resses to
the assemblages of his fellow-citizens, as in said articles or in this
answer thereto mentioned, are not and were not intended to be other
or different from those expressed by him in his communications to
Congress--that the eleven States lately in insurrection never had
ceased to be States of the Union, and that they were then entitled
to representation in Congress by loyal Representatives and Senators
as fully as the other States of the Union, and that consequently the
Congress as then constituted was not in fact a Congress of all the
States, but a Congress of only a part of the States. This respondent,
always protesting against the unauthorized exclusion therefrom of the
said eleven States, nevertheless gave his assent to all laws passed by
said Congress which did not, in his opinion and judgment, violate the
Constitution, exercising his constitutional authority of returning bills
to said Congress with his objections when they appeared to him to be
unconstitutional or inexpedient.

And further, this respondent has also expressed the opinion, both in
his communications to Congress and in his addresses to the people, that
the policy adopted by Congress in reference to the States lately in
insurrection did not tend to peace, harmony, and union, but, on the
contrary, did tend to disunion and the permanent disruption of the
States, and that in following its said policy laws had been passed by
Congress in violation of the fundamental principles of the Government,
and which tended to consolidation and despotism; and such being his
deliberate opinions, he would have felt himself unmindful of the
high duties of his office if he had failed to express them in his
communications to Congress or in his addresses to the people when called
upon by them to express his opinions on matters of public and political
consideration.

And this respondent, further answering the tenth article, says that he
has always claimed and insisted, and now claims and insists, that both
in the personal and private capacity of a citizen of the United States
and in the political relations of the President of the United States to
the people of the United States, whose servant, under the duties and
responsibilities of the Constitution of the United States, the President
of the United States is and should always remain, this respondent had
and has the full right, and in his office of President of the United
States is held to the high duty, of formi