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All these experiments, orders, and systems were bound to
attract and perplex the government and the nation. Directly
after the Emancipation Proclamation, Representative Eliot had
introduced a bill creating a Bureau of Emancipation; but it was
never reported. The following June a committee of inquiry,
appointed by the Secretary of War, reported in favor of a
temporary bureau for the "improvement, protection, and
employment of refugee freedmen," on much the same lines
as were afterwards followed. Petitions came in to President
Lincoln from distinguished citizens and organizations, strongly
urging a comprehensive and unified plan of dealing with the
freedmen, under a bureau which should be "charged with the
study of plans and execution of measures for easily guiding,
and in every way judiciously and humanely aiding, the passage
of our emancipated and yet to be emancipated blacks from the
old condition of forced labor to their new state of voluntary
industry."
Some half-hearted steps were taken to accomplish this, in
part, by putting the whole matter again in charge of the
special Treasury agents. Laws of 1863 and 1864 directed
them to take charge of and lease abandoned lands for periods
not exceeding twelve months, and to "provide in such leases,
or otherwise, for the employment and general welfare" of the
freedmen. Most of the army officers greeted this as a welcome
relief from perplexing "Negro affairs," and Secretary
Fessenden, July 29, 1864, issued an excellent system of
regulations, which were afterward closely followed by General
Howard. Under Treasury agents, large quantities of land were
leased in the Mississippi Valley, and many Negroes were employed;
but in August, 1864, the new regulations were
suspended for reasons of "public policy," and the army was
again in control.
Meanwhile Congress had turned its attention to the subject;
and in March the House passed a bill by a majority of two
establishing a Bureau for Freedmen in the War Department.
Charles Sumner, who had charge of the bill in the Senate,
argued that freedmen and abandoned lands ought to be under
the same department, and reported a substitute for the House
bill attaching the Bureau to the Treasury Department. This
bill passed, but too late for action by the House. The debates
wandered over the whole policy of the administration and the
general question of slavery, without touching very closely the
specific merits of the measure in hand. Then the national
election took place; and the administration, with a vote of
renewed confidence from the country, addressed itself to the
matter more seriously. A conference between the two branches
of Congress agreed upon a carefully drawn measure which
contained the chief provisions of Sumner's bill, but made the
proposed organization a department independent of both the
War and the Treasury officials. The bill was conservative,
giving the new department "general superintendence of all
freedmen." Its purpose was to "establish regulations" for
them, protect them, lease them lands, adjust their wages, and
appear in civil and military courts as their "next friend."
There were many limitations attached to the powers thus
granted, and the organization was made permanent. Nevertheless,
the Senate defeated the bill, and a new conference
committee was appointed. This committee reported a new
bill, February 28, which was whirled through just as the
session closed, and became the act of 1865 establishing in the
War Department a "Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands."
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