THE MILITARY GOVERNMENT BILL.

AN ACT for the More Efficient Government of the Rebel States.

Whereas, No legal State government, or adequate protection for life, or property, now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and,

Whereas, It is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be established; therefore,

Be it enacted, etc., That said rebel States shall be divided into military districts, and made subject to the military authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed; and for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district; North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia, Alabama, and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas the fourth district; Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and enforce his authority within the district to which he is assigned.

Sec. 3. That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned, as aforesaid, to protect all persons in their rights of person and property; to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and to punish, and cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace, and criminals; and to this end he may allow loyal civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and try offenders; or, when in his judgment it may be necessary, for the trial of offenders, he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals for that purpose; and all interference under color of State authority with the exercise of military authority under this act shall be null and void.

Sec. 4. That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted, and no sentence of any military commission or tribunal, hereby authorized, affecting the life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is approved by the officer in command of the district; and the laws and regulations for the government of the army shall not be affected by this act, except in so far as they may conflict with its provisions.

Sec. 5. That when the people of any one of said rebel States shall have formed a constitutional government, in conformity with the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by a convention of delegates elected by the persons who may vote upon the ratification or rejection thereof, as hereinafter provided; and when said constitution, so framed, shall have been ratified by a majority of the male citizens of said State, twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition of servitude, who may have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of voting on the question of ratifying such constitution, except such as may be disfranchised for participating in the rebellion, or for felony at common law; and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons that have the qualifications herein stated, and shall have been submitted to Congress for examination, and Congress shall have approved the same; and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-ninth Congress, and known as article fourteen, and when said article shall become a part of the Constitution of the United States, such State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted thereupon, on their taking the oath prescribed by the law; and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this bill shall be inoperative in said State.

Sec. 6, (proposed by Mr. Doolittle,) provides that the penalty of death shall not be inflicted by the military power without the approval of the President.

Sec. 7. (Shellabarger’s amendment.) That until the people of said rebel States shall, by law, be admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, the civil governments that may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and shall be in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, which may at any time abolish, modify, control, and supersede the same, and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act, and no person shall be eligible to any office under such provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said Constitutional Amendment.