The Johnson and Lincoln governments in those States were declared to have no legal status and to be subject wholly to the authority of the United States to modify or abolish.

The ten states were divided into five military districts, over each of which a general officer was to be placed in command.

Military tribunals were to supersede the civil courts where necessary.

Stevens was willing to rest here, though some of his less radical followers, disliking military rule but desiring to force Negro suffrage, inserted a provision in the law that a State might be readmitted to representation upon the following conditions: a constitutional convention must be held, the members of which were elected by males of voting age without regard to color, excluding whites who would be disfranchised by the proposed Fourteenth Amendment; a constitution including the same rule of suffrage must be framed, ratified by the same electorate, and approved by Congress; and lastly, the legislatures elected under this constitution must ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, after which, if the Fourteenth Amendment should have become a part of the Federal Constitution, the State should be readmitted to representation.
In order that the administration of this radical legislation might be supervised by its friends, the Thirty-ninth Congress had passed a law requiring the Fortieth Congress to meet on the 4th of March instead of in December as was customary.

According to the Reconstruction Act of the 2nd of March, it was left to the state government or to the people of a state to make the first move towards reconstruction.