Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876

by John William Burgess

The Republican
triumph in the
elections of 1866.

Notwithstanding all this, however, the President, in his Message to Congress of December 3d, returned to the contest. He reargued his case

The President's
Message of
December 3d, 1866.

The President's argument fell, however, upon deaf ears. This was, it is true, the second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, and was not,

Ineffectiveness of
the President's argument.

Rejection of the
proposed Fourteenth
Amendment by the
legislatures of the
Reconstructed "States."

The effect of this
on the temper of
the North.