ctionary states that upon certain conditions these states
might resume their place in the Union when the insurrection had
ceased. This bill he handed to me. I introduced it at his request.
It was referred to the judiciary committee, but was not acted upon
by it.

Afterwards Mr. Davis came into the 38th Congress as a Member of
the House of Representatives. Among the first acts performed by
him after taking his seat was the introduction of this same bill.
On the 15th of December, 1863, it was debated in the House of
Representatives and passed by a very decided vote, and was sent to
the Senate. It was reported to the Senate favorably, but in place
of it was substituted a proposition offered by B. Gratz Brown, of
Missouri. This substitute provided a mode by which the eleven
Confederate states might, when the Rebellion was suppressed within
their limits, be restored to their old places in the Union. The
bill was sent back to the House with the proposed substitute. A
committee of conference was appointed, and the House preferring
the original bill, the Senate receded from its amendment, and what
was known as the Wade-Davis bill passed. It went to President
Lincoln, who did not approve it, and it did not become a law, but
on the 8th of July, 1864, after the close of the session, he issued
the following proclamation:

"Whereas, at the late session Congress passed a bill to guaranty
to certain states, whose governments have been usurped or overthrown,
a republican form of government, a copy of which is hereunto annexed;
and whereas the said bill was presented to the President of the
United States for his approval less than one hour before the _sine
die_ adjournment of said session, and was not signed by him; and
whereas the said bill contains, among other things, a plan for
restoring the states in rebellion to their proper practical relation
in the Union, which plan expresses the sense of Congress upon that
subject, and which plan it is now thought fit to lay before the
people for their consideration:

"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
do proclaim, declare, and make known, that while I am (as I was in
December last, when by proclamation I propounded a plan for
restoration) unprepared, by a formal approval of this bill, to be
inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while
I am also unprepared to declare that the free state constitutions
and governments already ado