An institution such as that
was well-nigh as difficult to end as to begin. Early in 1866
Congress took up the matter, when Senator Trumbull, of
Illinois, introduced a bill to extend the Bureau and enlarge its
powers. This measure received, at the hands of Congress, far
more thorough discussion and attention than its predecessor.
The war cloud had thinned enough to allow a clearer concep-
tion of the work of Emancipation. The champions of the bill
argued that the strengthening of the Freedmen's Bureau was
still a military necessity; that it was needed for the proper
carrying out of the Thirteenth Amendment, and was a work
of sheer justice to the ex-slave, at a trifling cost to the
government. The opponents of the measure declared that the
war was over, and the necessity for war measures past; that
the Bureau, by reason of its extraordinary powers, was clearly
unconstitutional in time of peace, and was destined to irritate
the South and pauperize the freedmen, at a final cost of
possibly hundreds of millions. These two arguments were
unanswered, and indeed unanswerable: the one that the ex-
traordinary powers of the Bureau threatened the civil rights of
all citizens; and the other that the government must have
power to do what manifestly must be done, and that present
abandonment of the freedmen meant their practical re-
enslavement.
Pages:
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53