It was the judgment of the more conservative Republicans who followed Mr.
Fessenden, that it was needless to risk a veto of an important bill of this character by confronting the President with a distinct negative of his own theory in a place where it practically availed nothing.

After much discussion however it was concluded to change the preamble for the sake of establishing a precedent in the first one of the Confederate States restored to the right of representation in Congress.
The phrase, "hereby restored to her former, proper, practical relations to the Union," was one much cherished, because it was the original expression of Mr.Lincoln in his last public speech.

The House readily concurred in the change of preamble.
The President accepted the challenge of his theory embodied in the preamble, not by veto, but in the more innocent form of argument.
"If," said he, in a special message of July 25th, "the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States be one of the conditions of admitting Tennessee, and if, as is also declared by the preamble, said State Government can only be restored to its former political relations to the Union by the consent of the law-making power of the United States, it would really seem to follow that the joint resolution, which at this late day has received the sanction of Congress, should have been passed, approved and placed on the statute-books before any amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the State of Tennessee for ratification.

Otherwise the inference is plainly deducible that while in the opinion of Congress the people of a State may be too disloyal to be entitled to representation, they may nevertheless have an equally potent voice with other States in amending the Constitution, upon which so essentially depends the stability, prosperity and very existence of the nation." The argument in the message was regarded as an ingenious censure of Congress by the President, and was loudly applauded on the Democratic side of the House.

He concluded by declaring that notwithstanding the anomalous character of the resolution, he had affixed his signature to it.