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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Oliver Otis Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, major general , United States army : volume 2. Search the whole document.

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Roger B. Taney (search for this): chapter 2.18
eedmen were left outside of all proper citizenship. They had no voice directly or indirectly in the new governments over them, and soon, worse than that, vicious laws were passed that made their actual condition deplorable. They were, indeed, but for military protection, which still lingered in the South, worse off than under the old system of slavery. At this juncture, when Congress was assembling, the situation may be summarized as follows: The Southern legislators, in keeping with Judge Taney's famous Dred Scott decision, very clearly demonstrated that the negro had no rights. True, they had formally adopted the Thirteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, but had followed that action by legislation which vitiated its provisions. The smallest acts annoying to white men were raised to misdemeanors, while vagrancy, poverty, and even enforced idleness were made to constitute a crime to be punished by excessive fines or hard labor under constraint. The labor and vagrancy
Clinton B. Fisk (search for this): chapter 2.18
., and attempts upon the lives of other men who had been faithful and fearless in the discharge of their delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force. General Clinton B. Fisk had good results in Tennessee in 1866. The State legislature took liberal action in matters of vagrancy, or apprenticing and contracts which affected the freedmen; they modified the old laws to conform to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution and to the Civil-Rights-Law. Before General Fisk, in September, was relieved by General J. R. Lewis, he took occasion by a circular, widely published, to transfer all cases to the civil officers elected by the people, to call their attention afresh to the United States laws involved, and to entreat them to lay aside all feelings of prejudice, in order that the State laws might be administered in such a manner as not to compel a return to military courts. We all believed then tha
Lyman Trumbull (search for this): chapter 2.18
vernment ought to retain control. Our military force ought to be increased and not reduced. Early in this, the last session of the thirty-ninth Congress, Senator Trumbull of Illinois, instead of simply sending for me as would have been customary, kindly came to my office and studied the operations of the Bureau. I was then strender it nugatory. This worthy senator, always of a conservative turn, warmly took the freedmen's part. I well remember those nights at my headquarters, for Mr. Trumbull's thoughts deeply impressedtme. In a subsequent speech he declared the freedmen's condition to be abject, forlorn, helpless, and hopeless. January 5, 1866,tion of John Quincy Adams. The Senate did not get a two-thirds vote to overcome the veto, several senators having changed their attitude regarding it, so that Trumbull's bill failed to become a law. But in the House the persistent chairman of the Freedmen's committee, Mr. Eliot, very soon introduced a new Bureau bill, from whic
Davis Tillson (search for this): chapter 2.18
rs had been required to give bonds and so held to answer the charges. General Robinson was sanguine of the future. He believed that after time enough had elapsed for new adjustments between the races mutual confidence would be restored. General Tillson was a conservative and harmonizer, leaning possibly to the side of the white employers; he was this year of the opinion that the Georgia civil courts were disposed to do justice to the freed people, but unfortunately the jurors, selected from a class who hated the negroes, attached little weight to negro testimony. Even Tillson finally saw and believed that considerable time must elapse before the colored people could enjoy substantial equality before the law; yet the having a Bureau officer at hand to interpose as a friend had so far affected the actions of white citizens that acts of injustice and oppression were less numerous. Planters looked to Bureau officers to make their laborers reliable; and freedmen sought their aid a
William H. Seward (search for this): chapter 2.18
Chapter 52: President Johnson's reconstruction and further bureau legislation for 1866 President Johnson, by the inspiration and help of his Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, had succeeded before the meeting of Congress in December, 1865, in completely rehabilitating all the States that had belonged to the Southern Confederacy, so far as the form went. Apparently all the functions of Government, both State and National, were already reawakened and in operation. By taking the old State constitutions of 1861 and modifying them slightly to make them comply with the Thirteenth Amendment of the National Constitution, seemingly the problems of reconstruction were solved. Everything, for a time, to the late Confederates, was going on as they would have it. All those who had been for four years fighting against the United States were again in power at the State capitals, or so close behind those in office that they made themselves felt in every sort of legislation and act of administrat
