24/25 that on the continued ascendancy of that party depends the safety of this great nation. If impartial suffrage is excluded in the rebel states, then every one of them is sure to send a solid rebel electoral vote. They, with their kindred Copperheads of the North, would always elect the President and control Congress." The laws passed on the 2d and the 23d of March were war measures and presupposed a continuance of war conditions. The Lincoln-Johnson state governments were overturned; Congress fixed the qualifications of voters for that time and for the future; and the President, shorn of much of his constitutional power, could exercise but little control over the military government. |