atified by the requisite number
of States, and on the 18th day of December, 1865, it was officially
declared to have become valid as a part of the Constitution of the
United States. All of the States in which the insurrection had existed
promptly amended their constitutions so as to make them conform to the
great change thus effected in the organic law of the land; declared null
and void all ordinances and laws of secession; repudiated all pretended
debts and obligations created for the revolutionary purposes of the
insurrection, and proceeded in good faith to the enactment of measures
for the protection and amelioration of the condition of the colored
race. Congress, however, yet hesitated to admit any of these States to
representation, and it was not until toward the close of the eighth
month of the session that an exception was made in favor of Tennessee
by the admission of her Senators and Representatives.

I deem it a subject of profound regret that Congress has thus far
failed to admit to seats loyal Senators and Representatives from the
other States whose inhabitants, with those of Tennessee, had engaged
in the rebellion. Ten States--more than one-fourth of the whole
number--remain without representation; the seats of fifty members in the
House of Representatives and of twenty members in the Senate are yet
vacant, not by their own consent, not by a failure of election, but by
the refusal of Congress to accept their credentials. Their admission,
it is believed, would have accomplished much toward the renewal and
strengthening of our relations as one people and removed serious cause
for discontent on the part of the inhabitants of those States. It would
have accorded with the great principle enunciated in the Declaration
of American Independence that no people ought to bear the burden of
taxation and yet be denied the right of representation. It would have
been in consonance with the express provisions of the Constitution that
"each State shall have at least one Representative" and "that no State,
without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the
Senate." These provisions were intended to secure to every State and
to the people of every State the right of representation in each House
of Congress; and so important was it deemed by the framers of the
Constitution that the equality of the States in the Senate should be
preserved that not even by an amendment of the Constitution can any
State, without