Viewing page 23 of 277

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

was impossible for them to think of living without labor and those who were entirely destitute of capital, it would be nesessary for them to labor for others, and that this country was like all others had some good men and some bad ones and I advised them to avoid these men who had been unmerciful to there hands in the past, and seek the employment of good men; The Freedmen not being entirely blind to there own interests it will be difficult for some men to find labor. A few days ago some gentlemen came to  my office and asked me if I did not think it best to enforce the Vagrant law against negroes only, I informed them I should use my best endeavours to prohibit the Vagrant law from being enforced at all, they asked me if I did not think it wrong to allow those freedmen to become vagrants. I said that it was not the purpose of the Government to exercise any compulsion against any one class of people and that in my opinion to compel the Freedmen as a vagrant law would do to enter into contracts with men who would take every advantage of them as they had last year the crime would be much greater than to allow a few vagrants, and under these circumstances there would be no inducement for those lawless characters to act with humanity towards the freedmen. I never persuaded a Freedman to enter into a contract with any one, or I never persuaded one not to contract with any particular person, but as far as convenient to contract with men