Viewing page 157 of 230

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

the direction of the President, set apart for the use of loyal refugees and freedmen.
There are few Statutes that are disfigured by loose and indefinite phraseology to a greater extent than the act of 1865, establishing this Bureau, but close attention to the words of the more prominent provisions of the law, will enable us, I think to answer the question of the Commissioner without doing much violence to any part of the Act. Where Congress, as in this case, has taken so little pains to express its intention, no man can, of course, be certain that any construction of the words employed, reaches the true meaning of the Legislature.
By the first Section of the Act there is established in the War Department a Bureau of Refugees Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. To this Bureau the section declares there "shall be committed as hereinafter provided, the supervision and management of abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel States" &c. It will be observed in the first place, that the absolute supervision and management of abandoned lands/ the Supervision and management of such lands, I mean, to all intents and for all purposes - are not committed to the Bureau in this section, but simply the supervision and management of those lands to the extent, and for the purposes, afterwards provided in the Act. It will be seen in the second place, that the qualification