This added as a proviso to the fourth section: "That no sentence of death under the provisions of this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the President." The bill was returned to the House in this form, the Senate having passed it at six o'clock Sunday morning, February 17. The margin of time that could be used without permitting the bill to be killed by a "pocket veto" was now very limited, but the House refused to concur in the amendment and called for a committee of conference, February 19. The Senate insisted on its amendment and the bill was again returned to the House, which on the following day concurred in the Senate amendment, but added an amendment of its own proposed by Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, and amended on motion of Mr. Shellabarger.[162] This amendment, constituting the sixth section of the bill, was speedily concurred in by the Senate, and on February 20, 1867, the bill was finally passed and ready for the President's veto. The sixth section, so hurriedly tacked on to the bill, was of no slight importance, as it declared in legal form the _status_ of the Southern governments, and clinched the qualifications for the elective franchise. It provided that "until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to any office under such provisional governments all persons shall be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no person shall be eligible to any office under any such provisional governments who would be disqualified from holding office under the provisions of the third article of said constitutional amendment."[163] As had been expected, Johnson withheld his veto as long as it was possible for him to do so without permitting the bill to become a law, not returning the bill until March 2.[164] This was done in the hope that the minority, by dilatory proceedings, might prevent action on the veto before the adjournment, on March 4, and so prevent the bill from becoming a law. But the plan failed, and the bill was immediately passed, "the objections of the President to the contrary notwithstanding."