Viewing page 140 of 239

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

agreement, because, first, it has been complied with and is terminated, and, secondly, in order that both classes of community, citizens and freedmen, may be satisfied, that whatever their contracts may be, they will be held to their strict fulfillment. In the first class of cases, the employer is very frequently dissatisfied, and in the latter the laborer. But the feeling is much the same in its character as that resulting from ordinary civil controversies.  

At the present time, the Sheriff of the county is engaged under the statutes of the state, in collecting  what is known as the poll tax, which is levied on all males, white and black, of the age of sixteen and upwards. It is a tax to provide, among other things, for the support of the paupers of the county, of whom the
freedmen will hereafter furnish a fraction. In view of this fact, and in the absence of any instructions on the subject, I have permitted the officer to collect the tax of the male freedmen. In cases where the freedman has remained during the past summer in the employ of his master, I have required that the taxes be paid by the latter. 

I am aware that this is an instance of taxation without representation, and would be regarded by many as in open violation of a fundamental principle of our national freedom; but I do not feel at liberty, of my own volition, to interfere with any of the ordinary operations of the civil government, or to resist a civil officer in the discharge of his lawful duties. I thought it better to report the fact and wait for instructions. 

There is no school in this county for the education of freed

10