Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. III.djvu/32

 14 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS a clash between these principles was the civil status of the negro. The 13th amendment became a law December 18, 1865, with Johnson s concurrence. The Republicans held that slavery had been the cause of the war; that only by giving the freedman the right to vote could he be protected, and the re sults of the war secured; and that no state should be admitted until it had granted the right of suf frage to the negroes within its borders. Johnson held this to be a matter of internal regulation, be yond the control of congress. From May 9 till July 13 he appointed provisional governors for seven states, whose duties were to reorganize the governments. The state governments were organ ized, but passed such stringent laws in reference to the negroes that the Republicans declared it was a worse form of slavery than the old. When con gress met in December, 1865, it was overwhelm ingly Republican and firmly determined to protect the negro against outrage and oppression. The first breach between the president and the party in power was the veto of the freedman s bureau bill in February, 1866, which was designed to protect the negroes. One of the grounds of the veto was that it had been passed by a congress in which the southern states had no representatives. On March 27 the president vetoed the civil rights bill, which made freedmen citizens without the right of suf frage. The chief ground of objection was the