January the legislature was pronounced good by General Terry. It then ratified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments (the former by way of special caution lest the earlier ratification should be tainted with the defects of the legislature that enacted it), elected Republicans to claim seats in the Senate at Washington, and then ceased further activity until Congress should declare the state restored.
The declaration by Congress was slow in forth-coming. The proceedings in the organization of the legislature had been of a character to disgust many of the strongest supporters in Congress of the act under which it had been effected. Discreditable personal motives had been either clearly revealed or strongly suggested in connection with official acts of the state administration, and the methods of commanding general, governor and majority in the legislature were all alike condemned as unlawful by the judiciary committee of the Senate.[1] The Republican majority in Congress was divided on the precise status of the state, one faction holding that the existing government was provisional and fully subject to the will of Congress, the other holding that since the restoring act of June 25, 1868, the state government thereby recognized had been a permanent and regular state government save as to the defect in membership of the legislature, which had been
- ↑ Sen. Rep., No. 58, 2d sess., 41st Cong.
