it really
was--issued its constitution; commissioners were to be appointed in each
of the seceded states, who were to take charge of "all subjects relating
to refugees and freedmen," and all relief and rations were to be given
by their consent alone. The Bureau invited continued cooperation with
benevolent societies, and declared, "It will be the object of all
commissioners to introduce practicable systems of compensated labor,"
and to establish schools. Forthwith nine assistant commissioners were
appointed. They were to hasten to their fields of work; seek gradually
to close relief establishments, and make the destitute self-supporting;
act as courts of law where there were no courts, or where Negroes were
not recognized in them as free; establish the institution of marriage
among ex-slaves, and keep records; see that freedmen were free to
choose their employers, and help in making fair contracts for them; and
finally, the circular said, "Simple good faith, for which we hope on
all hands for those concerned in the passing away of slavery, will
especially relieve the assistant commissioners in the discharge of their
duties toward the freedmen, as well as promote the general welfare."

No sooner was the work thus started, and the general system and local
organization in some measure begun, than two grave difficulties appeared
which changed largely the theory and outcome of Bureau work. First,
there were the abandoned lands of the South. It had long been the more
or less definitely expressed theory of the North that all the chief
problems of emancipation might be settled by establishing the slaves on
the forfeited lands of their masters,--a sort of poetic justice, said
some. But this poetry done into solemn prose meant either wholesale
confiscation of private property in the South, or vast appropriations.
Now Congress had not appropriated a cent, and no sooner did the
proclamations of general amnesty appear than the 800,000 acres of
abandoned lands in the hands of the Freedmen's Bureau melted quickly
away. The second difficulty lay in perfecting the local organization of
the Bureau throughout the wide field of work. Making a new machine and
sending out officials of duly ascertained fitness for a great work of
social reform is no child's task; but this task was even harder, for
a new central organization had to be fitted on a heterogeneous and
confused but already existing system of relief and control of ex-slaves;
and the