banks, and freedmen's schools of the South, favored the political machinery of a party in the Southern States; and that the official authority and power of his bureau had been exercised for personal and political profit. Mr. Wood's original proposition was, that the investigation of the charges made by him should be carried on by the Committee on Freedmen's Affairs. This was composed wholly of Republican members; but it was thought more appropriate to refer the matter to the Committee on Education and Labor. It accordingly took that direction. This committee was composed of eight Republicans and two Democrats, its chairman being Samuel M. Newell, of Tennessee. The magnitude of the investigation to be entered upon was manifest from the fact that the latest annual report of the bureau showed the total expenditure from its organization down to that date (August, 1879), to have been, in cash, over eleven million dollars; or, including subsistence and stores, over thirteen and a half millions. This was exclusive of the value of abandoned lands and houses used by the bureau. It was also exclusive of some three million acres of public lands. The investigation occupied several months. It attracted the attention of the press and country to an unusual degree. Both sides were represented by counsel. It was claimed on the part of the prosecution that, through the partisan rulings of the majority of the committee, much relevant and important testimony was excluded. Nevertheless, a sufficient array of admitted or incontrovertible facts was brought forward to enable the minority of the committee to claim that many, if not all, of the charges brought forward by Mr. Wood were fully substantiated by the testimony. The report of the majority of the committee, on the other hand, was a complete exculpation of the commissioner, and a eulogy of himself and his associates. The testimony, however, has gone into the permanent records of the country. It will, in the days to come, confirm the objection made by the author and others in Congress, to such an agency as was created by the Freedmen's Bureau. It furnishes valuable materials for the student, or historian, of the reconstruction period of American history; and to the philosopher, it will illustrate the unfitness of the Federal Government, or its officers, to become the administrators of an eleemosynary fund. It will show that under a written organic law, of granted powers with strict construction, the last place for charitable trusts, is our Federal system and its agencies. It is not within the scope of this work to enter into the minute details developed in this investigation. A brief glance at some of the more salient points will show the good sense, and good law which inspired President Johnson's veto. The first charge — that of using half a million dollars of the funds of the bureau for purchasing the lands and erecting the buildings of the Howard University - was not disputed; but the act itself was justified and commended by the majority of th committee. And yet, it was certainly an expenditure of very questionab propriety. It was made at a time when the most imperative needs of to BUREAU MANAGEMENT. 449 homeless and naked freedmen demanded shelter and plain, warm clothing, and when their children could not obtain even the first rudiments of education. The Freedmen's Bureau was created for the avowed purpose of providing for the wants of the more destitute freedmen and refugees. It was a gross and palpable misapplication of its fund to apply any portion of it, and particularly so large a portion, to the erection of pretentious university buildings. No such provision had ever been made by the United States Government for the education of other classes of citizens, except in the case of army and navy officers. The misapplication of the freedmen's fund to this use was as gross as would be that of any other charity fund, when applied to the erection of palatial school buildings. The purchase of several squares of land in the city of Washington by General Howard, Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, and John R. Evans, of Washington, trustees of the Educational fund, which was a branch of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the erection thereon of seventy-six tenement-houses for occupation by colored families, was another rather unfortunate exercise of judgment in the use of the fund The aggregate cost of this enterprise was about $124,000 The reason assigned for it was, that there were 33,000 destitute freedmen in the city who were about to be turned out of the old condemned barracks and other temporary buildings which they had been occupying; but the accommodations thus provided would only furnish shelter to some 1,300 persons. The remainder of the 33,000 persons were literally left "out in the cold." Besides, the bureau had at its disposal 3,000,000 acres of the public lands. On these it should have settled the freedmen. Ample funds to transport them were at their disposal. Would not that have been a wiser course than trying to establish these poor colored people at Washington? It was, therefore, quite natural that the minority of the committee, at least, should regard the real estate speculation with some suspicion. The majority of the committee, however, failed to see anything in it that was not proper and prudent. Another real estate transaction of much larger proportions, is of still more questionable propriety. It received attention. This was the purchase of what was known as the Barry Farm. This farm was a tract of about three hundred and seventy-five acres adjacent to the government insane asylum. It was within a mile from the city limits. The motive assigned for the acquirement and settlement of this property was a philanthropic one. The plan was, that the farm might be cut up into small homesteads for colored families, which they could acquire in ownership on the installment principle. It was accordingly mapped out into small holdings. These were sold on a graduated scale of prices, ranging from $125 to $300 per acre. These prices were made so as to cover, as it was said, the original cost, which was $52,000. The chief quartermaster of the bureau furnished to the acquirer of each of these lots, lumber to the value of $70, for the construction of a dwelling-house. They borhood. were, like the houses in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, to be built in all their appointments according to a uniform plan. Thus the little colony was started. For a year or two the plan promised to be a moderate success; but the negroes soon became discouraged. The land consisted for the most part of gravelly, precipitous hill-sides, of no possible value for farming or gardening purposes. Employment