, that the
existing governments in the ten "rebel States" "were not legal State
governments," and, second, "that thereafter said governments, if
continued, were to be continued subject in all respects to the military
commanders of the respective districts and to the paramount authority
of Congress."

Congress may by a declaratory act fix upon a prior act a
construction altogether at variance with its apparent meaning, and
from the time, at least, when such a construction is fixed the original
act will be construed to mean exactly what it is stated to mean by the
declaratory statute. There will be, then, from the time this bill may
become a law no doubt, no question, as to the relation in which the
"existing governments" in those States, called in the original act "the
provisional governments," stand toward the military authority. As those
relations stood before the declaratory act, these "governments," it is
true, were made subject to absolute military authority in many important
respects, but not in all, the language of the act being "subject to the
military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed."
By the sixth section of the original act these governments were made
"in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United
States."

Now by this declaratory act it appears that Congress did not by the
original act intend to limit the military authority to any particulars
or subjects therein "prescribed," but meant to make it universal. Thus
over all of these ten States this military government is now declared to
have unlimited authority. It is no longer confined to the preservation
of the public peace, the administration of criminal law, the
registration of voters, and the superintendence of elections, but
"in all respects" is asserted to be paramount to the existing civil
governments.

It is impossible to conceive any state of society more intolerable than
this; and yet it is to this condition that 12,000,000 American citizens
are reduced by the Congress of the United States. Over every foot of the
immense territory occupied by these American citizens the Constitution
of the United States is theoretically in full operation. It binds all
the people there and should protect them; yet they are denied every
one of its sacred guaranties.

Of what avail will it be to any one of these Southern people when
seized by a file of soldiers to ask for the cause of arrest or for the
production of the w