The undersigned, a minority of the Committee on Reconstruction, so-called, submit, among others, the following as some of their reasons for opposition to this bill:

1. That a Congress ex parte is asked (first section) to abrogate and destroy all civil State governments in ten States, four of them, namely, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, being of the original thirteen that started the Government and created the Constitution, while four others of that thirteen (making eight in all) have just been demonstrating through their popular elections that they recognize their civil State governments, and guaranty, as far as the popular voice there can, their preservation (not destruction) as legal State governments. Self-government and representation are cardinal principles of a republic, and solemnly ordained in our federal Constitution; but this section ignores both and robs ton States of the Union and their twelve million inhabitants of all protection from the judiciary or executive branches of the Government, while dooming them to a military despotism.

2. That a Congress thus representing but a part of the people, and that part now in a minority, even if a full Congress, in the proper parliamentary sense of that word, could be but one of the three great branches of the Government, with no right nor power to invalidate or to deny the recognition of the judicial or executive power, us asserted in this bill. The executive or judiciary has as much right to proclaim or adjudicate that Congress shall not be recognized as Congress has thus to enact for the executive and the judiciary both are as much the Government and the creature of the Constitution as the House of Representatives or Senate; and the Executive elected by the whole people better represents the principles of popular government than a Senate, the mere arbitrary creature of the States without regard to population.

3. That this invalidation or nullification of the executive and judicial power in ten States is not only an abolition of the Federal Constitution, but, without a direct repeal of, in conflict with the great military act of 1792, 1795, and of March 3, 1807, putting the Army and Navy and militia of the United States in certain cases at the disposal of the President; also in conflict with the fundamental judiciary act of 1789, the Constitution, which, while guarantying to every and also in conflict with article four, section five, of the Constitution, which, while guarantying to every State a republican form of government, also guaranties on application of the civil authorities of the State, protection against domestic violence or invasion, such as is contemplated in this bill.

4. That the second and third sections are in utter violation of the Constitution—Article 2, section 2— which declares “the President” to be Commander-in- Chief of the Army of the United States, inasmuch as only the General of the Army is there authorized to be that Commander-in-Chief, and to remove by his order alone any or all officers of the Army of the United States, independent of the constitutional and people’s elected Commander-in-Chief, and this investiture of a General of the Army with this supreme dictatorship is, as if in solemn mockery, set forth to be to reorganize civil government republican in form!

5. That the whole act is revolutionary and incendiary in arraying Congress, but one branch of the Government, against two coordinate branches, in all respects the constitutional equals of Congress, and in some respect the constitutional superiors of that Congress, and thereby calculated, if not intended, to involve the whole country in commotion and civil strife, the end of which no human eye can foresee.

JAMES BROOKS, of New York.

JAMES B. BECK, of Kentucky.

• Minority Report: H. R. 439 (introduced on 1868-01-14 12:00:00 - CREATE_FROM - e729664) [This document]

• Minority Report: H. R. 439 (introduced on 1868-01-14 12:00:00 - CREATE_FROM - e729664) [This document] [view current proposal at this moment]
  • None (introduced on 1868-01-14 12:00:00 - DEBATE_PROPOSAL - e729672) [view current proposal at this moment]
  • Motion to Print the Minority Report on H. R. 439 (introduced on 1868-01-14 12:00:00 - PROCEDURE - e729674) [view current proposal at this moment]
    • None (introduced on 1868-01-14 12:00:00 - ADOPT_PROPOSAL - e729675) [view current proposal at this moment]