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0916

GENERAL BAIRD'S CIRCULAR.
While the State Legislatures, in a spirit of conservative statesmanship, are endeavoring to frame just laws for the reorganization of labor; while the people of the South are seeking in every possible way to adapt themselves to the actual condition of affairs, and to inaugurate a new era of prosperity for themselves and for the country, their efforts are met by the hostile action of a radical Congress, whose measures seem to exhaust even Yankee ingenuity in devising new and unconstitutional modes of still further oppressing a people already so deeply afflicted.
It can scarcely be doubted by any that the laws just enacted by the Louisiana Legislature for regulating the relations between employers and employees, are marked by a spirit of justice and fairness to both parties. Their enforcement, by the means provided in the acts would in a short time settle on a distinct basis the whole system of labor. The laborer, under that system has a full and free choice of selecting his employer, and of making his own terms, and the employer is bound to carry out his contract, while his crop is held under a lien for the payment of the laborer.
Under a system thus regulated there would be a reasonable expectation that the fertile lands of our State might soon again yield abundant crops, which would be the means of supporting the laborer in comfort and of giving him ample wages, of yielding sufficient, though not a large remuneration to the employer, and of adding greatly to the general wealth and prosperity of the whole country. If the Freedmen's Bureau were to limit their interference in behalf of the emancipated negro to an enforcement of the obligations of the employer to their protection under the laws just enacted, no objection could be urged-for we believe it to be the general desire of the Southern people to deal fairly with the freedmen and to protect them in their newly acquired rights.
We regret, therefore, to find that the Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau for Louisiana has, in Circular No. 29, issued ostensibly for the purpose of establishing "rules for the interpretation of contracts between employers and freedmen"-put forth an edict which, without adding in any respect to the protection given to the freedman by the recently enacted laws, imposes upon the employer such onerous conditions that it will be in many cases utterly impossible to comply with them.
Not only is an arbitrary tax imposed upon the freedman for educational purposes under the direction of the Bureau, but an assessment of one dollar for each laborer is to be paid by the employer, "for the purpose of reimbursing to the United States some portion of the expenses of this system, and of supporting the aged, infirm and helpless." The circular, with a minuteness of detail which is remarkable, also enters into the subject of dietetics, and prescribes that corn meal, pork and bacon "shall be" the food of the freedmen, and that the employer, whenever the agent of the Bureau shall require it, shall give security that the particular food thus required by the contract shall be furnished. We suppose that an employer who actuated by a spirit of generosity or kindness to his former slave, should venture to offer a more generous diet, or vary it for the benefit of the health of the laborer, would be visited with the serious displeasure of the Bureau, which has promulgated the doctrine that the diet prescribed so imperatively "shall be" the food of the freedman, whether it is practicable to procure it or not.
The circular further requires that the quarters of the laborer and his family "must contain accommodations for cooking; and, in addition, one half acre of land contiguous to the houses, will be set apart for each family for garden purposes." Though an economical administration of the affairs of a plantation would necessitate a very different arrangement, the employer is required to set a generate oplinary department for each