gress of the United States, any
civil government 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 to any office under 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 article of said Constitutional Amendment."

The friends of this measure were dissatisfied with it on the ground of
its incompleteness in not containing provisions for carrying it into
effect in accordance with the purpose of its framers. This record
would be incomplete without a statement of what was done to perfect
the measure in the succeeding Congress. The Fortieth Congress, meeting
on the 4th of March, immediately upon the close of its predecessor,
proceeded without delay to perfect and pass over the President's veto
a bill supplementary to the act to provide for the more efficient
government of the rebel States. By this act it was provided that the
commanding general of each district should cause a registration to be
made of the male citizens twenty-one years of age in his district,
qualified to vote under the former act. In order to be registered as a
voter under this act, a person is required to swear that he has not
been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war
against the United States, nor for felony; that he has never been a
member of any State Legislature, nor held any executive or judicial
office in any State and afterward engaged in insurrection or rebellion
against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
thereof; that he has never taken an oath as a member of Congress of
the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an
executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the
Constitution of the United States, and afterward engaged in
insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or
comfort to the enemies thereof, and that he will faithfully support
the Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and encourage
others to do so.

Persons thus qualified shall vo