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6 
REPORTS OF ASSISTANT COMMISSIONERS
unconstitutional. Just now there is at Frankfort a heated canvass for a United States senatorship in progress. Candidates for the position vie with each other in denouncing the Freedmen's Bureau. Men who have fought gallantly for the honor of their country's flag are willing to purchase promotion to the United States Senate at the expense of justice to thirty thousand of their fellow-citizens and fellow-soldiers too. The legislature makes no progress in the enactment of laws applicable to the new condition of things, but lengthy resolutions denunciatory of the bureau, and requesting the President to immediately withdraw the odious institution from the State, are discussed in protracted debate, and voted upon affirmatively with astonishing unanimity. Neither myself nor any of my subordinates are accused of much wrong-doing. We are even complimented as being just and conservative gentlemen; but the Freedmen's Bureau and every soldier of the United States must be immediately removed from Kentucky to prevent irritation, &c. If all the States were to so solemnly protest against the presence of United States troops within their borders, and the country should think it best to gratify the clamor for immediate and entire removal that we hear from so many States, the government would necessarily be compelled to rent a parcel of ground in Canada on which to erect barracks for the accommodation of its withdrawn troops.

I assure you that in no portion of the country is this bureau more a positive necessity than in many counties of Kentucky, and for the sake of the nation's plighted faith to her wards, the freedmen, and, in behalf of humanity and justice, I implore you and the President to listen to no request for its withdrawal from the State until the civil authorities in the enforcement of impartial laws shall amply protect the persons and property of those for whose protection and defence this bureau is set.

I saw with my own eyes our fellow-soldiers, yet clad in the uniform of their country's army, fresh from their muster out of service, who within the last ten days were the victims of fiendish atrocity from the hands of their former masters in Kentucky. These returned soldiers had been to their old homes for their wives and children, and had for this offence been knocked down, whipped, and horribly bruised, and threatened with shooting, should they ever dare to set their feet on the premises of the old master again and intimate that their families were free. On the very day last week that Garrett Davis was engaged in denouncing the Freedmen's Bureau in the United States Senate, his own neighbors, who had fought gallantly in the Union army, were pleading with myself for the protection which the civil authorities of Kentucky fail to afford. The civil law prohibits the colored man from bearing arms; returned soldiers are by the civil officers dispossessed of their arms, and fined for violation of the law.
 
I would not be understood as representing all Kentucky as in resistance to freedom and justice-by no means. A large majority of her citizens will say they disapprove of this outrageous conduct, but they do nothing towards bringing the perpetrators of the crimes of brutality to justice. The mass of the people are passive in the presence of these great wrongs.

The freedmen of Kentucky are desirous of remaining in the State if they are permitted to do so on just terms. They are staying at their old homes marvellously well; but few comparatively have removed to the cities and towns.

The colored refugee home at Camp Nelson is rapidly closing out. I have about four hundred persons on my hands at that point now, and they are a precious lot of octogenarians, cripples, orphans, &c. I have received requests from several officials to take from their counties and provide for all the aged, infirm, sick, and orphans. The bureau is a good thing when burdens are to be borne. It is odious when it enforces justice.

I shall continue to conduct the bureau's affairs in Kentucky with as much prudence as possible, and hope to make its presence a blessing to the State.