he twenty-sixth instant asking for a copy of my despatch
to Warren Jordan, Esq., at Nashville Press office, has just been referred
to me by Governor Johnson. In my reply to Mr. Jordan, which was brief
and hurried, I intended to say that in the county and State elections of
Tennessee, the oath prescribed in the proclamation of Governor Johnson on
the twenty-sixth of January, 1864, ordering an election in Tennessee on
the first Saturday in March next, is entirely satisfactory to me as a test
of loyalty of all persons proposing or offering to vote in said elections;
and coming from him would better be observed and followed. There is
no conflict between the oath of amnesty in my proclamation of eighth
December, 1863, and that prescribed by Governor Johnson in his
proclamation of the twenty-sixth ultimo.

No person who has taken the oath of amnesty of eighth December, 1863, and
obtained a pardon thereby, and who intends to observe the same in good
faith, should have any objection to taking that prescribed by Governor
Johnson as a test of loyalty.

I have seen and examined Governor Johnson's proclamation, and am entirely
satisfied with his plan, which is to restore the State government and
place it under the control of citizens truly loyal to the Government of
the United States.

A. LINCOLN.

Please send above to Governor Johnson. A. L.

TO SECRETARY STANTON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, February 27, 1864

HON. SECRETARY OF WAR.

SIR:--You ask some instructions from me in relation to the Report of
Special Commission constituted by an order of the War Department, dated
December 5, 1863, "to revise the enrolment and quotas of the City and
State of New York, and report whether there be any, and what, errors or
irregularities therein, and what corrections, if any, should be made."

In the correspondence between the Governor of New York and myself last
summer, I understood him to complain that the enrolments in several of the
districts of that State had been neither accurately nor honestly made;
and in view of this, I, for the draft then immediately ensuing, ordered an
arbitrary reduction of the quotas in several of the districts wherein they
seemed too large, and said: "After this drawing, these four districts,
and also the seventeenth and twenty-ninth, shall be carefully re-enrolled,
and, if you please, agents of yours may witness every step of the
process." In a subsequent letter I believe some additional d