y an
apprehension that the powers and agencies of the Freedmen's
Bureau, which were effective for the protection of freedmen
and refugees during the actual continuance of hostilities
and of African servitude, will now, in a time of peace and
after the abolition of slavery, prove inadequate to the same
proper ends. If I am correct in these views, there can be no
necessity for the enlargement of the powers of the bureau,
for which provision is made in the bill.

"The third section of the bill authorizes a general and
unlimited grant of support to the destitute and suffering
refugees and freedmen, their wives and children. Succeeding
sections make provision for the rent or purchase of landed
estates for freedmen, and for the erection for their benefit
of suitable buildings for asylums and schools, the expenses
to be defrayed from the Treasury of the whole people. The
Congress of the United States has never heretofore thought
itself empowered to establish asylums beyond the limits of
the District of Columbia, except for the benefit of our
disabled soldiers and sailors. It has never founded schools
for any class of our own people, not even for the orphans of
those who have fallen in the defense of the Union; but has
left the care of education to the much more competent and
efficient control of the States, of communities, of private
associations, and of individuals. It has never deemed itself
authorized to expend the public money for the rent or
purchase of homes for the thousands, not to say millions, of
the white race, who are honestly toiling from day to day for
their subsistence. A system for the support of indigent
persons in the United States was never contemplated by the
authors of the Constitution, nor can any good reason be
advanced why, as a permanent establishment, it should be
founded for one class or color of our people more than
another. Pending the war, many refugees and freedmen
received support from the Government, but it was never
intended that they should thenceforth be fed, clothed,
educated, and sheltered by the United States. The idea on
which the slaves were assisted to freedom was that, on
becoming free, they would be a self-sustaining population.
Any legislation that shall imply that they are not expected