Southern States into the North; but
the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, in his report, says that
those refugees have mainly returned, and but few remain now to be
carried back from the North to the South, or who desire to be. Then
why do we provide in this bill for transportation? Is it simply to
give the bureau the power to transport refugees and freedmen from one
locality to another at its pleasure? The necessity of carrying them
from one section of the country to another has passed away. Is it
intended by this bill that the bureau shall expend the people's money
in carrying the colored people from one locality in a Southern State
to another locality? I ask the Senator from Illinois, when he comes to
explain his bill, to tell us just what is the force and purpose of
this provision.

"The fourth resolution, as amended, provides for the setting apart of
three million acres of the public lands in the States of Florida,
Mississippi, and Arkansas for homes for the colored people. I believe
that is the only provision of the bill in which I concur. I concur in
what was said by some Senator yesterday, that it is desirable, if we
ever expect to do any thing substantially for the colored people, to
encourage them to obtain homes, and I am willing to vote for a
reasonable appropriation of the public lands for that purpose. I shall
not, therefore, occupy time in discussing that section.

"The fifth section, as amended by the proposition before the Senate,
proposes to confirm the possessory right of the colored people upon
these lands for three years from the date of that order, or about two
years from this time. I like the amendment better than the original
bill; for the original bill left it entirely uncertain what was
confirmed, and of course it is better that we should say one year, or
three years, or ten years, than to leave it entirely indefinite for
what period we do confirm the possession. I have no doubt that General
Sherman had the power, as a military commander, at the time, to set
apart the abandoned lands along the coast as a place in which to leave
the colored people then surrounding his army; but that General Sherman
during the war, or that Congress after the war, except by a proceeding
for confiscation, can take the land permanently from one person and
give it to another, I do not admit; nor did General Sherman undertake
to do that. In express terms, he said that they should have the right
of possession; f