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-------------------------, ,---------------, 1866.

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress assembled:

WE, the undersigned citizens of the United States, residing in Virginia, respectfully represent that, as soon as the Military Power of the Nation had conquered the country so long held by the confederated rebels, which included Virginia, the same traitors who had set a price upon the heads of many of us because we were Union men; who were implicated in the murder of our neighbors for the same reason, and had destroyed by starvation, and other cruelties, thousands of National soldiers, possessed themselves of the political control of affairs within that portion of the lately conquered territory known as Virginia, and their Legislature now assumes to make laws binding upon the people.
One of the acts proposed, or already passed by that Legislature, provides for taxing the people of Virginia to pension the widow of Stonewall Jackson.  Others aim to disenfranchise loyal men by requiring a residence of five years in Virginia, as a qualification of voting.  Others are intended to degrade and humiliate the colored population, to deprive them of the benefits of their freedom, and to subject them to the power of the whites, by means of unjust and intolerably oppressive vagrant laws, and others, passed to satisfy the positive requirements of the National Government, ostensibly allow colored persons the right to testify in cases in which such persons are parties, but give even Justices of the Peace the power to decide, arbitrarily, and peremptorily, upon the credibility of such testimony, and to exclude it from the Jury, without appeal from such decision.
The only comment on the above measures that is needed, is contained in the fact that the body which is about the enact them into laws received with great applause, only a few days since, a suggestion from its presiding officer, that Robert E. Lee should be made Governor of Virginia. Meanwhile, the majority of the people who were lately in open rebellion, are not behind their Legislature in respect to disloyal conduct. Their feelings toward the Government of the United States are well illustrated by their demeanor towards its friends. They are preparing new indignities for their loyal neighbors, and have, in an organized and official capacity, through the medium of their so-called Courts of Justice, already gone so far that the Lieutenant General of our Army has been obliged to interfere, and prohibit the execution of the decrees of these Courts, during such time as the military power of the Government may extend to us its protection.
They have, with entire unanimity, excluded Union men from all participation in the management of the so-called State Government, and are even threatening to call a State Convention, for the purpose of removing its Executive head, who has, at length, arrived at a point where he seems disposed to act more firmly in dealing with these dangerous men. They assume that they have done no wrong, but acted nobly and honorably in rebelling against the Government of the United States, and, still wearing their Confederate uniforms, they demand, as a right, admission at Washington to a full participation with loyal men, in the control of the General Government.
Finally, were anything more needed to exhibit the state of feelings on the part of the people