entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State; Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shall be eligible to election as a member of a Convention to frame a Constitution for any of said rebel States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such Convention. SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That, until the people of said rebel States shall by law be admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same. And in all elections for officers of such provisional governments, all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under such provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third section of said Constitutional Amendment. NOTE.Appendix II. is the bill reported by the Committee on Reconstruction. Appendix III. is the bill as it passed the House of Representatives. Appendix IV. is the bill which became a law on the 2d of March, 1867, over the veto of the President. The House bill was amended by the Senate, and, on the 16th of February, the Senate returned the amended bill to the House. The part which precedes the proviso to the fifth section is the Senate bill. On the 19th of February, the House, by a vote of 98 to 73, non-concurred with the Senate. On the same day, the Senate voted to insist upon its amendments. On the 20th of February, the House receded, and concurred, with two amendments, which are printed in Italics. The Senate then concurred in these amendments. The proviso to the fifth section was proposed by Hon. James F. Wilson, of Iowa. The sixth section was proposed by Hon. Samuel Shellabarger, of Ohio. |