use and twenty members in the Senate are yet vacant, not by
their own consent, nor by a failure of election, but by the refusal of
Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission, it is believed,
would have accomplished much towards the renewal and strengthening of
our relations as one people, and would have removed serious cause for
discontent upon the part of the inhabitants of those States." The
President did not discuss the ground of difference between his policy
and that of Congress, simply contenting himself with a restatement of
the case, in declaratory rather than in argumentative form. He did
not at all seem to realize, or even to recognize, the vantage ground
which Congress had obtained by the popular decision in the recent
elections. He apparently did not understand that every issue dividing
the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government had been
decided in favor of the latter by the masters of both--decided by those
who select and control Presidents and Congresses.

The President's position in pursuing a policy which had been so
pointedly condemned, excited derision and contempt in the North, but
it led to mischievous results in the South. The ten Confederate States
which stood knocking at the door of Congress for the right of
representation, were fully aware, as was well stated by a leading
Republican, that the key to unlock the door had been placed in their
own hands. They knew that the political canvass in the North had
proceeded upon the basis, and upon the practical assurance (given
through the press, and more authoritatively in political platforms),
that whenever any other Confederate State should follow the example
of Tennessee, it should at once be treated as Tennessee had been
treated. Yet, when this position had been confirmed by the elections
in all the loyal States, and was, by the special warrant of popular
power, made the basis of future admission, these ten States, voting
upon the Fourteenth Amendment at different dates through the winter
of 1866-67, contemptuously rejected it. In the Virginia Legislature
only one vote could be found for the Amendment. In the North-Carolina
Legislature only eleven votes out of one hundred and forty-eight were
in favor of the Amendment. In the South-Carolina Legislature there
was only one vote for the Amendment. In Georgia only two votes out of
one hundred and sixty-nine in the Legislature were in the affirmative.
Florida unanimous