blessings would have prevailed, while now millions are deprived of
rights guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen and after nearly
two years of legislation find themselves placed under an absolute
military despotism. "A military republic, a government founded on mock
elections and supported only by the sword," was nearly a quarter of a
century since pronounced by Daniel Webster, when speaking of the South
American States, as "a movement, indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous
movement, from the regular and old-fashioned monarchical systems;" and
he added:

If men would enjoy the blessings of republican government, they must
govern themselves by reason, by mutual counsel and consultation, by a
sense and feeling of general interest, and by the acquiescence of the
minority in the will of the majority, properly expressed; and, above
all, the military must be kept, according to the language of our bill of
rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority. Wherever this
lesson is not both learned and practiced there can be no political
freedom. Absurd, preposterous is it, a scoff and a satire on free forms
of constitutional liberty, for frames of government to be prescribed by
military leaders and the right of suffrage to be exercised at the point
of the sword.

I confidently believe that a time will come when these States will again
occupy their true positions in the Union. The barriers which now seem so
obstinate must yield to the force of an enlightened and just public
opinion, and sooner or later unconstitutional and oppressive legislation
will be effaced from our statute books. When this shall have been
consummated, I pray God that the errors of the past may be forgotten and
that once more we shall be a happy, united, and prosperous people, and
that at last, after the bitter and eventful experience through which the
nation has passed, we shall all come to know that our only safety is in
the preservation of our Federal Constitution and in according to every
American citizen and to every State the rights which that Constitution
secures.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _April 10, 1867_.[28]

The first session of the Fortieth Congress adjourned on the 30th day
of March, 1867. This bill,[29] which was passed during that session,
was not presented for my approval by the Hon. Edmund G. Ross, of the
Senate of the United States, and a member of the Committee on Enrolled
Bills, unti