such tracts of land within the insurrectionary States as had been abandoned, or to which the United States had acquired title by confiscation, sale, or otherwise. It also embraced other specifications as to the amount (forty acres), rent, time, and privilege of purchasing land at the end of three years. Mr. Howard of Michigan opposed it on the ground that it was made "a simple appendage to the War Department." Mr. Powell of Kentucky characterized it as a most "offensive" bill, creating, he said, a "multitude of office-holders like the locusts of Egypt. "The men," he said, "who are to go down there, and become overseers and negro-drivers, will be your broken-down politicians and your dilapidated preachers; that description of men who are too lazy to work, and just a little too honest to steal. That is the kind of crew that you propose to fasten on these poor negroes." And he expressed his astonishment that Mr. Sumner, who had" preached so much for negro equality and intelligence," should think so meanly of them "as to put masters over them to manage them." Motions for postponement and adjournment were made and defeated, when the final vote was reached and it was carried without a division. When it was reported to the House it still encountered Democratic opposition; but motions to prevent action were defeated, the report of the committee of conference was adopted without division, the bill received the approval of the President on the same day, and thus the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau became an assured fact and the law of the land. CHAPTER XXXV. Bureau organized. -- WORKINGS OF THE BUREAU. General Howard. Circulars. - Headquarters. — Vast responsibility and difficult position. - Principles and plan. — ExperimentalCongress invoked. Mr. Trumbull's bill in the Senate. Debate. - Demo cratic opposition. Speech of Hendricks. — Trumbull's reply. — Secondary considerations. -Cowan, Guthrie, Reverdy Johnson. Wilson's reply. -MeDougall, Saulsbury, Davis. Bill reported in the House. - Op posed by Kerr and Ritter. - Ably defended by Hubbard, Donnelly, Garfield. — Amendments proposed. — Passage. Passage. - Vetoed. - Debate on the veto. - An - Passed over the veto. - Esti other bill. Passed both Houses. Veto. Commissioner's report. MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. Howard was selected by the Presi dent as the Commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, and on the 12th of May, 1865, an order was issued from the War Department assigning him for duty in his new and untried field of labor and control. The same order directed the quartermaster-general to furnish him and his assistant commissioners suitable quarters and apartments; also the adjutant-general to detail for his service the necessary clerks authorized by the act that created the new department. General Howard's record as a soldier and Christian philan thropist, with his urbane and gentlemanly qualities, not only directed public attention to him as a suitable person for the grave and arduous responsibilities of the new office, but af forded much satisfaction when it was known that President Johnson had selected him therefor. His training and distinction as a soldier and his long identification with the cause of antislavery gave promise of an administration demanded by the peculiar exigencies of the situation. Distinguished by the generalship displayed at the battle of Gettysburg, in which he led what was regarded as a movement that did much to give victory to the Union forces on that eventful day, afterward commander of the Army of Tennessee, and selected by Sherman to lead one of his columns in his famous "March to the Sea," there was great confidence felt in his ability as well as assurance of his purpose to administer the duties of his new office in the interests of humanity as well as of good order, to protect the freedmen in their rights as well as to maintain the authority of the government. Entering immediately on the duties assigned him, he issued, only three days after his appointment, his first circular to the superintendents who had abandoned lands under their supervision for the use of freedmen, and to department commanders, calling for information in respect to the work, with its subjects, he had undertaken. In it he said: "The negro should understand that he is really free, but on no account, if able to work, should he harbor the thought that the government will support him in idleness." On the 19th he issued another and more general circular, setting forth the same in specific form and more in detail. In it he announced the immediate appointment of commissioners, to whom, or their agents, application should be made by those needing aid, advice, or redress, and to whom reports should be made; not to supersede, but to co-operate with benevolent organizations in their work among the freedmen; to "introduce a practical system of compensated labor"; to secure as far as possible good feeling and fair dealing among all concerned; to see that while the old, sick, and infirm should be provided for, "the ablebodied should be encouraged, and, if necessary, compelled, to labor for their own support"; to give the assurance that "the educational and moral condition of the people would not be forgotten," but that the "utmost facility" would be afforded to benevolent and religious organizations in efforts in that direction, with a reiteration of the purpose not to supersede but "to systematize and facilitate them." On the 30th he issued a still more elaborate circular, designating the nine headquarters he had fixed upon for the same number of assistant commissioners, and specifying more in detail the purposes of the new department and the rules by which it and its agents were to be governed. The headquarters were fixed for Virginia, at Richmond; for North Carolina, at Raleigh; for Georgia and South Carolina, at Beaufort; for Alabama, at Montgomery; for Kentucky and Tennessee, at Nashville; for Missouri and Arkansas, at St. Louis; for Mississippi, at Vicksburg; for Louisiana, at New Orleans; and for Florida, at Jacksonville. In laying down the principles and regulations for the guid ance and control of the assistant commissioners in the discharge of their duties, he was in effect giving rules for the government of a new empire, or what without a figure of speech might be called such; formed, too, of the most unpromising materials, and surrounded by the most unfavorable circumstances. Large powers were placed in his hands, and much, very much, was left to his discretion. Referring to the second section of the act creating the Bureau which committed to it "the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from Rebel States under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the head of the Bureau and approved by the President," General Howard thus expressed the idea in one of his reports: "This almost unlimited authority gave me great scope and liberty of action, but at the same time it im posed upon me very perplexing and responsible duties. Legis lative, judicial, and executive powers were combined in my commission, reaching all the interests of four millions of peo ple, scattered over a vast territory, living in the midst of another people claiming to be superior, and known to be not altogether friendly." Saying that at the outset he "could only lay down a few general principles," and leave it to them to work out "the details of organization," according to the different states of affairs in their respective districts, he added, referring to the circular just mentioned: "I therefore set forth clearly the objects to be attained and the powers which the Bureau could legally exercise, and left to my subordi nates to devise suitable measures for effecting these objects." These objects were in the highest degree benign and paternal. There was no discrimination between black and white, between loyal refugees who had been driven from their homes and who wished to return, and found their homes destroyed and themselves penniless, and the ex-slaves who, of course, had nothing they could call their own. To relieve all of the "calamities of their situation"; to smooth the passage from slavery to freedom; to soothe asperities of situation and compose the differences that could not but exist after the war; to relieve suffering, but in no such way as to lead to pauperism or to interfere with self-support, these were the "objects" proposed, and these were the modes by which they were to be secured. Everything like coercion, or anything like slavery under any guise, however deceptive, was discarded, and everything that was needful to introduce them into the new order of things then just opening was encouraged. On the 7th of June President Johnson issued an order, requiring "all officers of the Treasury Department, all military officers, and all others in the service of the United States, to turn over to the authorized officers of said Bureau all abandoned lands and property," and "all funds collected by tax or otherwise, or accruing from abandoned lands or property set apart for their use." Without larger than human wisdom to direct in their construction, acts and laws, rules and regulations, framed for the purposes for which the Bureau was created, could hardly be other than imperfect, experimental; requiring modification and improvement as, on trial, their workings should reveal such deficiencies. Then, again, the Bureau, as first organized, was designed only for those States which were engaged in the Rebellion and were embraced in the Proclamation of Emancipation. But, after the close of the war, and when slavery had been abolished by constitutional amendment, then the powers and range of its operations required a corresponding enlargement. From the start, too, it had encountered a bitter and implacable opposition. It was strictly watched and captiously criticised. Men waited for its halting, and if anything was worthy of censure, or even questionable, and especially if mistakes were made, through the wickedness or weakness of any of its agents, |