political power in Congress and in the electoral college, and the
country justly expected that elections would proceed, as to
the enfranchised race, upon the same circumstances of legal and
constitutional freedom and protection which obtained in all the other
States of the Union. The friends of law and order looked forward to
the conduct of these elections as offering to the general judgment of
the country an important opportunity to measure the degree in which
the right of suffrage could be exercised by the colored people and
would be respected by their fellow-citizens; but a more general
enjoyment of freedom of suffrage by the colored people and a more just
and generous protection of that freedom by the communities of which
they form a part were generally anticipated than the record of the
elections discloses. In some of those States in which the colored
people have been unable to make their opinions felt in the elections
the result is mainly due to influences not easily measured or remedied
by legal protection; but in the States of Louisiana and South Carolina
at large, and in some particular Congressional districts outside
of those States, the records of the elections seem to compel the
conclusion that the rights of the colored voters have been overridden
and their participation in the elections not permitted to be either
general or free.

It will be for the Congress for which these elections were held to
make such examinations into their conduct as may be appropriate to
determine the validity of the claims of members to their seats. In
the meanwhile it becomes the duty of the executive and judicial
departments of the Government, each in its province, to inquire into
and punish violations of the laws of the United States which have
occurred. I can but repeat what I said in this connection in my last
message, that whatever authority rests with me to this end I shall not