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and my own opinion has taught me that the colored people here most positively need the assistance, advice and guidance of the General Government until the rebel States are reconstructed and the State laws are so modified as to give them the protection they are entitled to as free men. 

It is impossible to detect and prevent petty persecutions, cheats, and unlawful acts, to establish School and Churches, to assist the poor colored sick unable to work, to advise Laborers as to their duties and their rights, to advise and assist freedpeople in case they should wish to sue or prosecute in Civil Courts and to raise and educate them to become good citizens, unless it is done by Govt. Officers employed for that especial purpose. 

As regards the protection due them, I respectfully invite attention to the fact that although the Civil Government in these States is supervised by the Military Authority, it is still a Civil Government of great local power, especially in cases coming under the jurisdiction of Magistrates and County or District Judges. All such officers in my District are Southern men, most if not all disfranchised. Can it be expected that they will act impartially in cases where a former slave now enfranchised, sues or prosecutes his former master now disfranchised? My experience teaches me that no such things have been done