shing the reconstruction of the Southern states by means of
constitutional amendments. Some of the Border and Northern states were
already showing signs of uneasiness at the continued exclusion of the
South. But if the Constitutional Amendment had failed, other means
of reconstruction were at hand, for the radicals now controlled the
Thirty-ninth Congress, from which the Southern representatives were
excluded, and would also control the Fortieth Congress.

Under the lead of Stevens and Sumner, the radicals now perfected their
plans. On January 8,1867, their first measure, conferring the
franchise upon Negroes in the District of Columbia, was passed over the
presidential veto, though the proposal had been voted down a few
weeks earlier by a vote of 6525 to 35 in Washington and 812 to 1 in
Georgetown. In the next place, by an act of January 31, 1867, the
franchise was extended to Negroes in the territories, and on March 2,
1867, three important measures were enacted: the Tenure of Office Act
and a rider to the Army Appropriation Act--both designed to limit the
power of the President--and the first Reconstruction Act. By the Tenure
of Office Act, the President was prohibited from removing officeholders
except with the consent of the Senate; and by the Army Act he was
forbidden to issue orders except through General Grant or to relieve him
of command or to assign him to command away from Washington unless at
the General's own request or with the previous approval of the
Senate. The first measure was meant to check the removal of radical
officeholders by Johnson, and the other, which was secretly drawn up
for Boutwell by Stanton, was designed to prevent the President from
exercising his constitutional command of the army.

The first Reconstruction Act declared that no legal state government
existed in the ten unreconstructed states and that there was no adequate
protection for life and property. The Johnson and Lincoln governments
in those States were declared to have no legal status and to be subject
wholly to the authority of the United States to modify or abolish. The
ten states were divided into five military districts, over each of which
a general officer was to be placed in command. Military tribunals were
to supersede the civil courts where necessary. Stevens was willing to
rest here, though some of his less radical followers, disliking military
rule but desiring to force Negro suffrage, inserted a provision in
the l