Rufus Saxton (search for this): chapter 2.18
ferred to me for examination and correction. Any agent who took the part of the freedmen against a Southern planter, especially one who had the hardihood to arrest a white man for misusing a negro, was traduced, and often, I am sorry to say, his discharge was brought about. The President was very anxious to be rid of every prominent officer who was reported to have been long the freedmen's friend. In his eyes assistant commissioners, such as Mr. Conway, Colonel Brown, Generals Whittlesey, Saxton, Samuel Thomas, and Absalom Baird, were too pronounced in behalf of those assailed; they seemed to be friends of the so-called carpet-baggers, i. e., immigrants from the North, and of Southern Unionists and negroes; and many subagents also were accused of a like attitude. They were too much the advocates of their wards to suit the situation. As I was obliged to execute the law under the direction of his Excellency, little by little his power made itself felt. To give my work the utmost o
J. R. Lewis (search for this): chapter 2.18
delicate and dangerous duties, gave rise to increased anxiety everywhere and seemed to necessitate an increase of military force. General Clinton B. Fisk had good results in Tennessee in 1866. The State legislature took liberal action in matters of vagrancy, or apprenticing and contracts which affected the freedmen; they modified the old laws to conform to the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution and to the Civil-Rights-Law. Before General Fisk, in September, was relieved by General J. R. Lewis, he took occasion by a circular, widely published, to transfer all cases to the civil officers elected by the people, to call their attention afresh to the United States laws involved, and to entreat them to lay aside all feelings of prejudice, in order that the State laws might be administered in such a manner as not to compel a return to military courts. We all believed then that greater security for the life and property of the freed people existed in Tennessee than in any other o
Alfred H. Terry (search for this): chapter 2.18
n harmony, and so I recommended to the President that the functions of the military commander and of the assistant commissioner in each State be exercised by the same officer. To this he gladly assented. It was early done in Virginia. General Alfred H. Terry, the new department commander, became also the assistant commissioner for that State. He took his predecessor in the Bureau, Colonel Brown, on his staff and so operated all Bureau work through him, and soon that arrangement prevailed throughout other departments. Next, I worked to make each military subdivision coincident with the Bureau subdistrict. Terry's department, the State of Virginia, was divided into eight subdistricts with an officer in charge of each. Then I carefully instructed subordinates that, touching all subjects of a military character, the agents were to be under the direction of State department commanders. The Bureau officer acted in the same manner as an officer of engineers building a fort might d
Ulysses S. Grant (search for this): chapter 2.18
efully instructed subordinates that, touching all subjects of a military character, the agents were to be under the direction of State department commanders. The Bureau officer acted in the same manner as an officer of engineers building a fort might do, reporting on all matters of construction directly to the chief of engineers at Washington, but at the same time being the engineer officer on the staff of a local commander. Fortunately for me the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, and General Grant, the commander of all the geographical departments and garrisons, were friendly to my work; it was, therefore, not difficult to secure in that way unity of organization and action; it was easy enough in and near all towns actually garrisoned, and in places which were reached by rail. Perhaps the needs, the hopes, the fears, the failures, and such progress as was made in the Bureau work for 1866 may be best illustrated by some of the work before the courts that year. General C. H.
House (search for this): chapter 2.18
onstitute a crime to be punished by excessive fines or hard labor under constraint. The labor and vagrancy laws, ostensibly for white and black alike, were so executed as to reach the freedmen only, and indeed to many of them the liberty granted by our amended Constitution was thus to all intents and purposes overborne and crushed by hostile State action. As soon as Congress met, Southern senators and representatives elect from the insurrectionary States were on hand at the doors of each House waiting for admission and recognition. But this thirty-ninth Congress had taken fire. The Executive, so Congressmen alleged, had largely encroached upon its proper province. The members of both Houses were too impatient even to wait for the President's message. Combating resolutions were at once introduced and passed, appointing a joint reconstruction committee of fifteen members to inquire into the condition of the States which claimed to be reconstructed, and to report whether any of t
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