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not to end here. It is in due time reported to our far-seeing Chairman. He is returning from his brilliant achievements at the North to his Department in the South, that is to add to his large increase the fruits of a richer harvest. He hits upon a plan to secure the new General's good graces. It is to make the Board of Education a power. He writes and reports to the General now commanding our six months' "acts and doings." He writes of things never done just as if they were done, of things never seen better than if he had seen them. He writes some fine stories. This is one of them :

Mr. Hubbs, going over the Department from one teacher to another, strikes a bargain with them, whereby "they are to pay him portions of their salaries as a condition of receiving their pay," and this at $5 to $10 a month, on one hundred and twenty teachers, makes a very fine thing of it, General.

Another, and most effective, is that of the Freedmen assembled in their churches and schools, their faces turned heavenward and hands outstretched to receive from me the "Bibles"--the 7,500 Gospels given us, now multiplied into 20,000 full-sized Bibles:

These people receive the Bible with great veneration, and a knavish man may readily exact from them twenty-five cents to one dollar apiece, and this, on 20,000 copies, makes another good thing, General.

Now, of my own actions I, of course, have personal knowledge, and upon that knowledge I declare that I did none of the things alleged in this count or detailed under it; and that the charge is, in whole and all its parts, a malicious fabrication, utterly devoid of truth. And I submit that Mr. Plumley proves too much, in making me at once the most artful of knaves and the most stolid of fool, conspiring with a hundred teachers, each privately and confidentially, to obtain by a swindle moneys that are theirs by right, and to cheat themselves for my benefit of $5 to $10 a month, and that in a manner that makes their act and mine a felony! I submit that this third specification is improbable, absurd, and false, and deny that it does not show any such gross failure in duty as it alleges.
The fourth specification makes me simply a tale-bearer, circulating--that is, carrying from one to another--"statements" in relation to Messrs. Plumley and Wheelock and "officers on duty." As I am not charged with originating, or even indorsing said unnamed statements, which the term "circulating" implies were current, and whose truth or falsity I could no know, I am therefore not guilty or wrongdoing, or grossly failing in duty, in the matter here alleged.
But again:  Can you convict a man of treason without reciting and proving his treasonable acts, and taking the trouble to bring him into court?  Can you prove a libel without reciting the libelous words or matter, and complying with those forms of the law that the meanest American is entitled to?  Is not the law of slander just as stringent in its requirements of the plaintiffs and the formulae they must comply with?  But as none of these well-settled forms have, in my case, been complied with, as I have been denied both a trial and a hearing on this as on all the other charges, I submit again that, if I have been convicted or proved guilty of anything under this count, it is of a crime unknown to either civil or military law, and it is not, as the count alleges, a gross failure in duty.
The following letter shows how my last effort to obtain a trail failed:
NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 18th, 1864.
MAJOR-GEN. E. R. S. CANBY, Com. Division West Mississippi.
Sir--I respectfully request that, as an act of justice, the enclosed Order of Major-Gen. Hurlbut may be so far modified as to give me some form or trail or hearing on the points which are made against me.  This would seem to be reasonable if the charges had any foundation in truth, but much more so as they are wholly erroneous and false, as I can readily prove them.  Gen. Hurlbut promised me a chance to defend myself against the charges in Mr. Plumley's Report, but seems to have closed the case against me upon ex parte proceedings, of which I have been kept in entire ignorance.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ISAAC G. HUBBS, of Board of Education.
Major Putnam and Col. Wilson, of the General's Staff, both saw this letter and the "Order enclosed."  And the Major kindly offered to see the General and present my request and letter; but General Canby declined to notice or receive it.
The fifth specification seems to be merely a sequitur of the preceding.  It only adds, what was necessary to complete the picture, that the perpetrator of these detestable acts and frauds was a clergyman.  But as I am not a clergyman, and my associates, as did everybody else, well knew I was not, all that is here predicated of me as such falls to the ground.  But as one of my letter addressed to me from new York, and containing a small invoice of books from Messrs. Barnes & Burr, under date of June 23, was of the number purloined and broken open by Lieut. Wheelock before they reached me at my office, did, probably, bear the address "Rev."--they had this, at least, as evidence that I was a clergyman.
I have thus refuted the points of this long introduction to the Order, which seems to be the record of some Court of Commission, while the peroration now to be noticed seems rather the work of an Ecclesiastical Inquisition.
Both these are the apology, the plausible reasons, for giving the Order, which would seem bald and naked without them.  They are mere adjuncts to, separable from, and not essential parts of the Order itself, which I respect and obey.  They are the sugar-coating of a nauseous pill; the exponents of that justice which is best dispensed in the culprit's absence; the logic of a tribunal that denies a trial because the accused can be easier convicted without it.
