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State of the Union. A bill was reported in the House of Representatives on the 25th of February from the Committee on Reconstruction for this purpose. It was nearly identical in its provisions and language with the Virginia and Mississippi bills, but it dragged along through nearly five months of debate and partisan wrangling before it became law. The reason of this delay was that, on March 4th, General Butler proposed an amendment to the bill which provided:
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That the power granted by the constitution of Georgia to the general assembly to change the time of holding elections, and prescribe the {241} day of meeting of the general assembly, shall not be so exercised as to postpone the election of the next general assembly beyond the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in the year 1872, nor shall such power ever be by any future legislature so exercised as to extend the term of any office beyond the regular period named in said constitution; and the said general assembly shall by joint resolution consent to this condition before this Act shall take effect.
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State government of Georgia was still provisional, and would so remain until the passage of this Act, and that these terms would, therefore, not really begin until the passage of this Act. The conservative Republicans as well as the Democrats repudiated this interpretation of the powers of Congress to extend, or to authorize the
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State legislature to extend, the terms of the members of the legislature and of
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State officers as an unprecedented usurpation. Some of them repudiated the idea that there could be a provisional
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State government, and declared that any further legislation in regard to the reconstruction of Georgia was unnecessary, since the Act of June 25th, 1868, had restored Georgia to her position as a
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State of the Union, along with North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida, upon certain conditions, all of which Georgia had fulfilled, just as the others had done, and since all the others had been admitted to the enjoyment of all of their rights and privileges as
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States
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State offices in Georgia, or to extend the terms of the present holders of them beyond the time provided in the
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State constitution, or deprive the people of Georgia of the right under their
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State
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State legislature as provided for in the
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State constitution of 1868; ordered the assembly of this legislature on the 13th of December, 1870, and its organization preparatory to the admission of the
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State to representation in Congress; declared that the powers and functions of the members of the existing legislature should cease on the 13th day of December, 1870; and made it the duty of the {243} President of the United States, in case of domestic violence in any municipality in the
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State, reported to him by the legislature or Governor of the State, to suppress by military power such domestic violence, and