CHAPTER VIII. THE PRESIDENT OFFENDED.-ADVERSE VOTE IN CONGRESS SURPRISES HIM. - -- - FREEDMAJOR-GENERAL HOWARD APPOINTED COMMIS -- MEN'S BUREAU ESTABLISHED. WIT - ITH the disposition manifested in both Houses of Congress it was feared that the conflict between the Legislative and Executive Departments of the Government would assume a virulent and vindictive spirit. It was known that President Johnson was deeply offended by the indirect refusal of the House to pass any resolution in the remotest degree approving his course. He had doubtless been led to believe that the influence of such eminent Republicans as Mr. Seward in his Cabinet, Mr. Cowan and Mr. Doolittle in the Senate and Mr. Raymond in the House, would bring about so considerable a division in the Republican ranks as to give the Administration, by uniting with the Democratic party, the control of Congress, or at least of one branch. The test vote of January 9th was an unwelcome demonstration of the degree to which the Presi dent had almost wilfully deceived himself and had been innocently deceived by others. He foresaw the struggle and with his combative nature prepared for it. On the last day of the preceding Congress, March 3, 1865, an Act had been passed to establish a bureau for the relief of freedmen and refugees. It was among the very last Acts approved by Mr. Lincoln, and was primarily designed as a protection to the freedmen of the South and to the class of white men known as "refugees,”driven from their homes by the rebels on account of their loyalty to the Union. Protection was needed by both classes during the disorganization necessarily incident to so great and sudden a change in their condition and in their relations to society. The total destruction of the long-established labor system of the South-based as it had been on chattel-slavery-led inevitably to great confusion, indeed almost to social anarchy. The result was that many of the freedmen, removed from the protection of their old masters, were exposed to destitution and to many forms of suffering. But for the interposition of the National Government there was serious danger that thousands of them might be reduced to starvation. Having taken the responsibility of freeing them, first by Proclamation of the President and then by Amendment of the Constitution, it would have been a lasting reproach to the Government not to extend protection and assistance to such of them as were thrown into dire extremity of want. They could not be left to the chance relief of the alms-giver, for their number was too large. The white population of the South were themselves reduced almost to poverty by the long struggle; and even if they had been able they were in no mood to extend relief to negroes who, as they believed, had been wrongfully released from slavery. The Act provided that the Bureau should have supervision and management of all abandoned lands and control of all subjects relating to freedmen and refugees from Rebel States, under such regulations as might be prescribed by the Commissioner at the head of the Bureau and by the President. The Secretary of War was authorized "to direct such issues of provisions, clothing and fuel as he may deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen and their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he may approve." The Commissioner was authorized to lease, for a term of three years, to every male citizen, whether refugee or freedman, not more than forty acres of the lands which had been abandoned by their owners or confiscated to the United States, at a rental of six per cent on the last appraised value. At the end of three years the occupant was entitled to purchase and receive the land, with such title as the United States could convey, at a price proportioned to the rental value. Very little permanent advantage came to the negro from this provision; for the abandoned lands were legally reclaimed by their owners and the confiscations, few in number, could, by the Constitution, be only for the life of the owner. Temporary relief however was afforded; but much harm was done by creating in the minds of ignorant freedmen, just redeemed from slavery, the belief that the Government would give to each of them "forty acres of land and a mule." The Commissioner selected was Major-General Oliver O. Howard, who had gone through the war with marked honor. He was a lieutenant of ordnance when Sumter was fired upon and a brigadiergeneral in the regular army three years later. He had discharged his military duties with steadiness, intelligence, earnestness and courage. He was a man of pure character, of deep religious faith, and was somewhat an exception to West-Point graduates in being from the outset thoroughly anti-slavery in his intellectual and moral convictions. it was the possession of these characteristics which led Secretary Stanton to select General Howard for the important trust. For his ease and his peace of mind he should have declined the place, as he might well have done, since it was not a military duty to accept. During his administration of the office he was subjected to unreasonable fault-finding, often to censure and obloquy; but throughout the whole he bore himself with the honor of a soldier and the purity of a Christian, — triumphantly sustaining himself throughout a Congressional investigation set on foot by political malice, and confronting with equal credit a military inquiry which had its origin in the jealousy that is often the bane of army service. On the first attempt to enforce the provisions of the original Act, its advocates and