What is the character of such a military civil officer?  This bill declares that he shall perform the duties of the civil office to which he is detailed.  It is clear, however, that he does not lose his position in the military service.  He is still an officer or soldier of the Army; he is still subject to the rules and regulations which govern it, and must yield due deference, respect, and obedience toward his superiors.

The clear intent of this section is that the officer or soldier detailed to fill a civil office must execute its duties according to the laws of the State.  If he is appointed a governor of a State, he is to execute the duties as provided by the laws of that State, and for the time being his military character is to be suspended in his new civil capacity.  If he is appointed a State treasurer, he must at once assume the custody and disbursement of the funds of the State, and must perform those duties precisely according to the laws of the State, for he is intrusted with no other official duty or other official power.  Holding the office of treasurer and intrusted with funds, it happens that he is required by the State laws to enter into bond with security and to take an oath of office; yet from the beginning of the bill to the end there is no provision for any bond or oath of office, or for any single qualification required under the State law, such as residence, citizenship, or anything else.  The only oath is that provided for in the ninth section, by the terms of which everyone detailed or appointed to any civil office in the State is required “to take and to subscribe the oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the United States.”  Thus an officer of the Army of the United States detailed to fill a civil office in one of these States gives no official bond and takes no official oath for the performance of his new duties, but as a civil officer of the State only takes the same oath which he had already taken as a military officer of the United States.  He is, at last, a military officer performing civil duties, and the authority under which he acts is Federal authority only; and the inevitable result is that the Federal Government, by the agency of its own sworn officers, in effect assumes the civil government of the State.

A singular contradiction is apparent here.  Congress declares these local State governments to be illegal governments, and then provides that these illegal governments shall be carried on by Federal officers, who are to perform the very duties imposed on its own officers by this illegal State authority.  It certainly would be a novel spectacle if Congress should attempt to carry on a legal State government by the agency of its own officers.  It is yet more strange that Congress attempts to sustain and carry on an illegal State government by the same Federal agency.

In this connection I must call attention to the tenth and eleventh sections of the bill, which provide that none of the officers or appointees of these military commanders “shall be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of the United States,” and that all the provisions of the act “shall be construed liberally, to the end that all the intents thereof may be fully and perfectly carried out.”