Viewing page 8 of 36

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

title to a limited quantity of public land subject to entry at private sale. The provisions of the pre-emption and homestead acts apply to "freedmen" equally with other citizens of the United States.

I am not aware that any officer of the Government has authority to reserve "public lands" for the purpose of freedmen's settlement, "to the exclusion of the claims of other persons, whose rights of pre-emption or homestead settlement are recognized by existing laws.

You allude, to what you term "the enclosed law," but no paper or other document was transmitted with your letter. I infer, however, from the concluding portion of it that allusion is made to an act entitled "an act to establish a