Montgomery, Ala., Jan. 17, 1867.
Legislature in session. Efforts making to reconsider vote on Constitutional Amendment. Report from Washington says it is probable an enabling act will pass. We do not know what to believe. I find nothing here.
(The State Legislature had previously rejected the Constitutional Amendment.)
The response is:
U. S. Military Telegraph. Executive Office, Washington D. C., Jan. 17, 1867.
What possible good can be obtained by reconsidering the Constitutional Amendment? I know of none in the present posture of affairs; and I do not believe that the people of the whole country will sustain any set of individuals in attempts to change the whole character of our Government by enabling acts or otherwise. I believe, on the contrary, that they will eventually uphold all who have patriotism and courage to stand by the Constitution, and who place their confidence in the people. There should be no faltering on the part of those who are honest in their determination to sustain the several co-ordinate Departments of the Government in accordance with its original design. Andrew Johnson. Hon. L. E. Parsons, Montgomery, Alabama.
The yeas and nays were demanded by Mr. Drake, and were as follows:
Yeas—Anthony, Cameron. Cattell, Chandler, Cole, Conkling, Conness, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Henderson, Howard, Morgan, Morrill of Vermont, Nye, Patterson of New Hampshire, Pomeroy, Ramsay, Ross, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Thayer, Tipton, Willey, Wilson—27—all Republicans.
Nays—Buckalew, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Ferry, Fessenden, Fowler, Frelinghuysen, McCreery, Morrill of Maine, Norton, Patterson of Tennessee, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Vickers, Williams—17—8 Democrats and 9 Republicans.
So the testimony was decided admissible, and was claimed by Mr. Manager Boutwell to be in substantiation of the charges contained in the eleventh article.