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opinion that the freedmen would be found to be best governed by the same measures as are most effectual with ourselves, and only injured by artificial regulations. The true [[underline]]incentives to labor[[/underline]] in the free states are hunger & cold and it was only injurious expectations of a parcelling out at Christmas that made the freedmen evade these in some measure until Christmas came. The artificial barrier removed, normal relations were immediately established. The true [[underline]]security of labor[[/underline]], also, in the free States, is that whenever the laborer finds himself ill-treated or his wages insufficient or unsafe, he can quit without having to account to any-body. This is more and better than all laws. And the demand for labor will I think keep the freedman secure here in this particular, it certainly makes him so now.

Contracts imply bargaining and litigation, and at neither of these is the freedman a match for his employer nor do I think he can be made so, except through an was present competition to which he can appeal. Undoubtedly his credulity will be somewhat used to victimize him just now, but besides the statement that he who has but one thing to dispose of soon learns to do it to the best advantage and that even ourselves were obliged to meet this same experience in our boyhood. Certain instilled[[?]] plantations on all sides give emphatic warning the Nemesis does not overlook the matter.

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Hence while as an agent of the Bureau I have faithfully tried to carry out its policy, I do not regret that I have occasion to express my views upon this subject. And I have never felt authorized to infringe the liberty even of a freedman by compelling him to contract, but have simply told planters that here there was no contract approved by the Bureau, [[underline]]where they came to settle I should exact payment at the highest current rate[[/underline]], if complaint was made and there was evidence of imposition. And I hope this rule will prevail when the present crop is being gathered in.

These views, General, are hastily expressed in transient correspondence, but they have some maturity of thought. You will not understand me to propose the subversion of an established guaranty. Only, that as fast as the custom of money wager obtains its usual prevalence, both parties reserve the right to quit at pleasure. I have no further fear of the wandering propensities of the negro: the removal of forced restraint was naturally followed by a jubilee. But that is over now, he was brought up to work, and he will not depart from it. We can get along in this State without a contract law of any kind and it is proposed to try it.

I am looking to the new Code also for relief from an outrageous law, a relic of the anarchy of rebeldom which allows the jury to affix the penalty of death for horse-stealing. It makes no distinction of color, but the only