At the next session of Congress, beginning in December, 1869, the policy of enforcing the Fourteenth Amendment was abandoned for the alternative policy of legislating for a provisional government. The reason for the change was an emergency in which the Republican Politicians found themselves. In the previous February Congress had passed the joint resolution proposing the Fifteenth Amendment. By December it seemed certain that the number of ratifying states would fall short of the required three-fourths by just one, unless Congress could prevent it.[196] Georgia furnished the means of preventing it. In March her legislature had rejected the proposed amendment.[197] It could now be forced to ratify and thus complete the necessary majority. Georgia must then be treated not as a state which had violated the Fourteenth Amendment, but as a provisional organization subject to the uncontrolled will of Congress. A bill was accordingly prepared containing the same provisions as the bills of the preceding session, but adding this clause: "That the legislature shall ratify the Fifteenth Amendment before Senators and Representatives from Georgia are admitted to seats in Congress." In accordance with its different legal basis the bill was entitled: "An act to promote the reconstruction of the state of Georgia." Little need be said of the manner in which this bill was passed. The usual partisan abuse prevailed on both sides. The Democrats made a remarkable opposition, led by Beck of Kentucky.[198] The Republicans were aided by a message from President Grant urging the intervention of Congress,[199] by the report of the reconstruction committee on affairs in Georgia,[200] and by a report from General Terry, who was stationed in the Department of the South, alleging that disorder was rampant in Georgia and the need of further military government by federal authority imperative.[201] Terry's superior officer, General Halleck, added a postscript to Terry's report to the effect that Terry was mistaken, that the disorder in Georgia was much less than was commonly believed, and that federal interference was highly inadvisable.[202] Aided by the report and undeterred by the postscript, the Republicans discoursed of "rebel control" and "murder" with unprecedented effect. Butler said that Congress must act instantly; if action on the bill is postponed, he said, "the rest of the Republican majority of that state may be murdered, even during Christmas week, when the Son of God came on earth to bring peace and good will to man."[203]