tor from
Indiana, speak somewhat in a desultory manner; but I prefer to do so
because I would rather meet the objections made directly than by any
general speech. I will, therefore, take up his next objection, which
is to the fifth section of the bill. That section proposes to confirm
for three years the possessory titles granted by General Sherman. The
Senator from Indiana admits that General Sherman had authority, when
at the head of the army at Savannah, and these people were flocking
around him and dependent upon him for support, to put them upon the
abandoned lands; but he says that authority to put them there and
maintain them there ceased with peace. Well, sir, a sufficient answer
to that would be that peace has not yet come; the effects of war are
not yet ended; the people of the States of South Carolina, Georgia,
and Florida, where these lands are situated, are yet subject to
military control. But I deny that if peace had come the authority of
the Government to protect these people in their possessions would
cease the moment it was declared. What are the facts? The owners of
these plantations had abandoned them and entered the rebel army. They
were contending against the army which General Sherman then commanded.
Numerous colored people had flocked around General Sherman's army. It
was necessary that he should supply them to save them from starvation.
His commissariat was short. Here was this abandoned country, owned by
men arrayed in arms against the Government. He, it is admitted, had
authority to put these followers of his army upon these lands, and
authorize them to go to work and gain a subsistence if they could.
They went on the lands to the number of forty or fifty thousand,
commenced work, have made improvements; and now will the Senator from
Indiana tell me that upon any principle of justice, humanity, or law,
if peace had come when these laborers had a crop half gathered, the
Government of the United States, having rightfully placed them in
possession, and pledged its faith to protect them there for an
uncertain period, could immediately have turned them off and put in
possession those traitor owners who had abandoned their homes to fight
against the Government?

"The Government having placed these people rightfully upon these
lands, and they having expended their labor upon them, they had a
right to be protected in their possessions, for some length of time
after peace, on the principle of equity. T