ght of representation in Congress. They did not
even stop to submit these changes to the popular vote, but assumed for
their own assemblages of oligarches the full power to modify the
organic laws of their States--an assumption without precedent and
without repetition in the history of State constitutions in this
country, and utterly subversive of the fundamental idea of Republican
Government.

With these incomplete and ill-digested changes in the organic laws of
their respective States, the Reconstruction conventions usurped
legislative power, and hastily proceeded to order the election of
representatives in Congress. The Congressional elections proved to be
little else than partisan assemblages under the dictatorial direction
of rebel authorities--just as the Reconstruction Conventions were, in
their membership and their organization, little else than consulting
bodies of Confederate officers under the rank of brigadier-general,
actually sitting throughout their deliberations in the uniform of the
rebel service, and apparently dictating to the Government of the Union
the grounds on which they would consent to resume representation in the
National Congress. A joint committee of Congress subsequently
commented with appropriate directness upon this offensive phase of the
Southern Conventions. "Hardly is the war closed," said the committee,
"before the people of the insurrectionary States come forward and
haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of participating at once in
that Government which they have for four years been fighting to
overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State
Governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant
and unpardoned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an
attachment to the Union, and preferring in many instances those who
had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious. In the face of the law
requiring an oath that would necessarily exclude all such men from
Federal offices, they have elected, with very few exceptions, as
senators and representatives in Congress, the very men who have
actively participated in the Rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law
as unconstitutional."

The oath referred to in the foregoing extract from the committee's
report is that popularly known as the "Ironclad oath," prescribed by
the Act of July 2, 1862, to be taken by every person elected or
appointed to any office of honor or profit under the Govern