The appointment of an agent for every county and parish will create an immense patronage, and the expense of the numerous officers and their clerks, to be appointed by the President, will be great in the beginning, with a tendency steadily to increase.  The appropriations asked by the Freedmen’s Bureau as now established, for the year 1866, amount to $11,745,000.  It may be safely estimated that the cost to be incurred under the pending bill will require double that amount—­more than the entire sum expended in any one year under the Administration of the second Adams.  If the presence of agents in every parish and county is to be considered as a war measure, opposition, or even resistance, might be provoked; so that to give effect to their jurisdiction troops would have to be stationed within reach of every one of them, and thus a large standing force be rendered necessary.  Large appropriations would therefore be required to sustain and enforce military jurisdiction in every county or parish from the Potomac to the Rio Grande.  The condition of our fiscal affairs is encouraging, but in order to sustain the present measure of public confidence it is necessary that we practice not merely customary economy, but, as far as possible, severe retrenchment.

In addition to the objections already stated, the fifth section of the bill proposes to take away land from its former owners without any legal proceedings being first had, contrary to that provision of the Constitution which declares that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”  It does not appear that a part of the lands to which this section refers may not be owned by minors or persons of unsound mind, or by those who have been faithful to all their obligations as citizens of the United States.  If any portion of the land is held by such persons, it is not competent for any authority to deprive them of it.  If, on the other hand, it be found that the property is liable to confiscation, even then it can not be appropriated to public purposes until by due process of law it shall have been declared forfeited to the Government.

There is still further objection to the bill, on grounds seriously affecting the class of persons to whom it is designed to bring relief.  It will tend to keep the mind of the freedman in a state of uncertain expectation and restlessness, while to those among whom he lives it will be a source of constant and vague apprehension.

Undoubtedly the freedman should be protected, but he should be protected by the civil authorities, especially by the exercise of all the constitutional powers of the courts of the United States and of the States.  His condition is not so exposed as may at first be imagined.  He is in a portion of the country where his labor can not well be spared.  Competition for his services from planters, from those who are constructing or repairing railroads, and from capitalists in his vicinage or from other States will enable him