In response to a petition, President Lincoln sent General Steele on January 20, 1864, a letter repeating substantially the instructions he had given General Banks for Louisiana.  Before these could be carried out, popular action had assembled at Little Rock on January 8, 1864, a formal delegate convention, composed of forty-four delegates who claimed to represent twenty-two out of the fifty-four counties of the State.  On January 22 this convention adopted an amended constitution which declared the act of secession null and void, abolished slavery immediately and unconditionally, and wholly repudiated the Confederate debt.  The convention appointed a provisional State government, and under its schedule an election was held on March 14, 1864.  During the three days on which the polls were kept open, under the orders of General Steele, who by the President’s suggestion adopted the convention program, a total vote of 12,179 was cast for the constitution, and only 226 against it; while the provisional governor was also elected for a new term, together with members of Congress and a legislature which in due time chose United States senators.  By this time Congress had manifested its opposition to the President’s plan, but Mr. Lincoln stood firm, and on June 29 wrote to General Steele: 

“I understand that Congress declines to admit to seats the persons sent as senators and representatives from Arkansas.  These persons apprehend that in consequence you may not support the new State government there as you otherwise would.  My wish is that you give that government and the people there the same support and protection that you would if the members had been admitted, because in no event, nor in any view of the case, can this do any harm, while it will be the best you can do toward suppressing the rebellion.”

While Military Governor Andrew Johnson had been the earliest to begin the restoration of loyal Federal authority in the State of Tennessee, the course of campaign and battle in that State delayed its completion to a later period than in the others.  The invasion of Tennessee by the Confederate General Bragg in the summer of 1862, and the long delay of the Union General Rosecrans to begin an active campaign against him during the summer of 1863, kept civil reorganization in a very uncertain and chaotic condition.  When at length Rosecrans advanced and occupied Chattanooga, President Lincoln deemed it a propitious time to vigorously begin reorganization, and under date of September 11, 1863, he wrote the military governor emphatic suggestions that: 

“The reinauguration must not be such as to give control of the State and its representation in Congress to the enemies of the Union, driving its friends there into political exile....  You must have it otherwise.  Let the reconstruction be the work of such men only as can be trusted for the Union.  Exclude all others; and trust that your government so organized will be recognized here as being the one of republican