tors wanted to make fortunes by his labor; and the army wanted
to be free from the burden of the idle blacks. In spite of all these
ministrations, the Negroes suffered much from harsh treatment, neglect,
and unsanitary conditions.

During 1863 and 1864, several influences were urging the establishment
of a national bureau or department to take charge of matters relating to
the African race. Some wished to establish on the borders of the South a
paid labor system, which might later be extended over the entire
region, to get more slaves out of the Confederacy into this free labor
territory, and to prevent immigration of Negroes into the North, which,
after the Emancipation Proclamation, was apprehensive of this danger.
Others wished to relieve the army and the treasury officials of the
burden of caring for the blacks and to protect the latter from the
"northern harpies and bloodhounds" who had fastened upon them the lessee
system.

The discussion lasted for two years. The Freedmen's Inquiry Commission,
after a survey of the field in 1863, recommended a consolidation of all
efforts under an organization which should perpetuate the best features
of the old system. But there was much opposition to this plan in
Congress. The Negroes would be exploited, objected some; the scheme
gave too much power to the proposed organization, said others; another
objection was urged against the employment of a horde of incompetent and
unscrupulous officeholders, for "the men who go down there and become
your overseers and Negro drivers will be your broken-down politicians
and your dilapidated preachers, that description of men who are too lazy
to work and just a little too honest to steal."

As the war drew to a close, the advocates of a policy of consolidation
in Negro affairs prevailed, and on March 3, 1865, an act was approved
creating in the War Department a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands. This Bureau was to continue for one year after the
close of the war, and it was to control all matters relating to freedmen
and refugees, that is, Unionists who had been driven out of the South.
Food, shelter, and clothing were to be given to the needy, and abandoned
or confiscated property was to be used for or leased to freedmen. At
the head of the Bureau was to be a commissioner with an assistant
commissioner for each of the Southern States. These officials and other
employees must take the "ironclad" oath.

It was planned tha