

 of the people toward the United States; in a word, 

 their fitness to take an active part in the administra- 

 tion of national affairs. 



As to their condition at the close of the rebellion, 

 the evidence is open to all, and admits of no dispute. 

 They were in a state of utter exhaustion. Having 

 protracted their struggle against Federal authority 

 until all hopes of successful resistance had ceased, 

 and laid down their arms only because there was no 

 longer any power to use them, the people of those 

 States were, when the rebellion was crushed, " de- 

 prived of all civil government and must proceed to 

 organize anew." In his conversation with Mr. 

 Stearns, of Massachusetts, certified by himself, 

 President Johnson said, " The State institutions are 

 prostrated, laid out on the ground, and they must be 

 taken up and adapted to the progress of events." 

 Finding the Southern States in this condition, and 

 Congress having failed to provide for the contin- 

 gency, his duty was obvious. As President of the 

 United States he had no power except to execute the 

 laws of the land as chief magistrate. Those laws 

 gave him no authority over the subject of reorgani- 

 zation, but, by the Constitution, he was commander* 

 in-ch^ef of the army and navy of the United States. 

 Those Confederate States embraced a portion of the 

 people of the Union who had been in a state of re- 

 Tolt, but had been reduced to obedience by force of 

 arms. They were in an abnormal condition, without 

 civil government, without commercial connections, 

 without national or international relations, and sub- 

 ject only to martial law. By withdrawing their rep- 

 resentatives in Congress, by renouncing the privilege 

 of representation, by organizing a separate govern- 

 ment, and by levying war against the United States, 

 they destroyed their State constitutions in respect 

 to the vital principle which connected the respective 

 States with the Union, and secured their Federal re- 

 lations ; and nothing of those constitutions was left 

 of which the United States were bound to take no- 

 tice. For four years they had a de facto government, 

 but it was usurped and illegal, they chose the tri- 

 bunal of arms wherein to decide whether or not it 

 slmu'd be legalized, and they were defeated. At the 

 close of the rebellion, therefore, the people of the 

 rebellious States were found, as the President ex- 



l it, "deprived of all civil government." 

 Under this state of affairs it was plainly the duty 

 of the President to enforce existing national laws, 

 and to establish as far ns he could such a system of 

 government as might be provided for by existing na- 

 tional statutes. As commander-in-chief of a \\:-- 

 torious army, it was his duty under the law of na- 

 tions and the army regulations, to restore order, to 

 preserve property, ana to protect the people against 

 violence from any quarter, until provision shall b 

 made by law for their government. He might, na 

 President, assemble Congress and submit the whole 



