US Presidency
1867

All this legislation proceeds upon the contrary assumption that the people of each of these States shall have no constitution except such as may be arbitrarily dictated by Congress and formed under the restraint of military rule. A plain statement of facts makes this evident. In all these States there are existing constitutions, framed in the accustomed way by the people. Congress, however, declares that these constitutions are not loyal and republican, and requires the people to form them anew. What, then, in the opinion of Congress, is necessary to make the constitution of a State loyal and republican ? The original act answers the question: It is universal Negro suffrage- a question which the Federal Constitution leaves exclusively to the States themselves. All this legislative machinery of martial law, military coercion, and political disfranchisement is avowedly for that purpose and none other. The existing constitutions of the ten States conform to the acknowledged standards of loyalty and republicanism.