at fair wages was hard to be got in the city or neighThe payment of the installments became irregular, and when it ceased, the payments already made were forfeited. The dwellings began to fall into dilapidation and abandonment; and up to the present day, the progress of decay, poverty, and ruin in this ill-fated negro colony has been regular and uninterrupted. It was this enterprise on the part of General Howard and his associates that was the subject of the most unfavorable comments by the public at large. It was very severely condemned by the minority of the committee; but the majority of the committee saw in it nothing deserving of censure or disapproval. The operations of the bureau and its officials in the Southern States were not examined, in this investigation. If they had been, the developments might have been even more disgraceful than those which were actually brought to light. The impression made on the public mind by the exposure of these facts was unfavorable to the bureau, its management, and its officers. Soon afterwards General Howard was assigned to army duties. The Freedmen's Bureau ceased to exist. The failure of the Freedmen's Bank, in which the same loose business methods were practiced, and in the management of which many of the officials of the bureau were more or less connected, gave the coup-de-grâce to this politico-philanthropic scheme. It had its origin chiefly in sectional bitterness and pseudo humanity. Its main motive was a desire to perpetuate the existence of the Republican party; and its close was appropriately attended by an ignominious failure of its political designs, and by the spoliation of the poor, industrious colored people of the South and of the District of Columbia, whose hoardings, to the amount of several million dollars, had been entrusted to the Freedmen's Savings Bank, and its branches in the Southern States. CHAPTER XXV. KU-KLUX OUTRAGES. RESISTANCE TO RECONSTRUCTION MEASURES—INTIMIDATION AND TERRORISM IN THE SOUTH - PREVALENCE OF LAWLESSNESS SECRET SOCIETIES - THE KU-KLUX KLAN-VIRGINIA AN EXCEPTION-GENERAL FORREST'S TESTIMONY NESS. Ο NE of the capital offenses of the Republican party during the first few years after the war, consisted in the attempt to rule the South and their elections by the military power. They forgot the teaching of Mirabeau, that bayonets are too often the only remedy applied to the convulsions of the oppressed, and that they never establish anything except the peace of terror and the silence of despotism. Those who have no faith in the discriminating judgment of the people naturally regard them as the furious herd to be held in check. They forget that they are always quiet and moderate when free, and violent and unruly only under those governments which systematically debase them, in order to have a pretext to despise them. This teaching of Mirabeau, among other civil lessons, had no place in the ethics of Congress. There was nothing of wisdom spoken to justify the obnoxious and forceful laws which kindled anew the coals of contention. Even members of Congress, after the war was over, cried out for an army again, to march against the vanquished Southern people. Philippics were hurled, based upon thousand-tongued rumor, against secret organizations in the South. The Ku-Klux secrecy was the pretext for these cries. No one undertook or undertakes to justify the Ku-Klux system of repression. There are reasons higher than ordinary reasons why efforts should have been made to remove the causes or the occasion of such secret associations rather than to remove their effect. The conduct of the oppressed Southern people aroused the spirit of retaliation in the minds of those who after the war sought to establish martial law, and illegally to suspend habeas corpus, and who forgot that when laws are violative of the Constitution they lead to rapine and murder. More heinous is crime when done under the guise of law. They forgot what Mackintosh had said, that the massacres of war, the murders committed by the sword of justice and the solemnities. which invest them are disguised; but the wild justice of the people is a naked and undisguised horror. Its wildest motion awakens all our indignation, while murder and rapine, if arrayed in the gorgeous disguise of acts of state, stalk abroad with impunity. Force is the antithesis of freedom. The bills introduced in Congress in 1871 and thereafter were bills of force. They were in restraint of liberty. According to Buckle, all such bills are inimical to civilization. They are in flagrant derogation of the idea, that society can prosper without being watched by the state at every turn. The municipal spirit of our laws was set aside by the force bill and other measures in connection with the legislation of 1870, '71 and '72. Such laws were the very draff and offal of force and change, when force and change were accounted the predecessors of events, and when barbarism was the consequent condition. The famous force bill, in April, 1871, was a partisan movement. It might as well have been at once a bill to appoint a dictator. It was copied after the policy of the Marats and Robespierres, when they thundered their red evangel in the club and in the assembly. It was based on the clamor about assassinations in the South. It was intended to arouse the turbulence which was begotten, in order to be charged upon the opposite party. After many investigations by the House this vindictive legislation was proceeding without substantial proof. Such legislation had failed for six years to do anything else than to squander revenue and create debts, to feed vampires and organize janissaries, to organize negro militia and military governments. The same spirit made amendments to the Constitution and had them adopted under duress. It exercised clemency only to add renegades to its recruits. The fomenters of these troubles were not satisfied with the bills on the statute-book, which were strong enough to outrage principle and threaten the citizen. They were not satisfied with the pains and penalties of such bills, but they kept public opinion continually aroused by attempted Federal legislation to make a discontented South, out of which might arise their future accession to power and continuance in its enjoy ment. It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if the social and political revolution which the results of the war had imposed on the states then recently insurgent had gone into operation peacefully, harmoniously, and successfully. It was impossible for such to be the case. The transition was from a state in which the superiority and domination of the white race over the colored race existed unquestioned for centuries. It was to a condition of things |