PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



589 



for this State, or to amend or revise tins constitution 

 in any manner, and the mayor and council in any city 

 or town, shall, before they enter on the duties of their 

 respective offices, take and subscribe to the following 

 oath or affirmation, provided the disabilities there- 

 in contained may be individually removed by a 



three-fifths vote of the General Assembly : " I, , 



do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never volun- 

 tarily borne arms against the United States since I 

 have been a citizen thereof; that I have voluntarily 

 given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement 

 to persons engaged in armed hostility thereto ; that I 

 have never sought or accepted, or attempted to exer- 

 cise the functions of any office whatever under any 

 authority or pretended authority in hostility to the 

 United States ; that I have not yielded a voluntary 

 support to any pretended government, authority, 

 power, or constitution, within the United States, hos- 

 tile or inimical thereto. And I do further swear (or 

 affirm) that to the best of my knowledge and ability 

 I will support and defend the Constitution of the 

 United States against all enemies, foreign and do- 

 mestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the 

 same ; that I take this obligation freely, without any 

 mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I 

 will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the 

 office on which I am about to enter, so help me God." 

 The above oath shall also be taken by all the city and 

 county officers before entering upon their duties, and 

 by all other State officers not included in the above 

 provision. 



I direct the vote to be taken upon each of the above- 

 cited provisions alone, and upon the other portions 

 of the said constitution in the following manner, viz. : 



Each voter favoring the ratification of the constitu- 

 tion (excluding the provisions above quoted) as framed 

 by the convention of December 3, 1867, shall express 

 his judgment by voting 



FOR THE CONSTITUTION. 



Each voter favoring the rejection of the constitu- 

 tion (excluding the provisions above quoted), shall 

 express his judgment by voting 



AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION. 



Each voter will be allowed to cast a separate ballot 

 for or against either or both of the provisions above 

 quoted. 



In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand 



and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 



Done at the city of Washington this 14th day of 



May ; in the year of our Lord 1869, and of 



[SEAL.] the independence of the United States of 



America the ninety-third. / - 



U. S. GKANT. 

 By the President : 

 HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State. 



Respecting Wages of Labor, May 19, 1869. 



Whereas, the act of Congress, approved June 25, 

 1868, constituted on and after that date eight hours a 

 day's work for all laborers, workmen, and mechanics 

 employed by or on behalf of the Government of the 

 United States, and repealed all acts and parts of acts 

 inconsistent therewith : 



Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of 

 the* United States, do hereby direct that, from and 

 after this date, no reduction shall be made in the 

 wages paid by the Government by the day to such 

 laborers, workmen, and mechanics, on account of 

 such reduction of the hours of labor. 



In testimony whereof I have hereto set my hand, 

 and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. 



Done at the city of "Washington, this 19th day of 

 May, in the year of our Lord 1869, and of 

 [SEAL.] the independence of the United States the 

 ninety-third. 



U. S. GKANT. 



By the President : 



HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State. 



Address of ANDREW JOHNSON to the People of 

 the United States. 



To the People of the United States : 



The robe of office, by constitutional limitation, this 

 day falls from my shoulders, to be immediately as- 

 sumed by my successor. For him the forbearance 

 and cooperation of the American people, in all his 

 efforts to administer the Government within the pale 

 of the Federal Constitution, are sincerely invoked. 

 Without ambition to gratify, party ends to subserve' 

 or personal quarrels to avenge at the sacrifice of the 

 peace and welfare of the country, my earnest desire 

 is -to see the Constitution, as defined and limited by 

 the fathers of the republic, again recognized and 

 obeyed as the supreme law of the land, and the 

 whole people North, South, East, and West pros- 

 perous and happy under its wise provisions. 



In surrendering the high office to which I was 

 called four years ago, at a memorable and terrible 

 crisis, it is my privilege, I trust, to say to the people 

 of the United States a few parting words, in vindica- 

 tion of an official course so ceaselessly assailed and 

 aspersed by political leaders, to whose plans and 

 wishes my policy to restore the Union has been ob- 

 noxious. In a period of difficulty and turmoil almost 

 without precedent in the history of any people, con-' 

 sequent upon the closing scenes of a great rebellion 

 and the assassination of the then President, it was, 

 perhaps, too much, on my part, to expect of devoted 

 partisans, who rode on the waves of excitement 

 which at that time swept all before them, that de- 

 gree of toleration and magnanimity which I sought 

 to recommend and enforce, and wnich I believe in 

 good time would have advanced us infinitely further 

 on the road to permanent peace and prosperity than 

 we have thus far attained. Doubtless had I at the 

 commencement of my term of office unhesitatingly 

 lent its powers or perverted them to purposes and 

 plans "outside of the Constitution," and become an 

 instrument to schemes of confiscation and of general 

 and oppressive disqualifications, I would have been 

 hailed as all that was true, loyal, and discerning ; as 

 the reliable head of a party, whatever I might have 

 been as the Executive of the nation. Unwilling, 

 however, to accede to propositions of extremists, 

 and bound to adhere, at every personal hazard, to 

 my oath to defend the Constitution, I need not, per- 

 haps, be surprised at having met the fate of others 

 whose only rewards for upholding constitutional 

 right and law have been the consciousness of having 

 attempted to do their duty, and the calm and un- 

 prejudiced judgment of history. 



At the time a mysterious Providence assigned to 

 me the office of President, I was, by the terms of the 

 Constitution, the Commander-in-chief of nearly a 

 million of men under arms. One of my first acts 

 was to disband and restore to the vocations of civil 

 life this immense host, and to divest myself, so far 

 as I could, of the unparalleled powers then incident 

 to the office and the times. Whether or not, in this 

 step, I was right, and how far deserving the appro- 

 bation of the people, all can now on reflection judge, 

 when reminded of the ruinous condition of public 

 affairs that must have resulted from the contin- 

 uance in the military service of such a vast number 

 of men. 



The close of our domestic conflict found the army 

 eager to distinguish itself in a new field, by an effort 

 to punish European intervention in Mexico. By 

 many it was believed and urged that, aside from the 

 assumed justice of the proceeding, a foreign war, in 

 which both sides wouldT cheerfully unite to vindicate 

 the honor of the national flag, and further illustrate 

 the national prowess, would be the surest and speed- 

 iest way of awakening national enthusiasm, reviving 

 devotion to the Union, and occupying a force con- 

 cerning which grave doubts existed as to its willing- 

 ness, after four years of active campaigning, at once 

 to return to the pursuits of peace. Whether these 