sympathizers found that it did not go far enough, nor give power enough to its agents to effect the desired object. On the 12th of January, therefore, Mr. Trumbull introduced from the Judiciary Committee a supplementary Act to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau. By the new bill the President was authorized to "divide the section of country containing the refugees into districts, not exceeding twelve in number, each containing one or more States, and with the advice and consent of the Senate to appoint an Assistant Commissioner for each district." The Bureau, at the discretion of the President, might be placed under a Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners to be detailed from the Army. Subdistricts, not to exceed the number of counties or parishes in each. State, were provided for; and to each sub-district an agent, either a citizen or officer of the Army, might be detailed for service. Each Assistant Commissioner might employ not more than six clerks. The President of the United States, through the War Department and through the Commissioner, was authorized to extend military jurisdiction and protection over all employees, agents and officers of the Bureau; and the Secretary of War was authorized to issue such provisions, clothing, fuel and other supplies, including medical stores, and to afford such aid, as he might deem needful for the immediate and temporary shelter and supply of destitute refugees and freedmen, their wives and children, under such rules and regulations as he might direct. The President was also authorized to reserve from sale or settlement under the Homestead and Pre-emption Laws, public lands in Florida, Mississippi and Arkansas, not to exceed three millions of acres of good land in all, for the use of the freedmen, at a certain rental to be named in such manner as the Commissioner should by regulation prescribe; or the Commissioner could purchase or rent such tracts of land in the several districts as might be necessary to provide for the indigent refugees and freedmen depending upon the Government for support. It was further provided that wherever in consequence of any State or local law any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons, such as the right to enforce contracts, to sue, to give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold or convey real and personal property, were refused or denied to freedmen on account of race or color or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, or whenever they were subjected to punishment for crime different from that provided for white persons, it was made the duty of the President, through the Commissioner, to extend military jurisdiction and protection over all cases affecting persons against whom such unjust discriminations were made. It was made the duty of the officers and agents of the Bureau to take jurisdiction of and to hear and determine all cases, in which by local law discrimination was made against the freedmen. This was to be done under such rules and regulations as the President, through the Commissioner, might prescribe. But the jurisdiction was to cease "whenever the discrimination on account of which it is conferred shall cease," and was in no event to be exercised in any State "in which the ordinary course of judicial proceeding has not been interrupted by the Rebellion, nor in those States after they shall have been fully restored to their constitutional relations to the United States, and when the courts of the State and of the United States, within their limits, are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice." In a time of peace these provisions seemed extraordinary, but the condition of affairs, in the judgment of leading Republican statesmen, justified their enactment. The Thirteenth Amendment, about to be formally promulgated by the Executive Department of the Government, as incorporated in the Constitution, had made every negro a free man. The Southern States had responded to this Act of National authority by enacting a series of laws which really introduced, as has already been shown, a new, offensive and most oppressive form of servitude. Thus not only was rank injustice contemplated by the States lately in rebellion, but they conveyed also an insulting challenge to the authority of the Nation. It was as if they had said to the National Government: "In order to destroy the Confederacy and restore the Union you have manumitted these black men; but we will demonstrate to you, by our local legislation, that you are powerless to give them any further freedom than we are willing to concede, and we defy you to show by what means you can achieve it!" The first answer of the National Government to this defiance was Mr. Trumbull's bill conferring upon the Freedmen's Bureau a degree of power which combated and restrained the Southern authorities at every point where wrong was committed or menaced. It was designed for the purpose of extending to the freedman protection against all the wrongs of local legislation, and to make him feel that the Government which had freed him would not desert him and allow his release from slavery to be made null and void. Mr. Johnson's policy of declaring all the States at once restored to the Union and in full possession of their powers of local legislation, would carry with it necessarily the confirmation of the odious laws already enacted in those States, and also the power to make them as stringent and binding upon the freedmen as the discretion of Southern legislators might dictate, Tho war would thus have practically injured |