He notified the governor that the legislature was legally organized from the date of the adoption of the reports (July 17).[151] Bullock transmitted this message to the legislature on July 21. On that day both houses ratified the Fourteenth Amendment and declared void the sections of the constitution required to be so declared by the Omnibus Act.[152]
As soon as the legislature had performed these acts Georgia was, presumably, according to the acts of Congress, a state of the Union. On July 22 Meade directed all state officers holding by military appointment to turn over their offices to those elected or appointed under the new government.[153] On July 28 orders issued from the headquarters of the army stating that the general commanding in the Third Military District had ceased to exercise authority under the Reconstruction Acts, and that Georgia, Florida and Alabama no longer constituted a military district, but should henceforth constitute an ordinary military circumscription—the Department of the South.[154] On July 22 Bullock, who had up to that time been governor by military appointment, was inaugurated in the regular manner and became governor under the state constitution.[155] On July 25, the seven congressmen-elect from Georgia were seated in the House of Representatives.[156] The Georgia Senators would doubtless have been seated at this time if they had arrived before the close of the session; but they were elected by the legislature on July 29,[157] two days after Congress adjourned.[158] In view of Georgia’s compliance with the Reconstruction Acts and the Omnibus Act, and in view of the various official recognitions that that compliance was complete, there could now be no doubt that her reconstruction was accomplished and her statehood regained.
CHAPTER VI
THE EXPULSION OF THE NEGROES FROM THE LEGISLATURE
AND THE USES TO WHICH THIS EVENT WAS APPLIED
When the Georgia Republicans, or Radicals, as they were locally called, found that instead of a sweeping victory they had won only a governorship hemmed in by a hostile legislature, an effort was made, as we have said, to improve their position through the interference of Meade. Meade refused to aid them. When, a short time afterwards, federal power, on which they had hitherto relied, was completely withdrawn, they seemed left to make the best of an uncomfortable position without any assistance. At this point a god appeared from the machine.
In the state senate there were three negroes, in the lower house twenty-five.[159] Their presence was an offense. It was an offense not merely to the Conservative members. Some of the Republicans entertained Conservative sentiments and principles, but supported reconstruction simply in order to hasten the liberation of the state from Congressional interference.[160] To them as well as to the Conservatives “negro rule” was obnoxious. Negro rule, so far as it consisted in negro suffrage, was established by the constitution. But negro office-holding was not so established expressly. As early as July 25, 1868, the question, whether negroes were eligible to the legislature, was raised in the state senate.[161]
Legally considered, the question had two sides, each supported by eminent lawyers. For the negroes it was argued that Irwin’s Code, which was made part of the law of the state by the constitution,[162] enumerated among the rights of citizens the right to hold office.[163] Negroes were made citizens of equal rights with all other citizens by the new constitution.[164] Therefore they had the right to hold office. It was true that the constitution did not grant the right to hold office to the negroes expressly, as it granted the right to vote; but in view of the fact that the convention which made the constitution was elected by 25,000 white and 85,000 colored men, and that that constitution was adopted by 35,000 white and 70,000 colored men, it would be absurd to suppose that the intent of that instrument was to withhold office from the negroes.[165] On the other side, it was argued that the right to hold office did not belong to every citizen, but only to such citizens as the law specially designated, or to such as possessed it by common law or custom. Irwin’s Code could not be cited to prove that negroes had the right, because that law had been enacted before the negroes had been made citizens, and the word citizens in it referred to those who were citizens at that time. As the negro had no right to hold office because he was a citizen, and as he could not claim the right from common law or custom, he could obtain it only by specific grant of law. There was no such grant. The argument for the negro was made by the Supreme Court of the state in 1869, the opposing argument by one of the justices of that court in a dissenting opinion.[166]
Such were the legal aspects of the question, which were of course less important than the political and the emotional aspects. The legislature passed upon the issue in the early part of September, 1868, by declaring all the colored members ineligible, and admitting to the vacated seats the candidates who had received respectively the next highest number of votes.[167] If there was some legal ground for unseating the negroes, there was none for seating the minority candidates. It was done on the authority of the clause in Irwin’s Code which said: