man.

"If it be asked whether the creation of such a tribunal
within a State is warranted as a measure of war, the
question immediately presents itself whether we are still
engaged in war. Let us not unnecessarily disturb the
commerce and credit and industry of the country by declaring
to the American people and to the world, that the United
States are still in a condition of civil war. At present
there is no part of our country in which the authority of
the United States is disputed. Offenses that may be
committed by individuals should not work a forfeiture of the
rights of whole communities. The country has returned, or is
returning, to a state of peace and industry, and the
rebellion is in fact at an end. The measure, therefore,
seems to be as inconsistent with the actual condition of the
country as it is at variance with the Constitution of the
United States.

"If, passing from general considerations, we examine the
bill in detail, it is open to weighty objections.

"In time of war it was eminently proper, that we should
provide for those who were passing suddenly from a condition
of bondage to a state of freedom. But this bill proposes to
make the Freedmen's Bureau, established by the act of 1865
as one of many great and extraordinary military measures to
suppress a formidable rebellion, a permanent branch of the
public administration, with its powers greatly enlarged. I
have no reason to suppose, and I do not understand it to be
alleged, that the act of March, 1865, has proved deficient
for the purpose for which it was passed, although at that
time, and for a considerable period thereafter, the
Government of the United States remained unacknowledged in
most of the States whose inhabitants had been involved in
the rebellion. The institution of slavery, for the military
destruction of which the Freedmen's Bureau was called into
existence as an auxiliary, has been already effectually and
finally abrogated throughout the whole country by an
amendment of the Constitution of the United States, and
practically its eradication has received the assent and
concurrence of most of those States in which it at any time
had an existence. I am not, therefore, able to discern, in
the condition of the country, any thing to justif