And its final conclusion was, "that Congress would not be justified in admitting such communities to a participation in the government of the country without first providing such constitutional or other guarantees as would tend to secure the civil rights of all citizens of the Republic; a just equality of representation; protection against claims founded in rebellion and crime; a temporary restoration of the right of suffrage to those {86} who have not actively participated in the efforts to destroy the Union and overthrow the Government; and the exclusion from positions of public trust of at least a portion of those whose crimes have proved them to be the enemies of the Union, and unworthy of public confidence." As we have seen, the proposed Fourteenth Article of Amendment had provided for all of these things, except the direct conferring of suffrage on anybody. With this exception, it had gone even further, in its provision declaratory of citizenship, and in its protection of the public debt of the Union. [Sidenote: The minority report.] The report of the minority, that is of the three Democrats, was written by Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland. It was, as a lawyer's brief, an able presentation of the view that a "State" of the Union can never become anything else than a "State," no matter what may be the character, deeds, attempts or disposition of the people who inhabit it, and is at all times entitled to the same powers, rights and privileges, under the Constitution of the United States. It was, however, the veriest dry bones of legal reasoning, the veriest sophistry of juristic abstraction. There was no political science in it, no common sense in it, and it ended with an unfortunate and irritating defence of President Johnson's personal loyalty, which had not been in the slightest degree impugned by the majority. [Sidenote: The idea of a new electorate as the basis and condition of Reconstruction.]