State and other officers, and pardoned by proclamation everybody, with the exception of a certain class of the late insurgents whom he pardoned personally.
On Christmas Day, 1868, a Universal Amnesty was declared. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, became a part of the Constitution, December 18, 1865, and the former masters found themselves still morally responsible for these colored people, without the right to control them or even the money with which to employ them.
The annual interest on the national debt at this time amounted to one hundred and fifty million dollars. Yet the Treasury paid this, together with the expenses of government, and reduced the debt seventy-one million dollars before the volunteer army had been fully discharged in 1866.
Comment on such recuperative power as that is unnecessary; for the generation that fights a four-years war costing over two billions of dollars generally leaves the debt for another generation or another century to pay.
Congress met finally, ignored the President's rollicking welcome to the seceded States, and over his veto proceeded to pass various laws regarding their admission, such as the Civil Rights and Freedman's Bureau Bills.
Tennessee returned promptly to the Union under the Constitutional Amendments, but the
