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Office Bureau Refugees, F & AL.
Jasper, Tennessee, Feb 27th, 1866

General: How can I administer justice to Refugees, and Freedmen who have no homes, but occupy lands that have been abandoned by rebels? If due course of law must be had before they can be said to be confiscated; and if Judge Chase's opinion in his letter of October last to President Johnson be correct, what power has the Bureau over any of these lands? Judge Chase says in substance that courts can only be held according to law. The soundness of this opinion will hardly be disputed by any Jurist. 

He declines holding Court in the rebel States until Congress shall have time to consult and 
act upon the whole subject. In this opinion Judge Wayne agrees with him. He further says the Supreme Court takes no cognizance of cases sent up from the Courts in the rebel States by appeals or writs of error.

Under these circumstances, are any of the lands in the rebel states confiscated or condemned, and under the control of the Bureau, to an extent sufficient to authorize the county agents to protect refugees and freedmen in the possession of them? Suits are brought by rebels returned from the South since Lee's Surrender, against refugees and freedmen for some of these lands. All our Courts are rebel to the core, as I believe, except Chancellor Trewhitt. These poor refugees and freedmen come to me for relief; have I the power under the law to grant it? I have taken the liberty of calling for the papers in one case to be sent up to this court from the court of three magistrates, before whom the defendant was summoned