Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-03-28
THE BUREAU REBUKED.

Did anybody ever dream that thu
courts of the South would be imploreC
by the Freedmen to protect them from
their own Bureau2 Of course not Ar
eventually so improbable was deemed
to be beyond the utmost flight of dreams,
1t is nevertheless upon us, and stands
out as follows In Mississippi, some
time since, a writ of habeas corpus was
issued by Hon. H. ". FooTE, Circuit
Judge of the Sixth Judicial District of
the State, at the instance of freedman,
10 recover possession of his two children,
minors, who had been apprenticed by
the agent of the Bureau without the con-
sent and against the wishes Of the
parents 1t was proved, in evidence,
that both parents were living and able to
take care Of and support their children.
The defendant insisted on the possession
of the children for the time specified in
the indentures, they having been regu-
larly bound to him by an authorized
agent of the Bureau The court decided
that the act of Congress establishing the
Freedmen's Bureau conferred no power
upon the Commissioners to bind out or
apprentice children Of living parents who
are competent to take care Of and support
their children.
Of course there will be great commo-
ton in the Reconstruction Committee,
and indignation in the Tribune Office, to
say nothing Of the oaths Of THAD. STE
VEINS, and the indignant rhetoric Of SUN
NER How dares a rebel court interfere
with the rights of freedmen, those pets
and wards of the nation" for whom
the world has been made to rock from
centre to circumference Was the Bu-
reau not the perfection of human wisdom,
and does it not exhaust that excellent ar
ticle2 Forming amid the commissions
of war, as the many-hued opal does from
the volcanic throcs Of Nature, it is inca
pable of improvement, and as tribunal
ofhuman justice, infallble Suppose it
does apprentice a child whose father is
competent TO support it, is it not supreme
over the wards of the nation" and can
it not do with them as it thinks proper
But seriously, it is notable circum-
stance, that the negro of the South flies
to the State Courts for protection from
a Bureau expressly devised to rescue
him from the tyranny of his late master
The late slave will speedily unlearn
what he has, during the past three or
four years, learned amiss. He will learn
that the cold sentiment of philanthropy
is feeble when brought into comparison
with friendship derived from the circum-
stance of long and mutual dependence,
and that the men who had been his d.
rectors, like him better and will do more
for him than will those who know nothing
of his nature, and care nothing for his fu-
ture. He will discover that fanaticism
is not his friend, and that when it can no
longer use him to promote its own un-
hallowed ends, it will abandon him to his
fate, be that fate what it may. He will
learn that it is his interest, and therefore
his policy, to cultivate friendly relations
With his white neighbors, as they are to
inhabit the same country, and be governed
by the same laws and necessities When
hunger overtakes him in the swamps of
Mississippi, or sickness in the glades of
Floridl, be cannot send to Boston for
hoof of bread, or a dose of pbysic. He
must appeal 10 his white neighbors, and
he knows he will not appeal in vain. He
is already learning that his true friends
are the people of the South, and that all
foreign pretenders are spurious