Such a case had appeared in this Court in the winter term of 1867-68, and the argument as to the jurisdiction of the Court, and the decision of this point in the affirmative, had both been made before the impeachment trial began. One William H. McCardle, arrested and held by the military authorities in Mississippi for trial before a military commission on charge of having published in a newspaper, of which he was editor, libellous and incendiary articles, petitioned the Circuit Court of the United States for a writ of Habeas Corpus. The writ was issued, and return was made by the military commander, General A. C. Gillem, admitting the arrest and detention of McCardle, but contending that these acts were lawful. The Circuit Court, on the 25th of November, 1867, remanded McCardle, who had been held in custody between the time of the return to the writ and this date by the United States marshal, to the custody of General Gillem. McCardle then appealed from this judgment of the Circuit Court to the Supreme Court of the United States. Upon a motion to dismiss the appeal, made by the counsel of the military authorities, this Court decided that under the statute of February 5th, 1867, the Supreme Court of the United States could hear the appeal, and denied the motion to dismiss it.
The question was now before the Supreme Court upon its merits, and it involved the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts. It was argued very ably, and the part of the Reconstruction Acts putting the districts of the South under martial law two years after the Civil War had ended, and when the civil authority of the United States was everywhere recognized and enforced, was pretty clearly shown to have been a very serious stretching of its powers by Congress, if not a distinct usurpation. The Republicans in Congress were greatly frightened, and while the case was under advisement in the Court, they hastened to repeal the Act of February 5th, 1867, and to make the repeal apply to appeals already taken under that Act, as well as to such as might be attempted in the future. The repealing bill was vetoed by the President on the 25th of March, but it was immediately repassed by the majority necessary to override the veto, repassed without the slightest regard to the President's very sound and convincing objections. This Act of the 27th of March was intended to prevent any decision upon the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts, and did do so most effectively, but it was an abominable subterfuge on the part of Congress and a shameful abuse of its powers.
As will be remembered, seven of the ten Southern communities, viz., North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas, had already before the close of the impeachment trial ratified the "State" constitutions framed for them by the "carpet-bag, scalawag, negro conventions" held in each for them, had elected "State" officers and legislators, and the legislature of one of them, Arkansas, had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as the legislature of each of them was required to do before it could be admitted to representation in Congress.
Congress now looked upon the work of its hands and pronounced it good, and proceeded to pass the acts, necessary in its conceit, to admit
The Congressional Acts
admitting the Senators-
and Representatives-elect
from the reconstructed
"States" to seats in Congress.
Three days later, that is on the 25th, Congress provided in a single act for the admission of the Senators and Representatives from the other six reconstructed "States" to the national legislature in the following language: "Be it enacted, &c., That each of the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, shall be entitled and admitted to representation in Congress as a State of the Union when the legislature of such State shall have duly ratified the Amendment to the Constitution of the United States proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as Article XIV., upon the following fundamental conditions: That the constitution of neither of said States shall ever be so amended or changed as to deprive any citizen, or class of citizens, of the United States of the right to vote in said State who are entitled to vote by the constitution thereof, herein recognized, except as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law, whereof they shall have been duly convicted under laws equally applicable to all the inhabitants of said State: Provided, that any alteration of said constitutions may be made with regard to the time and place of residence of voters." It was also further provided that the legislature of Georgia should, by solemn public act, declare its assent to the fundamental condition that the article of the new constitution of Georgia prohibiting the courts within the "State" from entertaining any suit against any resident of the "State" for any debt existing prior to June 1st, 1865, and prohibiting the judicial and ministerial officers of the "State" from executing any process in reference to such debts, should be considered and treated as null and void.
The President had placed his veto on both of these bills. The veto of the Arkansas bill bears the date of June 20th, and that of the other