The objection to this compromise by those who opposed it and by others who reluctantly supported it, was that it did not have the force of Organic Law; that the proposed act of the Legislature would not be rendered any more binding by reason of being called a solemn act, and that it might be repealed by any subsequent Legislature.

Much argument was expended upon this point, but the general judgment was that an act of the Legislature, made in pursuance of such an understanding with Congress, was in the nature of a compact which, without discussing the question of power, would certainly be regarded as binding upon the State.

With this understanding, Congress passed a bill admitting the State, but the vote in both branches was divided on the line of party.
This action was accomplished late in January (1867), and on the 29th of that month the President vetoed the bill.

He objected especially to the clause just referred to, because it was an addition to the enabling Act which Congress had no moral right to make, and because it required of Nebraska a condition not theretofore required of States, -- contradicting flatly the declaration of the first section of the bill, in which the State was declared to be "admitted into the Union upon an equal footing with the original States in all respects whatever." He argued that the imposition of the condition prescribed in the bill, and its acceptance by the Legislature, was practically a change in the organic law of the State without consulting the people, which he regarded as an innovation upon the safe practice of the Government.

But his arguments fell upon unwilling ears, and the bill was passed over the veto by a vote of thirty to nine in the Senate, and in the House by one hundred and twenty to forty-three.
Colorado did not fare so well.