"There were large tracts of land in Virginia and the other rebel States which were clearly applicable to this purpose. There was the source of supply—the lands and the labor. There were laborers enough, and there was rich land enough. At a very early day the abandoned lands were turned over to the care of the commissioners, and I supposed, and probably we all supposed, that the lands which in the language of the law were known as 'abandoned lands,' and those which were in the possession of the United States, would be appropriated to the uses of these freedmen. Within a week after the commissioner assumed the duties of his office, he found it necessary to issue an order substantially like this: Whereas, large amounts of lands in the State of Virginia and in other States have been abandoned, and are now in the possession of the freedmen, and are now under cultivation by them; and, whereas, the owners of those lands are now calling for their restoration, so as to deprive the freedmen of the results of their industry, it is ordered that the abandoned lands now under cultivation be retained by the freedmen until the growing crops can be secured, unless full and just compensation can be made them for their labor and its products.
"'The above order'—this is the part about which it appeared that some difference of judgment existed between the Executive and the commissioner of the bureau—'the above order will not be construed so as to relieve disloyal persons from the consequences of their disloyalty; and the application for the restoration of their lands by this class of persons will in no case be entertained by any military authority.'
"It was found, not a great while afterward, that the views which the President entertained as to his duty were somewhat in conflict with the provisions of this order; for it was held by the President that persons who had brought themselves within the range of his pardon and had secured it, and who had taken or did afterward take the amnesty oath, would be entitled, as one of the results of the pardon and of their position after the oath had been taken, to a restoration of their lands which had been assigned to freedmen. In consequence of this, an order was subsequently issued, well known as circular No. 15. And under the operation of that circular, on its appearing satisfactorily to any assistant commissioner that any property under his control is not 'abandoned,' as defined in the law, and that the United States have acquired no perfect right to it, it is to be restored and the fact reported to the commissioner. 'Abandoned' lands were to be restored to the owners pardoned by the President, by the assistant commissioners, to whom applications for such restoration were to be forwarded; and each application was to be accompanied by the pardon of the President and by a copy of the oath of amnesty prescribed in the President's proclamation, and also by a proof of title to the land. It must be obvious that the effect of this must have been to transfer from the care of the bureau to the owners very large portions of the land which had been relied upon for the support of the freedmen. Within a few weeks from the date of that order, no less than $800,000 worth of property in New Orleans was transferred, and about one third of the whole property in North Carolina in possession of the bureau was given up; and the officer having charge of the land department reports that before the end of the year, in all probability, there will be under the charge of the commissioner little, if any, of the lands originally designed for the support of these freedmen.
"It is obvious, if these lands are to be taken, that other lands must be provided, or the freedmen will become a dead weight upon the Treasury, and the bill under consideration assigns other lands, in the place of those thus taken, from the unoccupied public lands of the United States."
On the following day, Mr. Dawson, of Pennsylvania, obtained the floor in opposition to the bill. His speech was not devoted to a discussion of the bill in question, but was occupied entirely with general political and social topics. The following extract indicates the tenor of the speech:
"Negro equality does not exist in nature. The African is without a history. He has never shown himself capable of self-government by the creation of a single independent State possessing the attributes which challenge the respect of others. The past is silent of any negro people who possessed military and civil organization, who cultivated the arts at home, or conducted a regular commerce with their neighbors. No African general has marched south of the desert, from the waters of the Nile to the Niger and Senegal, to unite by conquest the scattered territories of barbarous tribes into one great and homogeneous kingdom. No Moses, Solon, Lycurgus, or Alfred has left them a code of wise and salutary laws. They have had no builder of cities; they have no representatives in the arts, in science, or in literature; they have been without even a monument, an alphabet, or a hieroglyphic."
On the other hand, Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, among the friends of the measure, delivered a speech "on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill," in which the topic discussed was "Restoration of the Rebel States." In the course of his remarks Mr. Garfield said:
"Let the stars of heaven illustrate our constellation of States. When God launched the planets upon their celestial pathway, he bound them all by the resistless power of attraction to the central sun, around which they revolved in their appointed orbits. Each may be swept by storms, may be riven by lightnings, may be rocked by earthquakes, may be devastated by all the terrestrial forces and overwhelmed in ruin, but far away in the everlasting depths, the sovereign sun holds the turbulent planet in its place. This earth may be overwhelmed until the high hills are covered by the sea; it may tremble with earthquakes miles below the soil, but it must still revolve in its appointed orbit. So Alabama may overwhelm all her municipal institutions in ruin, but she can not annul the omnipotent decrees of the sovereign people of the Union. She must be held forever in her orbit of obedience and duty."
After having quoted Gibbon's narrative of the destruction of the colossal statue of Serapis by Theophilus, Mr. Garfield said: "So slavery sat in our national Capitol. Its huge bulk filled the temple of our liberty, touching it from side to side. Mr. Lincoln, on the 1st of January, 1863, struck it on the cheek, and the faithless and unbelieving among us expected to see the fabric of our institutions dissolve into chaos because their idol had fallen. He struck it again; Congress and the States repeated the blow, and its unsightly carcass lies rotting in our streets. The sun shines in the heavens brighter than before. Let us remove the carcass and leave not a vestige of the monster. We shall never have done that until we have dared to come up to the spirit of the Pilgrim covenant of 1620, and declare that all men shall be consulted in regard to the disposition of their lives, liberty, and property. The Pilgrim fathers proceeded on the doctrine that every man was supposed to know best what he wanted, and had the right to a voice in the disposition of himself."
Mr. Taylor, of New York, opposed the bill principally on the ground of the expense involved in its execution. After having presented many columns of figures, Mr. Taylor arrived at this conclusion: "The cost or proximate cost of the bureau for one year, confining its operation to the hitherto slave States, will be $25,251,600. That it is intended to put the bureau in full operation in every county and parish of the hitherto slave States, including Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, I have not the least doubt, nor have I any doubt but that it is intended to extend it into parts of some of the border States."