In their peroration my colleagues are still true to their instincts.  if their assertion can make it so, "the wickedness of the wicked shall fall upon his own pate."  "By these acts Mr. Hubbs has brought contempt upon himself"--the contempt of men whose praise would be a reproach.
"He has inflicted serious injury upon religion and progress."  What this injured progress may be I really do no know, while their religion is an article that I fully understand.
Though I regret that I should have done injury to anybody's religion, yet, as afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise, and these injuries were more apparent than real, my grief thereat is the less distressing.  Indeed, if Rumor, escaping the confines of the Gulf and flying Northward, is to be credited, the peculiar religion of these injured parties has been largely blessed--with the Department's richest blessing.  And it was with a view to these generous showers that Mr. Plumley asked for and General Hurlbut granted this Order, whose limit and extent I am next to consider.
Proceeding from the supreme Military Commander, it is, of course, law, as to the chief intent and object aimed at, viz., that "He, Isaac G. Hubbs, is ordered to leave the Department within ten days from this date."  But that it should be law upon any matter as to which it is silent, is an absurdity.  It is of no legal effect in the assumptions and criminations of its preamble and counts, which are themselves only incidental accompaniments, as scaffolds to a building.  For all these, if true do not strengthen, or, if false, in the least weaken, that which, expressed in the foregoing words, is the intent, purpose, will of the Commander, and is accepted as law.  Being silent upon the subject of my past, present, or future membership of the Board of Education, silent upon the question of my pay due and to become due, it therefore does not and can not affect my legal rights upon either of these points as such member of the Board, except in this--that it sends me temporarily away from my field of duty, as Mr. Plumley had long been, and as military officers are frequently sent.
I submit, therefore, that this order is limited to that one principal object which its words and terms clearly set forth--the sending me for a time from the Department.  That it does not countermand or annul that part of General Order No. 38, which constitutes me a member of the Board of Education, Department of the Gulf; that though it does me great injustice and moral injury, I am clearly entitled to my pay just as if it had not been issued.
Let me next consider the conditional resignation which I tendered to you, and the time that it can become an estoppel upon my pay.
It is in these words and figures:
B'D OF ED. FOR FREEMEN, DEP'T OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, Sept. 10th, 1864.
Sir--I hereby tender my resignation as member of the Board of Education, to take effect when my salary, now six months due, shall have been paid.
Your ob't serv't.
ISAAC G. HUBBS.
B. RUSH PLUMLEY, ESQ., &c., &c.
This was addressed to Mr. Plumley because it would in this way only reach your hands immediately at your residence, where you were a few days confined by illness; and, second, because he might thereby see the first fruit of his determination to sustain Lieut. Wheelock in his frauds and peculations, for which he was arrested and held to bail by the United States Court.
Five days later, viz., on the 15th, this resignation was returned to the Board of Education indorsed: "Accepted. N. P. BANKS, M. G. C.'
In the meantime my junior associate, and in no respect superior member of the Board, addressed to me the following dictatorial and insulting note:
BD. OF ED. FOR FREEDMEN, DEP'T OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, Sept. 12th, 1864.
Sir--Your favor enclosing your resignation from the Board of Education is received dated the 10th inst., but to take effect upon a contingency.  The resignation must be without condition.  There is no disposition to do any injustice to you, either in respect to money or character. * * *
Your obedient servant.
B. RUSH PLUMLEY, Chairman, &c., &c., &c.
TO ISAAC G. HUBBS, Esq., &c., &c.
To the same purpose Lieut. Wheelock called personally to inquire if I would not withdraw the said condition, stating that Mr. Plumley had present my bills to the General, and they only waited his approval, and would doubtless be paid immediately.
In addition to this, Mr. Plumley wrote to you, as I learned, through our office a recommendation that my resignation should be accepted "without the condition affixed"!!
But what had he to do with this condition, or why should you be asked to annul it?  You knew that my pay was justly due, and meant that I should have it.  My receipted vouchers accompanying the resignation were before you for approval.  Had Mr. Plumley disclosed his plan and invited you to complicity with him?  I think not; but his own action indicated his purpose.  Seeing the resignation accepted, he, as Chairman, withdraws the vouchers to have them made out in my own handwriting.  Thus was payment delayed till Gen. Hurlbut assumed command, and I have not yet been able to get them, or one dollar of money upon them.
Need I argue with a parliamentary lawyer like yourself, that this recommendation, nowhere approved by you, as there was no reason why it should be, is a mere nullity?--that being made in pursuance of his plan, announced in our office, to defraud me, would destroy any possible validity that might attach to it.
It is therefore clear that your words, "Accepted, N. P. Banks, M. G. C.," are to be taken in their obvious and usual meaning; that, had you meant or purposed anything more or anything less than to accept my resignation, in the words and terms it was offered, you would and must have indicated, as I think, such meaning or purpose in other words of your accompanying the acceptance.  But, as nothing of this kind was done by you, it is conclusive that my resignation was accepted just

Transcription Notes:
11/24 picked up at paragraph 6