It was in consequence of such representations and prayers, that President Grant sent his message of April 7th to Congress, requesting authority to accede to the petition of the Virginians, and that Congress immediately conferred the authority upon him. Armed with this authority, the President issued a proclamation on the 14th day of May, 1869, commanding the "State" constitution framed for Virginia by the convention which assembled on December 3d, 1867, at Richmond, to be submitted to the voters, on July 6th, 1869, for ratification or rejection, and also commanding that those {228} provisions disqualifying persons from voting and holding office who had in any way aided the rebellion against the United States should be separately submitted. [Sidenote: Ratification of the Virginia Constitution.] At the election ordered by the President, the constitution without these clauses was ratified, and the conservative Republican candidates for office and legislative membership were elected. [Sidenote: The restoration of Virginia to her Federal relations.] At the next session of Congress, in December of 1869, the Senators and Representatives presented themselves for admission. Their claims were sustained by the President, who reported to Congress that Virginia had fulfilled all of the conditions required of her for readmission to her full privileges as a member of the Union, having among other things ratified by legislative acts both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and urged the admission of the Senators and Representatives from the "State" to Congress. After a good deal of discussion and some wrangling, the bill for the accomplishment of this object was passed, and, in the last days of January of 1870, Virginia was restored to her proper federal relations, on the conditions that the constitution of the "State" should never be so amended as to deprive any person enfranchised therein of the suffrage, or any citizen or class of citizens of the United States of the educational rights and privileges provided therein, or any citizen of the United States of the equal right to hold office, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, or of the school rights provided in the constitution of the "State." The Congressional Act also undertook to purge the new "State" legislature by requiring that every member must take an oath that he was not disqualified by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, or that, if he had been, he had also been {229} relieved by the Congressional Act authorized for the case in the Amendment. [Sidenote: Ratification of the Mississippi constitution.]