relating to
slavery, were declared to be in force; the courts were directed to
use special efforts to crush lawlessness; and the old jury lists were
destroyed and new ones were drawn up containing only the names of those
who had taken the amnesty oath. Since there was no money in any state
treasury, small sums were now raised by license taxes. A full staff
of department heads was appointed, and by July 1865, the provisional
governments were in fair working order.

To the constitutional conventions, which met in the fall, it was made
clear, through the governors, that the President would insist upon three
conditions: the formal abolition of slavery, the repudiation of the
ordinance of secession, and the repudiation of the Confederate war debt.
To Governor Holden he telegraphed: "Every dollar of the debt created to
aid the rebellion against the United States should be repudiated finally
and forever. The great mass of the people should not be taxed to pay a
debt to aid in carrying on a rebellion which they in fact, if left to
themselves, were opposed to. Let those who had given their means for the
obligations of the state look to that power they tried to establish in
violation of law, constitution, and will of the people. They must meet
their fate." With little opposition these conditions were fulfilled,
though there was a strong feeling against the repudiation of the debt,
much discussion as to whether the ordinance of secession should
be "repealed" or declared "now and always null and void," and some
quibbling as to whether slavery was being destroyed by state action or
had already been destroyed by war.

In the old state constitutions, very slight changes were made. Of
these the chief were concerned with the abolition of slavery and the
arrangement of representation and direct taxation on the basis of white
population. Little effort was made to settle any of the Negro problems,
and in all states the conventions left it to the legislatures to make
laws for the freedmen. There was no discussion of Negro, suffrage in the
conventions, but President Johnson sent what was for him a remarkable
communication to Governor Sharkey of Mississippi:

"If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color
who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write
their names, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at
not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon,
you wou