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Executive Office,
Jackson, Miss. Sept'r. 25th, 1865.

By an order bearing date the 20th inst., Col. Samuel Thomas, Assistant Commissioner, of the Freedmen's Bureau in this State, proposes to transfer to the civil authority of the state the right to try all cases, in which the rights of Freedmen are involved, either for injuries done to their person or property. This proposition is made, however, on condition "that the judicial officers and magistrates "of the Provisional Government of the State will take for "their mode of procedure the laws now in force in this "state, except so far as those laws make a distinction on "account of color, and allow negroes the same rights and "priveleges as are accorded to white men before their courts," by which I understand that negroes shall be allowed to testify in cases where their interest is involved. 

And believing that the late constitutional amendment, which abolishes slavery, abolishes also all laws which constituted a part of the policy of the system of slavery, and in declaring that the negro shall be protected in his person and property, establishes principles, which, of themselves, entitle the negro to sue and be sued, and 

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