r respective
laws, Representatives to the Fortieth Congress had not yet been chosen.
Among the absent were seven of the "old thirteen"--an absolute majority
of the States which founded the Republic. The absentees in all
amounted to eighty members; and on behalf of his political associates
Mr. Brooks presented a formal protest, signed by every Democratic
member present, "against any and every action tending to the
organization of this House until the absent States be more fully
represented." He asked that it be entered upon the Journal as the
protest of the minority of the House. Under the rules the Clerk
refused to receive or submit the paper for consideration, and the House
immediately proceeded to the election of Speaker. Mr. Colfax was
chosen for the third and last time. He received one hundred and
twenty-seven votes against thirty cast for Mr. Samuel S. Marshall, a
highly respectable Democrat member from Illinois. As before, Mr.
Colfax, in his remarks when he took the chair, sought to present an
embodiment of Republican policy on the current issues. He declared
that "the freeman's hands should wield the freeman's ballot;" that
"none but loyal men should govern a land which loyal sacrifices have
saved;" that "there can be no safe or loyal reconstruction on a
foundation of unrepentant treason or disloyalty."

The principal business of the session was to provide supplementary
legislation to the Reconstruction Act which had been passed over the
President's veto only two days before the new Congress assembled.
That Act, from a variety of circumstances, had been forced through at
the last under whip and spur. Upon close examination by the leading
Republicans of both Senate and house it was found to be defective in
many important respects, and especially to lack the detail necessary
to give life and vigor to proceedings looking to the practical
reconstruction of the Southern States. The two Houses therefore
addressed themselves promptly to the task of supplying the necessary
amendments and additions. On the 19th of March they sent to the
President an Act prescribing in detail the mode for the registering of
voters in the insurrectionary States, and for the summoning of a
convention to frame a constitution preparatory to the re-admission of
each State to representation. The Act declared that "if the
constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the
registered electors qualified to vote, at least o