On the 19th of March they sent to the President an Act prescribing in detail the mode for the registering of voters in the insurrectionary States, and for the summoning of a convention to frame a constitution preparatory to the re-admission of each State to representation.

The Act declared that "if the constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered electors qualified to vote, at least one-half of all the registered voters voting upon the question, a copy of the same, duly certified, shall be transmitted to the President of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the same to Congress and if it shall appear to Congress that the election was one at which all the registered and qualified electors in the State had an opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the influence of fraud, and if Congress shall be satisfied that such constitution merits the approval of a majority of all the qualified electors in the State, and if the said constitution shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the provisions of the Act to which this is supplementary, and the other provisions of said Act shall have been complied with, and the said constitution shall be approved by Congress, the State shall be declared entitled to representation, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom as therein provided." The President promptly vetoed the bill.

Among various objections he said, "This supplemental bill superadds an oath to be taken by every person, before his name can be admitted upon the registration, that he 'has not been disfranchised for participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United States.' It thus imposes upon every person the necessity and responsibility of deciding for himself, under the penalty of punishment by a military commission if he makes a mistake, what works disfranchisement by participation in rebellion and what amounts to such participation.

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