The War Department's deduction from the Reorganization Act of authority to institute again the system of the Reconstruction Acts came a month or two later under the consideration of the Senate judiciary committee, and was pronounced a gratuitous perversion of the act last passed. That act implied, to be sure, that the Georgia government was provisional; but it was plainly intended not to revive but to supersede the former regulations regarding that government. The purpose of the Reorganization Act was simply that the legislature should reorganize itself and ratify the Fifteenth Amendment. To this purpose military government had no relation. The Reconstruction Acts had not expired according to their own provisions as to Georgia, it was true, but they had been repealed by the Reorganization Act. This was further proved by the latter's provision that military force should be used "upon the application of the governor." The Reorganization Act, said the committee, "invokes military action in what it provides shall be done, and no more."[211] Unfortunately this opinion was delivered some time after the theory which it demolished had been in practical operation. Terry, having received the _rôle_ of military governor, played it as the true heir to the power of his great predecessors. He removed from office three sheriffs and a county ordinary and appointed successors.[212] He intervened in eight private controversies and composed them with a strong hand.[213] In two cases before the state courts he substituted his command for the regular process.[214] Still more apparent was the official character which he had assumed, in his conduct toward the legislature. Possessing the power wielded by Pope and Meade, he could issue any orders he pleased to that body. For this reason, and because he was in sympathy with them, the Georgia Republicans ardently embraced and tenaciously clung to the theory that he was not a mere assistant in executing the Reorganization Act, but a military governor under the Reconstruction Acts.