The first portion of the report is a general review of the steps which had already been taken by the President, and of the powers of the executive and legislative departments. It was declared that at the close of the war the Confederate States were in a condition of utter exhaustion and complete anarchy. Congress having failed to provide for the contingency, the President had no power except to execute the national laws and establish “such a system of government as might be provided for by existing national statutes.” These States “by withdrawing their representatives in Congress, by renouncing the privilege of representation, by organizing a separate government, and by levying war against the United States, destroyed their State constitutions in respect to the vital principle which connected their respective States with the Union and secured their federal relations; and nothing of these constitutions was left of which the United States were bound to take notice.” The President had two alternatives: either to “assemble Congress and submit the whole matter to the law-making power,” or to continue military supervision in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the army, until the regular assembling. Choosing the latter course, he appointed over the revolted States provisional governors who possessed military authority, but who “had no power to organize civil governments nor to exercise any authority except that which inhered in their own persons under their commissions.” The President in his military capacity might properly permit the people to form local governments, execute local laws not inconsistent with national laws, and even withdraw military forces altogether if he deemed it safe. But to Congress, not to the President, belonged the power “to decide upon the nature or effect of any system of government which the people of these States might see fit to adopt,” and to fix terms by which the States might be restored to all their rights and privileges as States of the Union. “The loss of representation by the people of the insurrectionary States was their own voluntary choice. They might abandon their privileges, but they could not escape their obligations,” and they could not complain.
None of the revolted States, the report continued, excepting perhaps Tennessee, were in a condition to resume their former political relations. Their so-called “amended constitutions” had never been submitted to the people for adoption, and when they were thus submitted there was nothing to prevent their repudiation. If these States were without state governments, they should be regularly organized, but in no case had the proper preliminary steps been taken. The conventions assumed that the old constitutions were still in force, and that only such amendments as the federal government required, were needed. “In no instance was regard paid to any other consideration than obtaining immediate admission to Congress, under the barren form of an election in which no precautions were taken to secure regularity of proceedings or the consent of the people.” Before they were restored to their full rights “they should exhibit in their acts something more than unwilling submission to an unavoidable necessity.” Great stress was laid upon the headstrong action of the States since Johnson’s proclamation of amnesty: the character of the men elevated to the highest positions; the discriminating legislation; the arrogance of the Southern press, and the opposition to the Freedmen’s Bureau. The testimony of witnesses as to the general disposition to repudiate the national debt, if such a thing should prove possible, and as to the natural reluctance to pay taxes, were perhaps too seriously taken, as was also the “proof of a condition of feeling hostile to the Union and dangerous to the government.”
But, whether acting on exaggerated estimates or not, the majority of the committee formulated their conclusions into three clauses, which were as follows:
1. “That the States lately in rebellion were at the close of the war disorganized communities, without civil government, and without constitutions or other forms by virtue of which political relations could legally exist between them and the Federal Government.
2. “That Congress cannot be expected to recognize as valid the election of representatives from disorganized communities, which, from the very nature of the case, were unable to present their claim to representation under those established and recognized rules, the observance of which has been hitherto required.
3. “That Congress would not be justified in admitting such communities to a participation in the government of the country without first providing such constitutional or other guaranties as will tend to secure the civil rights of all citizens of the Republic; a just equality of representation; protection against claims founded in rebellion and crime; a temporary restoration of the right of suffrage to those who have not actively participated in the efforts to destroy the Union and overthrow the government; and the exclusion from positions of public trust of at least a portion of those whose crimes have proved them to be enemies to the Union, and unworthy of public confidence.”
In addition, the report contained an enumerated statement of “general facts and principles” which it was claimed were “applicable to all the States recently in rebellion.” In this statement it was asserted that from the time war was declared the great majority of the Southerners “became and were insurgents, rebels, traitors; and all of them assumed the political, legal, and practical relation of enemies of the United States.” The States did not desist from war till “every vestige of State and Confederate government” was obliterated, “their people reduced to the condition of enemies conquered in war, entitled only by public law to such rights, privileges and conditions as might be vouchsafed by the conqueror.” They thus had “no right to complain of temporary exclusion from Congress,” until they could “show that they are qualified to resume federal relations. * * * They must prove that they have established with the consent of the people, republican forms of government in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States, that all hostile purposes have ceased, and should give adequate guaranties against future treason and rebellion—guaranties which shall prove satisfactory to the Government against which they rebelled, and by whose arms they were subdued.” The rebels “were conquered by the people of the United States acting through all the co-ordinate branches of the Government, and not by the Executive alone. * * * The authority to restore rebels to political power in the Federal Government can be exercised only with the concurrence of all the departments in which political power is vested,” and the proclamations of the President could only be regarded as provisional permission “to do certain acts, the effect and validity whereof is to be determined by the constitutional government, and not solely by the executive power.” If the President had the power to “qualify persons to appoint Senators and elect Representatives, and empower others to appoint and elect them, he thereby practically controls the organization of the legislative department and destroys the constitutional form of government.”[110]
The report of the dissenting members of the committee, Messrs. Johnson, Rogers and Grider, was an ably prepared document embodying at length the doctrines of the minority in Congress, composed of the Democrats and the few Republicans who still sustained the President. As a matter of course the argument was built upon the premise that the so-called Confederate States were never legally separated from the Union, but were bound by all the obligations and entitled to all the privileges of other States. “In its nature the government is formed of and by States possessing equal rights and powers.” A State cannot be held to have forfeited its rights. “To concede that by the illegal conduct of her own citizens she can be withdrawn from the Union, is virtually to concede the right of secession.”
Were the States out of the Union, the minority continued, the submission to them of the proposed constitutional amendment would be absurd; and such submission virtually conceded that the condition of the States remained unchanged. The constitutional power to suppress insurrection is for the preservation, not the subjugation of the State. “The continuance of the Union of all the States is necessary to the intended existence of the Government,” and a different principle leads to disintegration. The war power, as such, cannot be used to extinguish the States; the Government only seeks to suppress the insurrection, achieving which all the States resume their normal relations. The States now have organized governments, republican in form, and the manner in which they were formed is no concern of Congress. “Congress may admit new States, but a State once admitted ceases to be within its control and can never again be brought within it.” There is nothing in the political condition of these States justifying their exclusion from representation in Congress. The proposed amendment would degrade the Southern States, as it would compel them to accept either a lessened representation or negro suffrage. Further, it interfered with the right of every State to regulate the franchise; and, by joining several subjects and requiring them to be voted on as a whole, deprived the people of the opportunity of passing on this important question separately.
8. The Joint Committee on Reconstruction had already reported two bills and one joint resolution which in its report of June 18 were declared to be the fruit of its labors. These were introduced in the House by Mr. Stevens, April 30. The resolution proposed an amendment to the Constitution, which, as finally amended, became the 14th Amendment.[111] The two accompanying bills were entitled respectively: (1) “A Bill to provide for restoring the States lately in insurrection to their full political rights.” (2) “A Bill declaring certain persons ineligible to office under the Government of the United States.”