It was then with a good deal of irritation that Congress came to consider the subject of Reconstruction in Georgia again in the session of 1869-70, and the determination soon became manifest to impose additional and harder conditions upon this community than upon the others. Moreover, as matters appeared at that juncture, the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment by the legislature of Georgia would be necessary to make out the required three-fourths majority. It was in this temper, and under the pressure of this supposed necessity, that Congress, acting promptly upon the general suggestion in the President's Message, passed a bill which provided that the Governor of Georgia should forthwith summon the persons declared by the proclamation of General Meade, of the date of June 25th, 1868, to be members-elect of the legislature, to assemble at Atlanta; that every such person should take an oath or affirmation that he had never, after having been a member of Congress or of a "State" legislature, or an officer of the United States or of a "State" "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or given any aid or comfort to its enemies, or rendered, except in consequence of direct physical compulsion, any support or aid to any insurrection, or rebellion against the United States, or held any office under, or given any support to, any government of any kind acting in hostility to the United States, or levying war against the United States," or should make oath or affirmation that, if he had so acted, he had been relieved by Congress from any disability attaching to such act in the manner provided in {239} the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution; that in case any person claiming to be a member of the legislature should fail to make such an oath or affirmation he should be excluded from a seat in the body; that no member-elect should be excluded on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude; that, on application of the Governor, the President should employ the military power of the United States to enforce the provisions of the Act; and that the legislature of Georgia should ratify the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States before Senators and Representatives from Georgia should be admitted to seats in Congress. This bill was approved by the President on the 22d of December, 1869. [Sidenote: Resumption of military government in Georgia.]