From the beginning of his rêgime, he made it clear that his own policy toward the restoration of the Southern states was exactly that which Abraham Lincoln had so definitely expressed; that the Government of the United States was erected as a perpetuity; that the Constitution provides for the admission of the states, but not for their secession or destruction. Said President Johnson: “A rebellious state, when it comes out of a rebellion, is still a state. I hold it a high duty to protect and to secure to those states a republican form of government, but such a state must be restored by its friends, not smothered by its enemies.” As first step toward accomplishing the restoration of the civil status of the South, Johnson bent all his energies to the task of encouraging and aiding the states to make the required pledges of allegiance. This he regarded as a political and economic necessity and his most important duty as the Executive of the nation. On May 9th, Johnson issued an order declaring that all acts, proceedings of the political, military, and civil organizations which had been in a state of rebellion against the authority of the United States within the State of Virginia were null and void and that the various heads of the Federal government should proceed to reorganize civil authority in the state. He also appointed Francis H. Pierpoint governor with power to reëstablish civil government. From May 29th to July 13th, he issued similar proclamations appointing provisional governors for North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida, with authority and instructions to reorganize state governments. These governments had been partially reorganized when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, had been submitted to them and ratified by them by the time Congress assembled. Mass meetings and conventions were held daily throughout the South, where the terms for readmission to the Union were discussed. These terms required them to renounce the Confederate debt and the right of secession, and to abolish slavery. By December, 1865, conventions had met in all of the states where Johnson had appointed provisional governors. The ordinance of secession had been repealed or had been declared void; slavery had been abolished. All but two states had repudiated the Confederate debt, and all but two had adopted the Thirteenth Amendment. State governments had been organized and representatives and senators had been generally elected. In fact, all of the eleven seceding states save Texas were ready, or in the process of getting ready, to be restored to the privileges of citizenship and participation in the legislation of the land.