CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



161 



the United States is hereby authorized and required 

 to enjoin, by special orders upon all officers in com- 

 mand within the several military departments within 

 said several States, the performance of all acts author- 

 ized by said several laws above recited, and to re- 

 move by his order from command any or all of said 

 commanders and detail other officers of the United 

 States Army, not below the rank of colonel, to per- 

 form all the duties and exercise all the powers au- 

 thorized by said several acts, to the end' that the 

 people of said several States may speedily reorganize 

 civil government, republican in form, in said several 

 States, and be restored to political power in the 

 Union. 



SEC. 3. And le it further enacted, That the General 

 of the Army may remove any or all civil officers now 

 acting under the several provisional governments 

 within said several disorganized States and appoint 

 others to discharge the duties pertaining to their re- 

 spective offices, and may do any and all acts which 

 by said several laws above mentioned are authorized 

 to be done by the several comma*nders of the mili- 

 tary departments within said States; and so much 

 of said acts, or of any acts as authorize the President 

 to detail the military commanders to said military 

 departments, or to remove any officers which may be 

 detailed as herein provided, is hereby repealed. 



SEC. 4. And le it further enacted, That it shall be 

 unlawful for the P'resident of the United States to 

 order any part of the Army or Navy of the United 

 States to assist by force of arms the authority of 

 either of said provisional governments in said disor- 

 ganized States, to oppose or obstruct the authority 

 of the United States as provided in this act and the 

 acts to which this is supplementary. 



SEC. 5. And le it further^ enacted, That any inter- 

 ference by any person, with intent to prevent by 

 force the execution of the orders of the General of 

 the Army made in pursuance of this act and of the 

 acts aforesaid, shall be held to be a high misdemean- 

 or, and the party guilty thereof shall, upon convic- 

 tion, be fined not exceeding $5,000, and imprisoned 

 not exceeding two years. 



SEC. 6. And le it further enacted, That so much of 

 all acts and parts of acts as conflict or are inconsistent 

 with the provisions of this act are hereby repealed. 



Mr. Brooks, of New York, said : " I desire 

 to submit a report of the views of the minority 

 of the committee, signed by the gentleman 

 from Kentucky (Mr. Beck) and myself, in op- 

 position to this bill. And as the injunction of 

 secrecy upon the action of the committee has 

 been removed, as will be seen by any one who 

 will refer to the daily papers, I may avail my- 

 self of this opportunity to add that the honor- 

 able gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Ste- 

 vens) was also opposed to the bill as reported, 

 though upon entirely different grounds; our 

 opposition being to the principle of the bill, 

 and he, as I understand him, being opposed 

 to the bill because it was not eifective enough, 

 but was rather a bill to make a President of 

 the United States than to carry out the ob- 

 jects stated in the bill. 



I now present the report of the minority. 



The report was as follows : 



The undersigned, a minority of the Committee on 

 Keconstruction, submit, among others, the following 

 as some of their reasons for opposition to this bill : 



1. That a Congress exparte is asked (first section) 

 to abrogate and destroy all civil State governments in 

 ten States, four of them, namely, Virginia, North 

 Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, being of the 

 original thirteen that started the Government and 

 created the Constitution, while faur others of that 

 VOL. vni. 11 A 



thirteen (making eight in all) have just been demon- 

 strating through their popular elections that they 

 recognize their civil State governments, and guaran- 

 tee, as far as the popular voice there can, their preser- 

 vation (not destruction) as legal State governments. 

 Self-government and representation are cardinal prin- 

 ciples of a republic, and solemnly ordained in our 

 Federal Constitution ; but this section ignores both, 

 and robs ten States of the Union and their twelve 

 million inhabitants of all protection from the judi- 

 ciary or executive branches of the Government, while 

 dooming them to a military despotism. 



2. That a Congress thus representing but a part of 

 the people, and that part now in a minority, even >f 

 a full Congress, in the proper parliamentary sense of 

 that word, could be but one of the three great branch- 

 es of the Government, with no right nor power to in- 

 validate or to deny the recognition of the judicial or 

 executive power, as asserted in this bill. The execu- 

 tive or judiciary has as much right to proclaim or 

 adjudicate that Congress shall not be recognized as 

 Congress has thus to enact ; for the executive and the 

 judiciary both are as much the Government and the 

 creature of the Constitution as the House of Eepre- 

 sentatives or Senate ; and the Executive elected by 

 the whole people better represents the principles of 

 popular government than a Senate, the mere arbitrary 

 creature of the States without regard to population. 



3. That this invalidation or nullification of the ex- 

 ecutive and judicial power in ten States is not only 

 an abolition of the Federal Constitution, but, without 

 a direct repeal of, in conflict with the great military 

 act of 1792, 1795, and of March 3, 1807, putting the 

 Army and Navy and militia of the United States in 

 certain cases at the disposal of the President ; also in 

 conflict with the fundamental judiciary act of 1789, 

 and also in conflict with article four, section five, of 

 the Constitution, which, while guaranteeing to every 

 State a republican form of government, also guaran- 

 tees, on application of the civil authorities of the State, 

 protection against domestic violence or invasion, such 

 as is contemplated in this bill. 



4. That the second and third sections are in utter 

 violation of the Constitution Article 2, section 2 

 which declares "the President" to be Commander- 

 in-Chief of the Army of the United States, inasmuch 

 as only the General of the Army is there authorized 

 to be that Commander-in-Chief, and to remove by 

 his order alone any or all officers of the Army of the 

 United States, independent of the constitutional and 

 people's elected Commander-in-Chief, and this in- 

 vestiture of a General of the Army with the supreme 

 dictatorship is, as if in solemn mockery, set forth to 

 be to reorganize civil government republican in 

 form! 



5. That the whole act is revolutionary and incen- 

 diary in arraying Congress, but one branch of the 

 Government, against two coordinate branches, in all 

 respects the constitutional equals of Congress, and in 

 some respects the constitutional superiors of that Con- 

 gress, and thereby calculated, i not intended, to 

 involve the whole country in commotion and civil 

 strife, the end of which no human eye can foresee. 



JAMES BEOOKS, of New York. 

 JAMES B. BECK, of Kentucky. 



Mr. Brooks said : " Sir, it seems to me, with 

 all due respect to the committee that reported 

 it, that this bill is mainly a bill to elect a Pres- 

 ident of the United States, and to so organize 

 the Southern States as to elect a particular per- 

 son to the presidency of the United States. 

 In order to give that particular person a suffi- 

 ciency of power to become President of the 

 United States, he is made supreme dictator 

 over the ten Southern States, a vast extent of 

 territory, stretching from the Potomac to the 

 Eio Grande. 



