Constitution for its consideration by the President, and as it
proposed to undo the work he had done, he failed to return it to
Congress--"pocketed" it--and it therefore fell. He was not in a
mood to accept a Congressional rebuke. He had given careful study
to the duties, the responsibilities, and the limitations of the
respective Departments of, the Government, and was not willing
that his judgment should be revised, or his course censured,
however indirectly, by any of its co-ordinate branches.

Four days after the session had closed, he issued a Proclamation
in which he treated the bill merely as the expression of an
opinion by Congress as to the best plan of Reconstruction--"which
plan," he remarked, "it is now thought fit to lay before the
people for their consideration."

He further stated in this Proclamation that he had already
presented one plan of restoration, and that he was "unprepared by
a formal approval of this bill to be inflexibly committed to any
single plan of restoration, and was unprepared to declare that
the free State Constitutions and Governments already adopted and
installed in Louisiana and Arkansas, shall be set aside and held
for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens
who have set up the same as to further effort, and unprepared to
declare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish
slavery in the States, though sincerely hoping that a
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in all the States
might be adopted."

While, with these objections, Mr. Lincoln could not approve the
bill, he concluded his Proclamation with these words: