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State organization to seats, but by the more pronounced attitude expressed in what is known as the Wade-Davis measure upon the direct question at issue. These gentlemen, Mr. Benjamin F. Wade and Mr. Henry Winter Davis, the former the chairman of the
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Committee on the Rebellious States in the Senate, and the latter the chairman of a committee having the same name and functions in the House, originated a bill and carried it through both Houses of Congress, which, for the first time, embodied the views of Congress on the subject of Reconstruction. This bill was finally passed on July 4, 1864, and it contained provisions of the following tenor: The eleven
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States which had passed {16} secession ordinances were all treated as rebellious communities, and the President was authorized to appoint a provisional governor for each. This governor should exercise all the powers of civil government in the community to which he might be appointed until
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State government should be recognized by Congress as restored therein. An oath of future allegiance to the Constitution of the United States was then prescribed, and the provisional governor in each
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State was ordered, whenever rebellion in his
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State should be suppressed, to direct the United States Marshal to enroll all the white male citizens of the United States, resident within the
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State, in the respective counties of the
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State, and give them the opportunity to take the oath of allegiance to the United States. The bill then directed that when a majority of such citizens should take this oath, they might be permitted to elect delegates to a convention, which convention might take action for the establishment of
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State government. The bill disqualified all persons who had held any office, civil or military,
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State or Confederate, in rebellion against the United States, or who had voluntarily borne arms against the United States, from voting for delegates, or from being elected as delegates, to the convention. The bill then provided that the convention thus elected and assembled might form a
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State constitution, but must insert in it clauses abolishing slavery, repudiating all debts,
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State or Confederate, created by, or under the sanction of, the usurping power, and disqualifying all persons who had held office civil or military,
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State or Confederate, under the usurping power, except civil offices merely ministerial, and military offices below the rank of colonel, from voting or being elected governor or members of the legislature. The bill then provided for the submission of the constitution so formed to the voters, {17} and if ratified by a majority thereof, required the provisional governor to certify the same to the President. It then provided that the President, after obtaining the consent of Congress thereto, should proclaim the new
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State government as established, and as the constitutional government of the
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State, after which Representatives and Senators in Congress, and electors of the President, might be chosen in said
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State. Finally, the bill abolished slavery at once in all the rebellious
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States and imposed penalties upon all persons attempting thereafter to hold anyone in involuntary servitude; and declared all persons who should thereafter hold office civil or military,
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State