The Senate has
altered and passed the resolution and preamble concerning the right of
Tennessee to be represented, Congress, or the Radical majority, graciously
permitting it, — not because the Constitution sanctions, or that the people or
State have any rights, but because a fragment of a legislature, less than a
quorum, elected nearly two years ago and summoned by the vulgar Governor, have
adopted or ratified the Constitutional Amendment. The whole proceeding is a
burlesque on republican government and our whole system of popular rights,
opinion, State action, and constitutional obligation.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 559
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