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year the prospect was gloomy. It seemed to many that a large part of the productive land must lie waste and that many able-bodied freedmen must live idle and dependent.

Whatever the motive may have been the effect of investing a few thousand dollars at such a time was good.

It encouraged other Northern men to bring their capital and their enterprise. It inspired Southern men with confidence in free labor in which they naturally had but little faith.

Thus this "misconduct" has had a tendency to allay rather than excite hostility towards the Bureau.

The hostility that exists (its existence was well known before Generals Steedman and Fullerton discovered it) arises from other causes, chiefly from political not business interests. The Bureau is regarded as an interference on the part of National Government with matters that belong to the State.

The people, the white race, very naturally desire to manage their own affairs, and the affairs of freedmen also, as they formerly did. So long as the Bureau exists, it will exercise some restraint in this respect, hence arises opposition to it and a very natural desire to have it removed.

The commissioners proceed to report upon the