And he then undertook to put this class in possession of the functions and powers of the "loyal State governments" subverted by the rebellion, by proclaiming and declaring, "that whenever in any of the States of {11} Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in such State at the Presidential election of the year A.D. 1860, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a State government which shall be republican and nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government and shall protect each of them against invasion, and, on application of the Legislature, or the executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.'" [Sidenote: The proviso in this plan.] It is true that Mr. Lincoln was careful to say in this proclamation that "whether members sent to Congress from any State shall be admitted to seats, constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive," but it is plain that he did not think the Houses could constitutionally use their power of judging of the qualifications and elections of their members to keep members from "States" reconstructed upon his plan from taking their seats on the ground that these "States" had not been properly reconstructed. And it is also true that there occurs in the proclamation another paragraph which appears to militate against the theory of the perdurance of a "State" through the period of its rebellion against the United States. It reads: "And it is suggested as not improper that in {12} constructing a loyal State government in any State the name of the State, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution and the general code of laws as before the rebellion be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening such conditions which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State government."