The bill, furthermore, provided that the boards of registration should have the power, and that it should be their duty, to ascertain the fact as to whether a person applying for registration as a voter was entitled to registration under the Reconstruction Acts, and to refuse registration, if in their judgment he was not, and that the fact that he was willing to take the oath prescribed in the Reconstruction Acts, or had taken it, was not conclusive upon the registration boards in making their inquiries and forming their decisions. And it, finally, declared that the true intent and meaning of the oath prescribed in the Reconstruction Acts for persons who had held office under a "State" government or membership in a "State" legislature, before the rebellion, was that whether such persons were holding such positions at the time of the commencement of the rebellion or at some time prior to the same, and whether they had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States or not, they were disqualified from registration and were disfranchised, if, after holding such positions, they had "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof"; and it gave to the commanders of the districts the power to extend, in their discretion, the time for completing the original registration of the voters, as provided for in the Reconstruction Acts, to October 1st following, and to the boards of registration the power, and imposed upon them the {140} duty, to revise, during the first five of the last fourteen days before any election under the Reconstruction Acts, the registration lists and to strike off any name from said lists which, in their judgment, ought not to be there, and to add any name, which, in their judgment, ought to be there, and required them to disregard any Executive pardon or amnesty as relieving the disability of any person for registration, if such person had committed any act which without such pardon or amnesty would disqualify him. This bill, it will be readily seen, was a wholesale repudiation of all the instructions given by the President to the generals in command of the districts from which, in the Cabinet council, Mr. Stanton had dissented. The President immediately realized this, of course, and it increased his distrust of Stanton immensely. From that moment forward he regarded him as the spy of Congress upon all his official acts, and he was resolved to remove him upon the first opportunity, that is, so soon as Congress should adjourn. [Sidenote: The President's veto of the bill interpreting the Reconstruction Acts.]