Such of the legislatures created under the new "State" constitutions as were not already in session were quickly summoned to assemble, and by July 21st all of them had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the legislature of Georgia had also pledged by solemn act that the repudiation article of the new constitution should never be enforced. By July 27th the President had issued his several proclamations, as required by the Act of June 25th, announcing the ratification of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment by these legislatures, and consequently the admission of these "States" to representation in Congress; and so far as the seven "States" of Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana were concerned the work of reconstruction was now completed. Virginia, Mississippi and Texas still remained under martial law. [Sidenote: Seward's proclamation declaring the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the required number of "States."] On the 28th day of July, Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, issued his proclamation, declaring the ratification of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the legislatures of thirty States of the Union, and its consequent validity as a part of the Constitution of the United States. {203} [Sidenote: The questions suggested by Mr. Seward's first proclamation.] Eight days before this proclamation, that is on the 20th, Mr. Seward had issued a proclamation declaring that the legislatures of twenty-three States, viz., of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Tennessee, New Jersey, Oregon, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Iowa, had ratified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment, and that six "newly-constituted and newly-established bodies avowing themselves to be, and acting as, the legislatures, respectively, of the States of Arkansas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Alabama" had also ratified it; that the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey had subsequently passed resolutions withdrawing their ratification of the Amendment; and that, if these latter resolutions of the legislatures of Ohio and New Jersey should be disregarded, the proposed Fourteenth Amendment had been adopted by the legislatures of twenty-nine of the thirty-seven "States" of the Union and had thus become a valid part of the Constitution of the United States.