In his inaugural Address the new President made no reference to these questions, but he had hardly been one month in the presidential office before he recognized the difficulties with which his predecessor had been beset, and asked and almost demanded of Congress relief from them. On the 7th day of April he addressed a message to Congress requesting that body to provide for submitting to the voters of Virginia the "State" constitution drafted and adopted by a constitutional convention at Richmond nearly a year before, and recommending that "a separate vote be taken upon such parts as might be thought expedient," and that the constitution, "_or such parts thereof as shall have been adopted by the people,_" should be submitted to Congress on the first Monday of the following December, and that the officers provided for under the said constitution should be chosen at the same election. The President also suggested that the constitution framed by the convention in Mississippi and rejected by the voters might be resubmitted in the same way. The events in Mississippi culminating in the rejection {224} of the proposed State constitution by the voters in June of 1868 have been already related. [Sidenote: The Virginia case.] The case of Virginia, on the other hand, which differed in several material respects from that of any of the others, has not been as yet sufficiently stated for a clear understanding of the President's meaning in his recommendations to Congress of April 7th. It will be remembered that a loyal government of Virginia, with its seat first at Wheeling and then at Alexandria, existed during the entire period of the Civil War, and that from 1861 to 1864 Virginia, under this government, had been represented in Congress, and that it was this government which consented to the partition of Virginia recognized by Congress. On the 23d day of May, 1865, this government transferred itself from Alexandria to Richmond, having been recognized by President Johnson on May 9th as the true government of Virginia. The legislative department of it met in session on the 20th of June following. The Governor, Mr. Pierpont, recommended, in his message to that body, that a constitutional amendment should be drafted, and proposed by it to the voters for ratification, which would enfranchise, and qualify for office, a much larger proportion of the people than was the case under the revised constitution of Virginia of 1864, adopted by the loyal convention at Alexandria. The legislature followed the Governor's advice and proposed an amendment to the voters which granted suffrage and eligibility substantially to the old ante-bellum electorate and eligibles on the condition of future loyalty to the United States. This proposition was voted on at the elections held on the 12th of October for the choice of members of the legislature and of the lower House of Congress, and was ratified by a large majority. The election was held