New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-08-18
THE FREEDMEN's BUREAU.

Ib e Investigations of Gems Steadman and
Fullerton fully sustain all the objections which
President johnson urged against the bureau
system in both of his admirable veto mes
sages, In advance the system was demonstra-
| bly, false and pernicious, because it was a
direct attack on one of the very few recog-
nized and established principles of govern
ment-that of leaving the relations OF labor
and capital to adjust themselves according to
the laws of political economy. In addition
to this it interfered with questions which
have always been regarded to be exclusively
within the sphere of State jurisdiction, and it
assumed powers for the federal government
which, in conjunction with the civil rights
bill, go very far towards annihilating the
rights of the States, and converting the gen
eral government into an unmitigated, central
lied despotism.
The report of Generals Steadman and Full
lerton does not, Of course, attempt to argue
these questions, because they are premises
which are to be proved by reference to econom-
ical and constitutional principles. But their
observation of the facts tends to show that all
the evil results predicatod in advance of the
system of interference and constraint, which
has been carried to SO great q length by the
/ United States Congress- have, in fact, been
manifested in a remarkable degree by the
practical workings of the freedmen's bureau
i in the Southern States. Prominent among
the developments of the report is the fact that
the system operates even more harshly on the
class for whose protection it was especially de-
Yised than on any other class of the community,
Of all the sufferers by this vicious system Of
! eonstraint and interference, the negroes feel
its oppression most sensibly. AS a general
thing capital can defend itself against unlimited
outrage. The employer may suffer as to his
profits, but he can scarcely be swindled and
plundered before his face. The white man,
as a general rule, can fight his own battles,
even against unprincipled and corrupt off
eials. But the unhappy negro has no safe
guards, no defense, no recourse, when those
appointed to be his protectors choose to OPP
press and plumber him. In consequence it
has been discovered that, throughout the
South, the blacks have been made the victims
of series of outrages perpetrated by freed
mems bureau agents and their accompices,
which are unparalleled in the history of even
the dominant party at Washington. 1t was
good policy as well as humanity on the part
of the two commissioners to direct their in
designations principally to this point. The
white people of the South feel keenly the op-
pressions of the bureau, and its deleterious
effects on the industry of the country but
they have newspapers which can argue their
cause for them The poor negroes, on the
contrary, must suffer in silence, unless the
press speak in their behalf or the commits
sioners Of the President come to their rescue
by making the facts known. AS one illustra-
ton of the kind Of treatment to which the
negroes are subjected by agents of the bureau
we reproduce the following from the report {:
Aside from the places of which we have spoken
as being infested by bad men, we found the ne
groes in Mississippi working industriously, and as
i. a rule kindly treated and doing well. In this, as
in others we have visited, the officers of the
bureau formerly imposed and collected fines, and
many kept no records. We found marked in
stance of this kind at Grenada, where former
agent of the bureau, Chaplain Livermore, did
thriving business in the way of collecting fines,
selling rations and government horses and mules.
This officer seems not only to have collected fines
ranging from fifty cents to five dollars from the
! freedmen for marrying them but also attempted
| giving them permission to marry freedmen. In
cases where the negroes were unable to pay the
| sum demanded of them for approving their con
| tracts or marrying them, the chaplain levied on
| their personal property, in one case seziug
| Negroes empty wallet and ack-lInife for balance
4 of fifty cents. This close driving is probably to
beacGounted for by the fact that Chaplain Liver
more openly expressed his intention to return to
/ Illinois with ten thousand dollars in his pocket.
After he had been removed from his post he
| offered military officer fifty dollars for his in
fuence to retain him in his position Chaplain
| LiveTmore left official papers behind to show
the disposition he had made of the funds received.
A large amount Of money was also collected by
the first two agents at Columbus in the shape Of
fees and fines and so far as we could learn no ac-
count was ever rendered Of it. This class of
| officers have lately been mustered out, or have
disappeared. Under the present administration
the agents exercise no judicial powers.
And, by way of showing how affairs have
been managed in this State, we give the fol-
lowing:
large proportion of the money expended on
| the freedmen schools under the administration of
the Rev. T. w. Conway the late assistant com
missioner, we are satisfied was squandered. Mr..
| Matthew Whilden formerly chief clerk in the
school department, in evidence before us-which
| IL hereto appended, marked " B STATED that in
1 September, 1865, Capt, Pease, the school super
ntendent, reported officially that there were
/ forty schools in operation and in furnishing CON
| uttiOu, Whbi u IdCU, lnere were DuE TWO. IL was
also sworn to before us that the books and re-
cords, which would have shown this report to be
inaccurate, were destroyed in Capt. Peases Office
and others substituted. We can see no objection
the fabrication of this false report unless it was
| to account for payments made to persons who
were not engaged in teaching. On examining the
pay roll, No. q for the month of August, 1865 we
| found that after it had been certified and ap-
proved, names had beenS added, and the totals
erased and changed on every page. We found
also discrepancy of several hundred dollars be-
tween the pay rolls for this month and the labor
roll No. 10.
From the sworn testimony, also hereto ap-
pended, it will be seen that Captain Morse, APP
pointed provost marshal of the bureau by Mr.
Conway, made the provost marshal's office a
slave-pen, arresting freedmen and selling them to
planters al five dollars a head, and sharing the
proceeds with his special policemen who made
the arrests. This officer further collected large
amount of money from freedmen and white per
Sons arrested by him for various oflenses and his
books only show receipts from this source
amounting to S675 10.
The bureau is cultyatlng a large plantation in
this Stale, for which it pays ten or fifteen nous,
and dollars year as rent. We can scarcely
imagine the excuse for renting land on account oil
the United States, when the government, through
each Congress, is giving away millions of acres Of
public lands to corporations I'D rgt-.
The official report Of Col. Reno, United States
army, provost martial general Of the bureau o Il
louisiana copy of which is herewith Forwarded.
marked Z" D ~ showing deficit of upwards of
in, 10 oF III,