[31] Congressional Globe, iii, p. 2106, 1st Session, 38th Congress.
[32] Cooper, American Politics, bk. i, 169-70. The President’s action caused much dissatisfaction, Davis and Wade publishing a protest which impugned Lincoln’s motives, declaring that he had committed an outrage on American legislation. See Johnson, in Lalor, iii. 5 and 6; Cox, Three Decades, etc., 341.
[33] Senate Journal, 2d Session, 38th Congress, Feb. 8. Blaine (Twenty Years of Congress, ii, 46) explains that this joint resolution was intended as a rebuke to the President by the refusal of Congress to accept the proclamation of December 8, 1863, as a basis for the restoration of the States fulfilling its requirements. He then points out how Lincoln, with his usual tact, overthrows what triumph may have accrued to the leaders of the opposition by explaining that he “signed the joint resolution in deference to the view of Congress implied in its passage and presentation.” His (Lincoln’s) own opinion was that as a matter of course Congress had complete power to accept or reject electoral votes, and that the Executive had no right to interpose with a veto, whatever his own opinions might be. Blaine says that “his triumph was complete, both in the estimation of Congress and of the people.”
[34] See Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 123; Johnston, in Lalor, iii, 54; Wilson (Woodrow), Division and Reunion, 261-2.
[35] Senate Journal, 2d Session, 37th Congress, pp. 194-6.
[36] The inconsistency in declaring a State to be extinct, and at the same time acknowledging the obligation to guarantee to it a republican form of government, is due to careless phraseology. Obviously Sumner uses the word “State,” in these resolutions, where he means state governments.
[37] Congressional Globe, 1st Session, 38th Congress, part ii, p. 2041. See also his remarks on the Confiscation bill. Cox’s Three Decades of Federal Legislation, pp. 365-374, contains a chapter on the policy of Stevens.
[38] See Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, iii, 531-541.
[39] McPherson, Reconstruction, pp. 44 f. Cf. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, iii, 592.
[40] McPherson, pp. 46-7.