Page:Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction.djvu/251

Rh Congress persisted, however, in retaining the Virginia form, and in some cases made no concealment of a conscious and deliberate purpose to fix thus an interpretation upon the national constitution that should vastly enlarge the powers of Congress. The Mississippi bill became law on the 23d of February, and the Texas bill on the 30th of March. Military rule was at once withdrawn and the states assumed their normal condition.

VI

At the beginning of April, 1870, of the ten commonwealths whose reconstruction had been undertaken by Congress Georgia alone was unrestored to the full enjoyment of state autonomy. The situation of the state in December, 1868, has already been described. She had been by act of June 25 declared entitled to representation in Congress upon the performance of certain acts by her legislature; these acts had been performed, military government had been withdrawn from the state, and her representatives had been admitted to the lower house in Congress. On this condition of the facts the legal status of Georgia as a state of the Union appeared pretty well established.