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Nobr4. 1865

[[written vertically]] Asst Commissioner [[underlined]] Va [[/underlined]] [[/written vertically]]
Circular;

The assistant commissioner regrets the necessity of again calling the attention of many of the Agent of this Bureau, to their neglect of duty in not requiring the Freemen more generally to enter into contracts for their Services with the planters and others who have steady employment for them.

The principal function of this Bureau is not to supply a channel through which government aid or private charity shall be dispensed but to make the Freedmen a self supporting class of free Laborers who shall understand the necessity of steady employment and the responsibility of providing for themselves and families. Where employment is offered on terms that will provide for the comfortable subsistence of free Laborers removing them from the vices of Idleness and from dependence on charity they should be treated as vagrants if they do not accept it and the rules of the Bureau applicable in such cases should be rigidly enforced; While the Freedmen must and will be protected in their rights they must be required to meet these first and most essential conditions of a state of Freedmen a vissible means of support and fidelity to contracts,