all causes of irritation should be removed as promptly as possible, that
a more perfect union may be established and the country be restored to
peace and prosperity.

The convention of the people of Virginia which met in Richmond on
Tuesday, December 3, 1867, framed a constitution for that State, which
was adopted by the convention on the 17th of April, 1868, and I desire
respectfully to call the attention of Congress to the propriety of
providing by law for the holding of an election in that State at some
time during the months of May and June next, under the direction of
the military commander of that district, at which the question of the
adoption of that constitution shall be submitted to the citizens of
the State; and if this should seem desirable, I would recommend that a
separate vote be taken upon such parts as may be thought expedient, and
that at the same time and under the same authority there shall be an
election for the officers provided under such constitution, and that
the constitution, or such parts thereof as shall have been adopted by
the people, be submitted to Congress on the first Monday of December
next for its consideration, so that if the same is then approved the
necessary steps will have been taken for the restoration of the State
of Virginia to its proper relations to the Union. I am led to make this
recommendation from the confident hope and belief that the people of
that State are now ready to cooperate with the National Government in
bringing it again into such relations to the Union as it ought as soon
as possible to establish and maintain, and to give to all its people
those equal rights under the law which were asserted in the Declaration
of Independence in the words of one of the most illustrious of its sons.

I desire also to ask the consideration of Congress to the question
whether there is not just ground for believing that the constitution