ion which the party that had elevated him to office
might consider appropriate to the condition of the rebel States, the
majority in Congress discovered that, if they would make progress in
the work before them, they must be content to do without Executive
approval. The defection of the President from the principles of the
party which had elected him, so far from dividing and destroying that
party, had rather given it consolidation and strength. After the veto
of the Civil Rights Bill, a very few members of the Senate and House
of Representatives who had been elected as Republicans adhered to the
President, but the most of those who had wavered stepped forward into
the ranks of the "Radicals," as they were called, and a firm and
invincible "two-thirds" moved forward to consummate legislation which
they deemed essential to the interests of the nation.

So fully convinced were the majority that some effective legislation
for the freedmen should be consummated, that two days after the final
vote in which the former bill failed to pass over the veto, Senator
Wilson introduced a bill "to continue in force the Bureau for the
relief of Freedmen and Refugees," which was read twice and referred to
the Committee on Military Affairs.

The bill, however, which subsequently became a law, originated in the
House of Representatives. In that branch of Congress was a Special
Committee on the Freedmen, who were able to give more immediate and
continuous attention to that class of people than could committees
such as those of the Judiciary and Military Affairs, having many other
subjects to consider.

The Committee on the Freedmen, having given much time and attention to
the perfection of a measure to meet the necessities of the case, on
the 22d of May reported through their chairman, Mr. Eliot, "A bill to
continue in force and amend an act entitled 'an act to establish a
Bureau for the relief of Freedmen and Refugees, and for other
purposes.'"

This bill provided for keeping in force the Freedmen's Bureau then in
existence for two years longer. Some of the features to which the
President had objected in his veto of the former bill had been
modified and in part removed. In providing for the education of
freedmen, the commissioner was restricted to cooperating so far with
the charitable people of the country as to furnish rooms for
school-houses and protection to teachers. The freedmen's courts were
to be kept in existence till State