The first portion of the report is a general review of the steps which had already been taken by the President, and of the powers of the executive and legislative departments. It was declared that at the close of the war the Confederate States were in a condition of utter exhaustion and complete anarchy. Congress having failed to provide for the contingency, the President had no power except to execute the national laws and establish "such a system of government as might be provided for by existing national statutes." These States "by withdrawing their representatives in Congress, by renouncing the privilege of representation, by organizing a separate government, and by levying war against the United States, destroyed their State constitutions in respect to the vital principle which connected their respective States with the Union and secured their federal relations; and nothing of these constitutions was left of which the United States were bound to take notice." The President had two alternatives: either to "assemble Congress and submit the whole matter to the law-making power," or to continue military supervision in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the army, until the regular assembling. Choosing the latter course, he appointed over the revolted States provisional governors who possessed military authority, but who "had no power to organize civil governments nor to exercise any authority except that which inhered in their own persons under their commissions." The President in his military capacity might properly permit the people to form local governments, execute local laws not inconsistent with national laws, and even withdraw military forces altogether if he deemed it safe. But to Congress, not to the President, belonged the power "to decide upon the nature or effect of any system of government which the people of these States might see fit to adopt," and to fix terms by which the States might be restored to all their rights and privileges as States of the Union. "The loss of representation by the people of the insurrectionary States was their own voluntary choice. They might abandon their privileges, but they could not escape their obligations," and they could not complain.