Under this authority, an election was held, and the legislature then elected assembled on November 20, 1865, and ratified the amendments to the federal Constitution, excepting the fourteenth. That was regarded as equivalent to a bill of attainder, depriving vast numbers of the rights of citizenship without trial. The legislature comprised a majority of men who had been anti-secessionists--the senate at least two-thirds; but they had held offices before the war and served the Confederate government. The legislature rejected the fourteenth amendment; its adoption would have been political suicide for the members. It enacted a law to protect freedmen in Alabama in their rights of person and property. The federal authorities were duly notified of the proceedings, and on December 18, 1865, Governor Parsons received from Secretary of State Seward a telegram saying that "in the judgment of the president the time had arrived when the care and conduct of the affairs of Alabama could be remitted to the constitutional authorities chosen by the people thereof without danger to the peace and safety of the United States", and directing him to transfer to his excellency the governor of Alabama, the papers and property in his hands. Accordingly, on December 10, 1865, Robert M. Patton, of Lauderdale, was inaugurated governor, and Parsons retired. (Patton was a Virginian, long settled as a merchant in northern Alabama. As a Whig, he had served in both houses of the legislature and become president of the senate. In the election of 1865, he defeated Colonel M. J. Bulger. He was intelligent and painstaking in the discharge of duties. Patton continued in the office of governor until 1868, several months beyond the full term, pending action by Congress respecting the results of the election of that year, when he was displaced by operation of the reconstruction acts. During his incumbency a federal military commander, supported by soldiers stationed in the capitol, supervised all of his appointments and official acts.) As evidence of confidence, the legislature elected former Governor Parsons United States senator for the term ending March 3, 1871. At the same time, it chose George S. Houstan for the term ending March 3, 1867, and John Anthony Winston for the term of six years, commencing March 4, 1867. At the election in November, 1865, C. C. Langdon was elected to Congress from the first district: George C. Freemen, from the second; Cullen A. Battle, from the third; Joseph W. Taylor, from the fourth; Burwell T. Pope, from the fifth, and Thomas J. Foster, from the sixth. Then came early rumblings of the storm that was soon to break. These chosen men were not permitted to take their seats as representatives, and the state was not represented in Congress until 1868. CHAPTER THREE MILITARY GOVERNMENT