o any State Convention as
aforesaid, no person shall be qualified as an elector, or shall be
eligible as a member of such convention, unless he shall have
previously taken and subscribed the oath of amnesty, as set forth
in the President's proclamation of May 29, A. D. 1865, _and is a
voter qualified as prescribed by the Constitution and laws of the
State, of Mississippi, in force immediately before the ninth (9th)
of January, A. D. 1861, the date of the so-called ordinance of
secession_; and the said convention, when convened, or the
Legislature that may be thereafter assembled, will prescribe the
qualifications of electors, and the eligibility of persons to hold
office under the Constitution and laws of the State, a power the
people of the several States composing the Federal Union have
rightfully exercised from the origin of the government to the
present time.

The President says he finds the people of Mississippi "deprived of all
civil government" by the revolutionary progress of the rebellion;
therefore he appoints a provisional governor, to call an election of the
loyal people for delegates to a convention to alter or amend the
constitution that was in force prior to the rebellion. He does this "for
the purpose of enabling the loyal people of said State to organize a
State government whereby justice may be established, domestic
tranquillity insured, and loyal citizens protected in all their rights
of life, liberty and property." To this laudable end he instructs the
governor, who is his military agent, to allow no man to vote or to be
voted for, unless he shall have previously taken and subscribed to the
oath of amnesty of May 29, 1865, _and is a voter by the old constitution
and laws of the slaveholding State of Mississippi_. By this ordering,
the President makes it impossible for the great mass of the loyal people
to have a voice in organizing the new government. He re-establishes
precisely the same basis of class representation that worked out the
ruin of the old State government. Not to mention the loyal women, who
make fully one-half of the loyal people, he shuts out all the loyal
black men, with all the loyal poor white men, who were not allowed to
vote under the old regime of slavery.

Thus, by this initiative step, the President makes it inevitable that
the rebuilding of the government shall be controlled by the ex-rebels;
the men who