Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-03-28
PREMIUMS oNLAzIAEss

From the New York journal of Commerce.
The Freedmen's Bureau is to be con-
tinued in operation for another year, COM
mencing July l6, 1868; and for as many
more years, probably, as the Republican
party keeps in power. While we do not
deny that the Bureau has given timely aid
to many blacks, and also to some whites
who would have suffered greatly and per-
haps have persisted but for its charitable
Intervention, il is but the truth to say that
it dispenses among the people of the South
considerable more politics than aims. 1t
is a supplement to the reconstruction poll
cy, and is fully az political as that is.
Though its effect, in many cases we admit
Is good, yet, viewed in the large way and
with reference to broad results, we cannot
regard it as a real benefit to the Southern
people, either white or black. The whites
have never asked bread from it, except
when driven to its portals by starvation.
But the blacks, having once tasted its boun-
ty, do not care to look further for their
victuals. Destitute of energy and ambi-
ton, mere ilies that live in the sunshine,
why should they toll when government has
opened meatshop and bakery for them
They know too, instinctively, if they are
not told, that these douceurs are a sort of
pay in advance for their political influence
and their votes. This gives them grand
ideas of their importance TO the govern
ment or the Republican party, which is
the same thing. So they loll in the SUN
and eat, and attend all the political meet
ings, and vote az often as they can at every
election.
The evident anxiety of the bureau to
cultivate the good will of these colOred
sOvereigns has done much Of the mischief
which all sensible people, North and South,
now deplore. The Southern papers are full
of evidence on this point. Large numbers
of the negroes will not work, either for
themselves or for any one else. 1t is the
white population of the South-the class
which in former years was unused to manu-
al labor-that is row tilling the soil, gath
ering the harvests, rolling the barrels, driv
ing the draws. In Charleston, on the 10th
inst, two hundred and sixty-fve white men,
who in old times got their living by their
brains organized and pledged themselves
to fight the speeter of want with their own
hands" They are going to do the com
monest kind of drudgery about town
WHICH liCRfbts arc NOO tAOih VI bNO ldNl w
do. Not half the ground is cultivated, not
half the crops harvested that there would
be if the negroes we're but willing to take
hold and work for or with the white men.
This is the state of things all over the
South, with the exception, we are glad TO
say. of portions of Louisiana, Arkansas,
Texas and Mississippi-remote regions
where the Freedmen's Bureau does not ex-
ercise the demoralizing influence which
marks the line of its operations in the
States nearer Washington. Recent New
Orleans advices say that many of
the freedmen in the districts alluded to
have been "forced by necessity to become
seekers of work" Seeking for work they
find il, "a men of all colors do in this conn
try. They are discovering that the ballot
is "bauble > that Acknowledgement opens
for them no royal road to natures boun-
ties :" that the most they have been doing
of late was ito assist few yagabond and
pestilent adventurers TO power and plum
der" Short rations from the Bureau have
probably assisted in bringing the freedmen
to these sage conclusions. Result-"There
is prospect of crops that will render no
small measure of compensation for the ag
ricultural deficiencies Of last year Blacks
will share with whites the blessings of these
crops, and the Freedmen's Bureau will no
longer be wanted in all that region.
The same necessity would compel the
same seeking for work, and lead to the
same bene6cent results all over the South.
Not until the plan OF administration is en-
tirely changed, and the Freedmen's Blu
reau is cut down TO the limits of purely
charitable institution, rendering aid where
it is only really needed, aud encouraging
work instead of idleness, will it become
more of benefit than an injury TO the
colored people Of the South.