A BILL

To provide for the more efficient government of the insurrectionary States.

Whereas the pretended State governments of the late so-called Confederate States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas were set up without the authority of Congress and without the sanction of the people; and whereas said pretended governments afford no adequate protection for life or property, but countenance and encourage lawlessness and crime; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said so-called States, until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established: Therefore,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That said late so-called Confederate 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; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of the general of the army 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. And be it further enacted, 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, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public peace and criminals, and to this end he may allow local civil tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to 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, anything in the constitution and laws of the late so-called Confederate States to the contrary notwithstanding; and all legislative or judicial proceedings or processes to prevent or control the proceedings of said military tribunals, and all interference by said pretended State governments with the exercise of military authority under this act, shall be void and of no effect.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That courts and judicial officers of the United States shall not issue writs of habeas corpus in behalf of persons in military custody, except in cases in which the person is held to answer only for a crime or crimes exclusively within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States within said military districts, and indictable therein, or unless some commissioned officer on duty in the district wherein the person is detained shall indorse upon said petition a statement certifying, upon honor, that he has knowledge, or information, as to the cause and circumstances of the alleged detention, and that he believes the same to be wrongful; and, further, that he believes that the indorsed petition is preferred in good faith, and in furtherance of justice, and not to hinder or delay the punishment of crime. 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.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That 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 conflict with its provisions.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That when the constitutional amendment proposed as article fourteen by the thirty-ninth Congress shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United States, and when the people of any one of the late so-called confederate States shall have formed a constitution in conformity therewith in all respects, and when it shall have provided in such constitution, to be framed by a convention of delegates elected by the persons who may vote upon the ratification or rejection of the constitution as herein provided, that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all male citizens of the United States, of whatever color, race, or condition, twenty-one years old and upward, who may have been residents of the State for twelve months previous to the election, except such as may be disqualified on account of rebellion, felony at the common law, idiocy, or insanity, and when said constitution shall have been submitted to the voters of said State, as thus defined, for ratification or rejection, and when the constitution, if ratified by the vote of the people of said State, shall have been submitted to Congress for examination and approval, said State shall, if its constitution be approved by Congress, on such State assenting to the said constitutional amendment, be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this bill shall be inoperative in said State.