The re-establishment of
martial law in the South.
Very soon, however, the generals found great difficulty in interpreting the Reconstruction Acts, especially in respect to the oath required for
The President's
instructions to
the generals in
interpretation of
the Reconstruction
Acts.
First: That the oath prescribed in the second Act defined all the qualifications required for suffrage, and that any person who could take that oath should have his name entered on the list of voters; that the boards of registration provided in that Act could not require any other, or any additional, oath from the person applying for registration, nor "administer an oath to any other person touching the qualification of the applicant or the falsity of the oath taken by him," but that the person taking the oath must be registered as a voter, and if it could be afterward proved that he had sworn falsely, he could be punished for perjury.
Second: That an unnaturalized alien could not take the oath, but a naturalized alien could, and that no other proof of naturalization could be required of him.
Third: That "actual participation in rebellion or the actual commission of a felony" did not amount to disfranchisement, but there must be a law made by competent authority declaring disfranchisement, or a judicial sentence inflicting it, and that no law of the United States had declared the penalty of disfranchisement for participating in rebellion alone.
Fourth: That a person who had engaged in rebellion, but had not theretofore held an office under a "State" or the United States, or not been a member of a "State" legislature or of Congress, and not taken, as such, an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, was not disfranchised or disqualified from voting.
Fifth: That persons who were militia officers in any "State" prior to the rebellion were not disfranchised by participating in the rebellion.
Sixth: That "an act to fix upon the person the offence of engaging in rebellion under this law must be an overt and voluntary act, done with the intent of aiding or furthering the common unlawful purpose," and that "a person forced into the rebel service by conscription or under a paramount authority which he could not safely disobey, and who would not have entered such service if left to the free exercise of his own will," was not disfranchised or disqualified from voting.