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treatment and education for the negro, passed both branches of the Legislature without a dissenting voice.

Such are the principal enactments of Virginia in regard to her late slave population. I cannot but think that, considering how deeply the institution of slavery has been seated in the South, and how closely interwoven it was with all the interest and social establishments of the Southern society, and the hereditary, stubborn prejudices of the Southern people in favor of the institution, you will agree with me, I am sure, that the Legislature of my state has shown itself equal to the complicated difficulties of the occasion, comprehended the broad philosophy of the great subject, and done for the freedman all that it justly could for the present.

Nor do I doubt that, with the Freedmen's Bureau, administered by men of capacity and integrity, and cooperating with the State Civil Authorities, these measures of legislative foresight and wisdom will be duly appreciated by all classes of the people, and that, finally, relations of interest and good feeling

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