Valley Virginian


The Freedmen Bureau Bill
vol. 1, no. 10, February 7, 1866, pg. 2, col. 2

The new Freedmen's Bureau Bill meets with opposition every where out of Congress. The President is opposed to it and all conservative men North as well as the entire people of the South.

We suppose it will become law and we cannot better express our views about it than Mr. Davis, of Ky., does in his speech in the U.S. Senate against it.

It is well to note here that the bill does not apply to the North. Poor whites and negroes there are not included in this grand scheme for the "benefit of the human race."

Mr. Davis, of Ky., said in opposition to the bill, that he objected to it because the majority in the Senate excluded the Senators from 11 States from their seats in the Senate for the purpose of securing the passage of this and other measures; because th e measure was unconstitutional in proposing to invest the Freedmen's Bureau with judicial power; because it authorized the President to assign to any army officer the exercise of judicial power; because it broke down the partition of the power of the Gove rnment made by the Constitution; because it deprived to practice in justice and oppression upon the white people of the late slave States for the benefit of the freed negroes, and to engender strife between the two races ; because it involved a profligate , wasteful, and unnecessary expenditure of public treasure, and because it was on eof the reckless and unconstitutional series of measures devised by the radical party to enable it to hold power and place.


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