Ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment
and the President's
proclamations declaring
Reconstruction completed.
On the 28th day of July, Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, issued his
Seward's proclamation
declaring the ratification
of the Fourteenth
Amendment by the required
number of "States."
Eight days before this proclamation, that is on the 20th, Mr. Seward had issued a proclamation declaring that the legislatures of
The questions
suggested by
Mr. Seward's
first proclamation.
Besides the question expressed in this Proclamation, Mr. Seward indicates by his language a further question, viz., whether the six "newly-constituted and newly-established bodies, avowing themselves to be, and acting as, the legislatures, respectively, of the States of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama" were genuine "State" legislatures. They were the legislatures established under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, but as Congress had refused to recognize the "States" for whom these bodies acted as entitled to representation in Congress, that is as "States" having the rights of "States" of the Union, until after these bodies had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it was no wonder that so good a constitutional lawyer and so logical a thinker as Mr. Seward had his doubts as to whether these bodies were genuine "State" legislatures.