Only a few weeks after Congress had taken its recess the danger anticipated by the Republican leaders, from hostile interpretation of the Reconstruction Acts by the Attorney-General, was made fully apparent.

On the 24th of May and the 12th of June Mr.Stanbery gave two opinions to the President, which in many respects neutralized the force both of the original and supplementary acts of Reconstruction.

His adverse views were elaborately and skilfully presented, and tended to embarrass the military commanders of the Southern districts in the administration of law, and to hinder the registration of voters and the holding of elections for constitutional conventions.

Republican leaders therefore felt not only justified in the precautions they had taken to keep the power of Congress alive, but esteemed it peculiarly fortunate that they could so promptly prevent the evil effects which might otherwise flow from the unfriendly constructions of the Attorney-General.

The principal business of the July session was to provide a second supplementary Act which effectually remedied all the objections and obstructions which Mr.Stanbery's acute legal knowledge had suggested.
The bill passed both branches by the 13th of July and reached the President on the 14th--meeting at his hands the same fate that its predecessors had incurred.