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It began at the time when war memories and ideals were rapidly passing; a day of astonishing commercial development was dawning; a sense of doubt and hesitation overtook the freedmen's sons, then it was that his leading began. Mr.

The triumph of reaction in the South inaugurated a new era in which we may distinguish three phases: the renewed attempt to reduce the Negroes to serfdom, the rise of the Negro metayer, and the economic disfranchisement of the Southern working class. The attempt to replace individual slavery had been frustrated by the Freedmen's Bureau and the Fifteenth Amendment.

It is one of the curious indices of public feeling that the North listened, at first, with good-natured indifference to the virulent diatribes of the recently conquered people in regard to this institution; after a time wonder succeeded to indifference; until finally, while it was still an active branch of the public service, wondering credulity succeeded, and its name became synonymous with disgrace; so that now there is hardly a corner of the land in which a man can be found brave enough to confess that he wore the uniform and performed the duties of an agent of the "Freedmen's Bureau."

Most of the others have found, through the Freedmen's Relief Association, places as laborers, and are giving good satisfaction; and in no county are they applying for aid, nor are burdens upon corporate charities.

Pappineau, committee who had charge of the funds of the Freedmen's Fair, I left for Washington, D. C., August 3d. At Pittsburg I spent one night, and on the following day visited the State Prison at Allegheny City.

Meantime, however, the breach between Congress and the President began to broaden, and a modified form of the lost bill was finally passed over the President's second veto, July 16. The act of 1866 gave the Freedmen's Bureau its final form, the form by which it will be known to posterity and judged of men.

"I desire the Senator from Indiana to understand that it is under this war power that the authority of the Freedmen's Bureau is to be exercised. I do not claim that its officers can try persons for offenses without juries in States where the civil tribunals have not been interrupted by the rebellion. The Senator from Indiana argues against this bill as if it was applicable to that State.

Neither of the two plans for guiding the freedmen into a place in the social order the "Black Laws" and the Freedmen's Bureau was successful. The former contained a program which was better suited to actual conditions and which might have succeeded if it had been given a fair trial.

Hence their anxiety to have their State governments restored at once, to have the troops withdrawn, and the Freedmen's Bureau abolished, although a good many discerning men know well that, in view of the lawless spirit still prevailing, it would be far better for them to have the general order of society firmly maintained by the federal power until things have arrived at a final settlement.

And of that work it has been truly said, "No approximately correct history of civilization can ever be written which does not throw out in bold relief, as one of the great landmarks of political and social progress, the organization and administration of the Freedmen's Bureau."