The correctness of
the Republican view.
The Reconstruction bill was presented from the Committee of fifteen on Reconstruction to the House of Representatives on the 6th of February
The Reconstruction bill.
There was hardly a line in the entire bill which would stand the test of the Constitution. In the first place, the Congress of the United
The bill indefensible
from the constitutional
point of view.
In the second place, the bill undertook to rob the President of his constitutional prerogative of commandership-in-chief over the army, and
The bill in its attempt
to rob the President
of his office of
Commander-in-chief.
And in the third place, the bill assumed to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, substantially, while the Constitution forbids this to be done by any part of the Government of the United States, except in time of war or public danger. There was no war, and to say that there was public danger of the character meant by the constitutional exception was to exaggerate the condition of things entirely beyond all fact or reason.