f
judgment.

In the concluding paragraph of my report I respectfully suggested to
the President that he advise Congress to send one or more
investigating committees into the Southern States to inquire for
themselves into the actual condition of things before taking final and
irreversible action, I sent the completed document to the President on
November 22, asking him at the same time to permit me to publish it,
on my sole responsibility and in such a manner as would preclude the
imputation that the President approved the whole or any part of it. To
this request I never received a reply.

_Congress and General Grant's Report_

Congress met early in December. At once the Republican majority in
both houses rose in opposition to President Johnson's plan of
reconstruction. Even before the President's message was read, the
House of Representatives, upon the motion of Thaddeus Stevens of
Pennsylvania, passed a resolution providing for a joint committee of
both houses to inquire into the condition of the "States lately in
rebellion," which committee should thereupon report, "by bill or
otherwise," whether, in its judgment, those States, or any of them,
were entitled to be represented in either House of Congress. To this
resolution the Senate subsequently assented. Thus Congress took the
matter of the reconstruction of the late rebel States as to its final
consummation into its own hands.

On December 12, upon the motion of Mr. Sumner, the Senate resolved
that the President be directed to furnish to the Senate, among other
things, a copy of my report. A week later the President did so, but he
coupled it with a report from General Grant on the same subject. The
two reports were transmitted with a short message from the President
in which he affirmed that the Rebellion had been suppressed; that,
peace reigned throughout the land; that, "so far as could be done,"
the courts of the United States had been restored, post-offices
reestablished, and revenues collected; that several of those States
had reorganized their State governments, and that good progress had
been made in doing so; that the constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery had been ratified by nearly all of them; that legislation to
protect the rights of the freedmen was in course of preparation in
most of them; and that, on the whole, the condition of things was
promising and far better than might have been expected. He transmitted
my report without a word of c