ducing it Mr. Boutwell, referring to
the decision of the Court, said that--

"If there be five judges upon the bench of the highest
tribunal who have not that respect for themselves to enact
rules, and to enforce proper regulations, by which they will
protect themselves from the contamination of conspirators and
traitors against the government of the country, then the time
has already arrived when the legislative department of the
government should exercise its power to declare who shall be
officers of the government in the administration of the law in
the courts of the Union; and this bill is for that purpose."

And he called for the previous question upon it. In subsequently
advocating its passage, he said:

"I say here upon my responsibility, with reference to the
recent decision of the Supreme Court, that it is an offence
to the dignity and respectability of the nation that this
tribunal, under the general authority vested in it under
the Constitution and laws, does not protect itself from the
contamination of rebels and traitors, until the rebellion
itself shall be suppressed and those men shall be restored to
their former rights as citizens of the country."

This language was used in 1867, and the last gun of the war had been
fired in May, 1865. It showed the irritation of violent partisans
of the North against the Court because it gave no sanction to their
vindictive and proscriptive measures.

The bill was passed, under a suspension of the rules, by a vote of 111
to 40.[1]

The Reconstruction Acts, so-called--that is, "An act to provide for
the more efficient government of the rebel States," of March 2d, 1867,
and an act of the 23d of the same month, supplementary to the
former--were at once attacked, as may well be supposed, as invalid,
unconstitutional, and arbitrary measures of the government; and
various steps were taken at an early day to bring them to the test
of judicial examination and arrest their enforcement. Those acts
divided the late insurgent States, except Tennessee, into five
military districts, and placed them under military control to be
exercised until constitutions, containing various provisions stated,
were adopted and approved by Congress, and the States declared to
be entitled to representation in that body. In the month of April
following the State of Georgia filed a bill in the Supreme Court,
invoking the exerci