Then came the provision which offered the terms of escape from this new military régime. They were, first, the exercise of universal manhood suffrage, that is the suffrage of all male citizens, twenty-one years of age, without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude, who were not disfranchised for participation in rebellion or for felony at common law, and who had resided for one year in the so-called "rebel State," in the election of delegates to a constitutional convention in the so-called "rebel State"; second, the framing of a "State" constitution by a convention composed of delegates so elected, and not disqualified by participation in rebellion or by the commission of felony, which constitution should conform in all respects to the Constitution of the United States and which should contain, as a permanent principle, the same law of suffrage as that prescribed by this Act for the election of the delegates to the convention; third, the ratification of this constitution by a majority of the voters, as designated by the law of suffrage for the choice of delegates to the convention, voting upon the question of ratification; fourth, the approval by Congress of this constitution; and fifth, and last, the adoption of the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States by the legislature created by such adopted and approved "State" constitution, and by a sufficient number of the legislatures {121} of other "States" to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States. The measure contained, in the last place, a sort of saving clause in regard to the existing civil governments which had been established in all these communities under the direction of the President, and which were now to be displaced. It had been already provided, in section third, that the military commander of a district might use the existing civil courts, if he saw fit to do so, so long as the reign of law and order might be so preserved, and the final section provided that any civil government which might exist in these districts should be regarded as provisional, and should be in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States, which should control, and might abolish, modify, or supersede the same, and that the voters for the election of the officers of such provisional governments should be required to have only the qualifications prescribed in this Act for voters for the delegates to the said "State" convention, and persons elected to place and office in such provisional governments must not have the disqualifications prescribed in the proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It had evidently occurred to the Republican leaders that they might have to make use of some of the machinery of the existing civil governments established under the direction of the President in these regions in executing their own plan of Reconstruction.