Author: U. S. Joint Committee on Reconstruction

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-02-13

Total Pages: 20

ISBN-13: 9780656480357

Excerpt from Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction: August 9th, 1866 This power is lodged by the Constitution in the Congress of the United States, that branch of the government in lwhich is vested the authority to fix the political relations of the States to the Union, whose duty it is to guarantee to each State a republican form of government; and to protect each and all of them against foreign or domestic violence, and against each other. We cannot, there fore, regard the va1ious acts of the President in relation to the formation of local governments in the insurrectionary States, and the conditions imposed by him upon their action, in any other light than as intimations to the people that, as commander ln chief of the army he would consent to withdraw military rule just in proportion as they sheuld, by their acts, manifest a disposition to pre serve order among themselves, establish governments denoting loyalty to the Union, and exhibit a settled determination to return to their allegiance, leaving with the law making power to fix' the terms of their finalj restoration to all their rights and privileges as States of the Union. That this was the view of his power taken by the President 1s evident from expressions to that eifect in 'the communications of the Secretary of State to the various Provisional Governors, and the repeated declarations of the President himself? Any other supposition inconsistent with this would impute to the President designs of encroachment upon a co -ordinate branch of the government, which should not be lightly attrib uted to the Chief Magistrate of; the nation.' About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.