il organizations which have been in a state of insurrection
and rebellion within the State of Virginia against the authority
and laws of the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John
Letcher, and William Smith were late the respective chiefs, are
declared null and void."

Thus, with a single stroke, he swept away the whole superstructure
of the Rebellion. He extended the tax laws of the United States
over the rebel territory. In his proclamation of May 29, he says:

"To the end, therefore, that the authority of the government of
the United States may be restored, and that peace, order, and
freedom may be established, I, Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all
persons who have directly or indirectly participated in the existing
Rebellion, _except as hereinafter excepted_, amnesty and pardon,
with restoration of all rights of property, _except as to slaves_,
and except in cases where legal proceedings, under the laws of the
United States providing for the confiscation of property of person
engaged in rebellion, have been instituted, &c."

He enforced in every case full and ample protection to the freedmen
of the southern states. No complaint from them was ever brought
to his knowledge in which he did not do full and substantial justice.
The principal objection to his policy was that he did not extend
his proclamation to all the loyal men of the southern states,
including the colored as well as the white people. It must be
remembered in his justification that in every one of the eleven
states before the Rebellion the negro was, by the laws, excluded
from the right to vote. In Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York that
right was limited. In a large majority of the states, including
the most populous, negro suffrage was then prohibited. It would
seem to be a great stretch of power on his part, by a simple
mandatory proclamation or military order, to confer the franchise
on a class of people, who were then prohibited from voting not only
in the eleven southern states, but in a majority of the northern
states. Such a provision, if it had been inserted, could not have
been enforced, and, in the condition in which slavery left the
negro race, it could hardly be defended. I cannot see any reason
why, because a man is black, he should not vote, and yet, in making
laws, as the President was then doing, for the government of the
community, he had to regard the