Four days after the session had closed, he issued a proclamation in which he treated the bill merely as the expression of an opinion by Congress as to the plan of Reconstruction--"which plan," he remarked, "it is thought fit to lay before the people for their consideration." The President further stated in his proclamation that he had "already propounded one plan of restoration," and that he was "unprepared by a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration," and also "unprepared to declare that the Free-State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Louisiana and Arkansas shall be set aside and held for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort;" and also "unprepared to declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery in the States"-- though "sincerely hoping at the same time that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in all the States might be adopted." While with these objections Mr.Lincoln could not approve the bill, he concluded his proclamation in these words: "Nevertheless I am fully satisfied with the plan of restoration contained in this bill as one very proper for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it, and I am and at all times shall be prepared to give executive aid and assistance to any such people so soon as the military resistance to the United States shall have been suppressed in any such State and the people thereof shall have sufficiently returned to their obedience to the Constitution and Laws of the United States--in which cases military governors will be appointed with directions to proceed according to the bill." It must be frankly admitted that Mr.Lincoln's course was in some of its aspects extraordinary.

It met with almost unanimous dissent on the part of Republican members of Congress, and violent opposition from the more radical members of both Houses.

If Congress had been in session at the time, a very rancorous hostility would have been developed against the President.

Fortunately the senators and representatives had returned to their States and districts before the proclamation was issued, and they found the people united and enthusiastic in Mr.Lincoln's support.

No contest was raised, therefore, by the great majority of those who had sustained the bill which the President had refused to approve.