Viewing page 120 of 248

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

(Copy.)

Attorney General's Office,
June 22. 1865.

Hon. E.M. Stanton,
Secretary of War,

Sir:
I have received a communication from Major General Howard, Commissioner of Freedmen, Refugees, and Abandoned Lands, asking my opinion on a question touching his official duty under the 4th section of the statute of March 3, 1865.

The question should more regularly have been submitted to me through you. I have no authority, as you are aware, to give an official opinion on any question not referred to me by the President, or the Head of an Executive Department. Presuming, however, that you would have sent Major General Howard's letter to me if he had desired it, I treat the question as one regularly submitted, and beg leave now to state to you my views on the point presented.

The point is this:— whether it is the duty of the Commissioner, under the Act of 1865, to take charge and control of all abandoned lands, or all tracts of land that have been abandoned, or to which the United States may have acquired title by confiscation, or sale, or otherwise within the insurrectionary States;

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-13 17:02:04 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-01-13 18:05:05