The Committee on the Freedmen, having given much time and attention to the perfection of a measure to meet the necessities of the case, on the 22d of May reported through their chairman, Mr. Eliot, "A bill to continue in force and amend an act entitled 'an act to establish a Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees, and for other purposes.'"
This bill provided for keeping in force the Freedmen's Bureau then in existence for two years longer. Some of the features to which the President had objected in his veto of the former bill had been modified and in part removed. In providing for the education of freedmen, the commissioner was restricted to cooperating so far with the charitable people of the country as to furnish rooms for school-houses and protection to teachers. The freedmen's courts were to be kept in existence till State legislation should conform itself to the Civil Rights Bill, and the disturbed relations of the States to the Union were restored. The President was required to reserve from sale public lands, not exceeding in all one million of acres, in Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana, to be assigned in parcels of forty acres and less to loyal refugees and freedmen.
One week after the introduction of the bill, its consideration was resumed. The question was taken without debate, and the bill passed by a vote of ninety-six in favor and thirty-two against the measure. Fifty-five members failed to vote.
On the day following, May 30th, the clerk of the House conveyed the bill to the Senate. It was there referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, as that committee already had before them seven bills relating to the same subject. Nearly a fortnight subsequently, the committee reported back to the Senate the House bill with certain amendments. The report of the committee, and the amendments proposed therein, could not be considered in the Senate until the lapse of another fortnight. On the 26th of June, the amendments devised by the committee were read in the Senate and adopted. Mr. Davis made a number of attempts to have the bill laid on the table or deferred to a subsequent day, but without success. Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Buckalew made ineffectual attempts to amend the bill by proposing to strike out important sections.
The Senate indulged in but little discussion of the bill or the amendments. The bill as amended finally passed the Senate by a vote of twenty-six for and six against the measure. The bill then went to the House for the concurrence of that body in the amendments passed by the Senate.
The Committee on the Freedmen made a report, which was adopted by the
House, to non-concur in the amendments of the Senate. A Committee of
Conference was appointed on the part of the Senate and the House.
They, after consultation, made a report by which the Senate
amendments, with some modifications, were adopted.
Mr. Eliot, Chairman of the Committee on the Freedmen, and of the Committee of Conference on the part of the House, at the request of a member, thus explained the amendments proposed by the Senate: "The first amendment which the Senate made to the bill, as it was passed by the House, was simply an enlargement of one of the sections of the House bill, which provided that the volunteer medical officers engaged in the medical department of the bureau might be continued, inasmuch as it was expected that the medical force of the regular army would be speedily reduced to the minimum, and in that case all the regular officers would be wanted in the service. It was therefore thought right that there should be some force connected with the Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen. The Senate enlarged the provisions of the House bill by providing that officers of the volunteer service now on duty might be continued as assistant commissioners and other officers, and that the Secretary of War might fill vacancies until other officers could be detailed from the regular army. That is the substance of the first material amendment.
"The next amendment strikes out a portion of one of the sections of the House bill, which related to the officers who serve as medical officers of the bureau, because it was provided for in the amendment to which I have just referred.
"The next amendment strikes out from the House bill the section which set apart, reserved from sale, a million acres of land in the Gulf States. It may perhaps be recollected that when the bill was reported from the committee, I stated that, in case the bill which the House had then passed, and which was known as the Homestead Bill, and which was then before the Senate, should become a law, this section of the bill would not be wanted. The bill referred to has become a law, and this section five, providing for that reservation, has, therefore, been stricken from the bill.
"The next amendment made by the Senate was to strike out a section of the House bill which simply provided that upon application for restoration by the former owners of the land assigned under General Sherman's field order, the application should not be complied with. That section is stricken out and another substituted for it, which provides that certain lands which are now owned by the United States, having been purchased by the United States under tax commissioners' sales, shall be assigned in lots of twenty acres to freedmen who have had allotments under General Sherman's field order, at the price for which the lands were purchased by the United States; and not only that those freedmen should have such allotments, but that other freedmen who had had lots assigned to them under General Sherman's field order, and who may have become dispossessed of their land, should have assignments made to them of these lands belonging to the United States. I think the justice of that provision will strike every one. And it will be perhaps a merit in the eyes of many that it does not call upon the Treasury for the expenditure of any money. In the bill which was passed by the House, it will be recollected that there was a provision under which there should be purchased by the commissioner of the bureau enough public lands to be substituted for the lands at first assigned to freedmen. Instead of that, provision is made by which they can have property belonging to the United States which has come into its possession under tax sales, and where the titles have been made perfect by lapse of time.