t "no court in the State shall have jurisdiction to try
or determine any suit against any resident of this State upon any
contract or agreement made or implied prior to the first day of June,
1865, or upon any contract made in renewal of any debt existing prior
to the date named." The provision as the Georgia convention had framed
it would have wrought great injury to a large number of creditors in
the North. It was a complete outlawry of thousands of dollars legally
and equitably due to honest creditors, and Georgia was compelled to
agree to its nullification before her senators and representatives
could be admitted to seats in Congress.

The bills admitting these States to representation did not secure
Executive approval. On the 20th of June (1868) the President sent a
message to the House of Representatives with his objections to the
Arkansas bill. "The approval of this bill," said he, "would be an
admission on the part of the Executive that the Act for the more
efficient government of the rebel States, passed March 2, 1867, and the
Act supplementary thereto, were proper and constitutional. My opinion
however in reference to these measures has undergone no change, but
on the contrary has been strengthened by the results which have
attended their execution." He then proceeded to state his objections
as he had so often done before, with no variation of argument, without
the production of new facts.--Five days later, on the 25th of June,
the President communicated his objections to the bill admitting the
other Southern States to representation. He had apparently become
fatigued with the reiteration of his arguments, and he frankly stated
that he would not "undertake at this time to re-open the discussion
upon the grave Constitutional question involved in the Reconstruction
Acts." He declared that "the bill assumed authority over the States
which has never been delegated to Congress," and "imposes conditions
which are in derogation of equal rights." The vetoes did not evoke
long debate in either House, and both bills were promptly passed over
the objections of the President by a party vote, amounting indeed to
more than three to one in both Senate and House.

In the arguments which the President had found such frequent occasion
to submit, he quietly ignored the facts of secession, the crime of
rebellion, the ruthless sundering of Constitutional bonds which these
States had attempted. He took no note of the imm