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Rh of the government and even intimated that the assassination of the president was aimed at. It was hardly possible to close

the breach after this, and the schism between the president and the leaders of the Union Republican party was completed when Congress passed (April 9, 1866) the Civil Rights Bill over Johnson's veto. The act declared the freedmen to be citizens of the United States with the same civil rights as white persons and entitled to the protection of the Federal government. It provided punishment for those who, relying upon state authority, should discriminate against the negroes.

279. To place this measure beyond the danger of overthrow by courts, or by a change of party majority, on the 13th of

June 1866 Congress provided for submitting to the states a Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This gave constitutional guarantee of citizenship and equal civil rights to freedmen, and, in effect, provided that when in any state the right to vote should be denied to any of the male inhabitants twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in the state should be reduced in the proportion which the number of such citizens bore to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in the state. This section of the amendment, therefore, left the states the option between granting the suffrage to the negro or suffering a proportionate reduction in the number of representatives in Congress. It was a fair compromise which might have saved the South from a long period of misrule and the North from the ultimate breakdown of its policy of revolutionizing Southern political control by enfranchisement of the blacks and disfranchisement of the natural leaders of the whites. But the South especially resented that section of the amendment which disqualified for Federal or state office those who, having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, afterwards engaged in rebellion, which involved the repudiation of their leaders. The amendment further safeguarded the validity of the United States debt and declared null the war debt of the seceding states and the Confederacy and forbade the payment of claims for emancipation.

280. In order to ensure the passage of this amendment the Radical leaders proposed bills which declared that, after its adoption, any of the seceding states which ratified it should be readmitted to representation. But it also provided that the higher classes of officials of the Confederacy should be ineligible to office in the Federal government. These bills were allowed to await the issue of the next election.

281. For further protection of the rights of the negro, Congress succeeded in passing, over President Johnson's veto, an act continuing the Freedmen's Bureau for two years. Tennessee having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment was (July 24, 1866) restored to representation and Congress adjourned, leaving the issue between the president and the legislative body to the people in the Congressional elections.

282. The campaign brought with it some realignment of party. President Johnson having broken with the leaders of the Union

Republican party was more and more forced to rely upon Democratic support, although his executive appointments were still made from the ranks of the Republicans. The so-called National Union Convention, which met in Philadelphia in midsummer in an effort to abate sectionalism, and to endorse the president's policy, included a large number of War Democrats who had joined the Union party after the secession of the South, many moderate Southerners, a fragment of the Republican party, and a few Whigs, especially from the Border states. They claimed that the southern States had a right to be represented in Congress. Other meetings friendly to the Radicals were called, and under the designation of Union-Republican party they declared for the Congressional policy. While the campaign for elections to Congress was in progress the president made a journey to Chicago, speaking at various cities en route and still further

alienating the Republicans by coarse abuse of his opponents. As a result of the autumn elections two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives were opposed to him. Almost contemporaneously every seceding state except Tennessee rejected the Fourteenth Amendment, and thereby paved the way for the entire triumph of the Northern extremists, who favoured negro suffrage on idealistic grounds or as a means for forcing the South to agree to the Republican policy.

283. In the ensuing winter and spring Congress completed the conquest of the president, awed the Supreme Court, and provided a drastic body of legislation to impose negro suffrage on the South. By the Tenure of Office Act (March 2, 1867) Congress forbade the president to remove civil officers without

the consent of the Senate, and at the same time by another act required him to issue military orders only through the general of the army (Grant), whom the president was forbidden to remove from command or to assign to duty at another place than Washington, unless at the request of the officer or by the prior assent of the Senate. These extraordinary invasions of the presidential authority were deemed necessary to prevent Johnson from securing control of the military arm of the government, and to protect Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war, and General Grant. Fearing lest the president might take advantage of the interim during which Congress would not be in session, the Fortieth Congress was required to meet on the 4th of March immediately following the expiration of the thirty-ninth.

284. The Reconstruction Act of the 2nd of March 1867 provided for the military government of the Southern states while

the drastic policy of Congress was being carried out. It was passed over the veto of the president and declared that no legal governments or adequate protection for life or property existed in the seceding states, except Tennessee. These states it divided into five military districts, each to be placed under the command' of a general of the army, whose duty it was to preserve law and order, using at discretion either local civil tribunals or military commissions. But the existing civil governments were declared provisional only and subject to the paramount authority of the United States to abolish, modify, control, or supersede them. The act further provided that a constitutional convention might be elected by the adult male citizens of the state, of whatever race, colour or previous condition, resident in the state for a year, except such as might be disfranchised for rebellion or felony. No persons excluded from holding office under the Fourteenth Amendment were eligible for election to the convention or entitled to vote for its members.

285. When the convention, thus chosen under negro suffrage, and with the exclusion of Confederate leaders, should have framed a state constitution conforming to the Federal Constitution and allowing the franchise to those entitled to vote for the members of the convention, the constitution was to be submitted for the approval of Congress. If this were obtained and if the state adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, and this amendment became a part of the Federal Constitution, then the state should be entitled to representation in Congress; but the senators and representatives sent to Congress were required to take the “ironclad oath,” which excluded those who had fought in the Confederate service, or held office under any government hostile to the United States, or given support to any such authority.

286. By the pressure of military control Congress thus aimed at forcing the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as

the acceptance of negro suffrage in the state constitutions of the South. A supplementary act of the 23rd of March 1867 and an act of interpretation passed on the 19th of July completed this policy of “thorough.” In the registration of voters the district commanders were required to administer an oath which excluded those disfranchised for rebellion and those who after holding state or Federal office had given aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States.

287. Against this use of military power to govern states in