he geographical limits of said
State." The same proclamation declared that "All acts and proceedings
of the political, military, and civil organizations which have been in
a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia
against the laws and authority of the United States are declared null
and void." The proclamation further declared that any person assuming
to exercise any authority in Virginia by virtue of a military of civil
commission issued by Jefferson Davis, President of the so-called
Confederate States, or by John Letcher, or William Smith, Governors of
Virginia, "shall be deemed and taken as in rebellion against the
United States, and dealt with accordingly."

A course not dissimilar to that adopted in Virginia was followed in
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. In all of them the so-called "ten
per cent" governments established under Mr. Lincoln's authority were
now recognized. Governor Hahn was held to be the true executive of
Louisiana,--a concession all the more readily made, because, under the
revised constitution of the State, the people would be called upon in
the approaching autumn to choose his successor. In Arkansas also, the
Government, with Isaac Murphy at its head, was now recognized; and in
Tennessee the authority of William G. Brownlow as governor was promptly
accepted as constitutional and regular. This Government, as already
narrated, had been brought into existence by the earnest effort of Mr.
Johnson in the period which had elapsed between his election and
inauguration as Vice-President. The direct committal of the President
to the legality of his own work was the controlling cause which led to
the recognition of the Governments of the four States under
consideration. But for the impossibility of disowning or in any way
discrediting the existing Government of Tennessee, it is probably that
the plan by which provisional governments were established in seven of
the rebellious States would have been uniformly applied to the entire
eleven which formed the Confederacy. The same executives would
doubtless have been selected for provisional service, but there would
have been evident advantage in treating all the States in precisely the
same manner.

The scope and design of the President's reconstruction policy were
thus made fully apparent. The work was committed to the white men of
the several States, who, outside of the excepted classes, were ready
to take the oath of