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(Copy.)
Attorney Generals' Office.
June 22. 1865.

Hon. E.M. Stanton,
Secretary of War:-

Sir:-
I have received a communication from Major General Howard, Commissioner of Freedmen Refugees and Abandoned Lands, asking my opinion on a question touching his official duty under the 4th Section of the Statute of March 3, 1865.

This question should more regularly have been submitted to me through you.  I have no authority as you are aware, to give an official opinion on any question not referred to me by the President or the Head of an Executive Department.  Presuming however, that you would have sent Major General Howard's letter to me, if he had desired it, I treat the question as one regularly submitted, and beg leave now to state to you my views on the point presented.

The point is this;- whether it is the duty of the Commissioner, under the act of 1865, to take charge and control of all abandoned lands, or all tracts of land that have been abandoned, or to which the United States may have acquired title by confiscation, or sale, or otherwise, within the insurrectionary States; or whether it is his duty to take charge and have control of only such portions of the said lands as he may, under