President “Barack Obama” “Heart to Heart” Honest Understanding for “Expedited Implement” of The 2014 Reparations Act”, By Louis Charles Hamilton II. (Part I)

“Mr. President Barack Obama”,

“Sir”

The Solutions is quite “Elementary Very Super Simple” as it has been fully staring The Negro African Americans (Race) Right Dead in Their Own Slow Faces for many years to past and comes without any “Extricate Entanglement” of the very lame actions of “United States of America Congress”

Whom absolutely refused from the past well into this very undersigned day described herein,

In Direct “Honorable Acts” of being regarded with great respect to fulfill such a “Distinguished Honor” and “Obligations of Citizenship” of “The United States of America” In Full Consideration of the hostile

“White America Ruling Class” extreme Coerced and Uncompensated force labor of the (Negro) African Americans Ancestors to actually build the New World Namely “The United States of America.

Notwithstanding all (Negro) whom having performed under complete killer distress over Centuries, even with the cost of their very own lives, lives of their entire families,

With such very unkind, malicious, vicious, emotionally-charged angry everyday “White Ruling Class” behavior in the enforcement of aggression to facilitate a estimates free labor that the total of Reparations due is over 100 Trillion U.S. Dollars,

Based on 222,505,049 hours of “forced labor”, between, 1619-1865, (246) years, with a compounded Interest of 6% payment “past due” to the descendants of “Slaves” in the current standing of The United States of America..!

On the behalf of the entire “Negro African American Race” population in excess of 44.5 Millions (Negro) for a “Hasten Reparations Acts” of extreme

measures in “Monetary Authority” targeting a rate of “Interest for the Purpose” compensation in many “Variety of Forms”.

The Never-ending useless United States of America Lame Congress “Escape goat” lame strategy clause of “which (Negro) descendants would receive such payments, whom ever exactly should be paying them (Negro) African American descendants,

And in what “Monetary value from” , highly controversial crooked conduct as of this undersigned date has fully come to pass to its “Road Ends.

“Elementary” Doctor “Watson” or shall (I) “Louis Charles Hamilton II” herein “Respectfully” say to you Mr. “President” and “Commander in Chief” Barack Obama

We Thee (Negro) African American Nation descendants of the new world herein namely “The United States of America” pay in full our very own 100% dam described interpretations of a “2014 Reparations Acts. Da’ (ha ha)

Nor will there ever be The Need for “Systematic study” or “Crooked Corrupted Congress” withholding Investigation(s) into “Reparations for Slavery”, while holding lame wasted meetings of bull crap for more Money/Time invested in a Sorry slow moving “Congressional Hearings”,

Notwithstanding “Stupid Speaking” out of the “Deep Depth” of their very own sorry “Tea Party” Republican Asses “Task Force”,

Or any “Slime Commissions” derived thereof, and not one single wasted paper on the surly going nowhere ever (Negro) Petitions. With the likes of U.S. House Bill H.R. 40

Putting to RIP forever the infamous, “40 Acres” and a “Lame Broke Dick Mangy Dead Mule”.

We Thee (Negro) African American Nation descendants of the new world herein namely “The United States of America” will now completely accumulate, maintain, and keep our own (Surprised) 2014 super economic resources that’s

100% brand new and coming into reckoned from this particular point in time, 2014 forever to last on, and quite separate from (Negro) African American Nation descendants herein required duty to pay National Taxes..!

With said new 2014 economic resources “Booming”, “Snowballing” development effect being deposited into our very own Financial (Negro) African American Nation, “Banking Institution”,

“Fully and Forever Everlasting”, free from “White Ruling Class” Congress and its counterpart of (American) “Greed”, “Theft” and “Corruption”.

With such a, “New 2014 Economic Growth”, in a very quick, “Smart Finance Fashion, (25) years of steady growth 100% actual surplus.

Fast “Superseding” the “United States of America”

Very Own National Debt of $17.075 Trillion U.S. Dollars. According to figures posted online by the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday

The Estimated population of The United States of America is 317,487,972 with each citizen share of this debt is $54,441.00 U.S. Dollars

Subtract 44.5 Million (Negro) African Americans from this equation leaving 272,987,972 share in the remaining population x $54,441.00 U.S. Dollars

With the (Negro) African Americans population standing at 44,500,000 share in the remaining debt x $54,441.00 U.S. Dollars

While the New (Negro) African American Banking Institution, surplus freeing (Crooked America) from Financial Ruin, “Irony”

The same simpletons Namely “The United States of America” who gain in excess of 100 Trillion U.S. Dollars from such enforcement of “Slavery” against The (Negro) African Americans descendants from 1619-1865 (246) years

Of hard killer gruesome steady “New World” free profits and refused to make a single “Fair”, “Honest”, “Proper”, “Wholesome”, and “Rightful”

“Reparations” payment to the (Negro) African American descendants described fully herein.

To Be Continue By: Louis Charles Hamilton II

Key To (USA) 2014 Reparation Act "Mr. President Barack Obama" (Active) in The Grave Dormant with "Thaddeus Stevens" ..xoxo!

Mr. President Barack Obama, as (I) study every inch of "Slavery 1619- through out its continual effect herein as of this very undersigned date,

my quest was led to the most important characteristic of all

Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868)

A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans,

Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, in opposition to President Andrew Johnson.

And The Answer is correct of "Thaddeus Stevens", however the real honest 100% question is in 2014 Are "You"

Negro African American "President Barack Obama" ready and (Really) care to open up the grave,

and give to your (Negro) African American People in The United States of America,

What truly belongs to them "Full legitimate standing for a 2014 Reparation Act..!

Or are you "Mr. President Barack Obama just beating your dam gums, ignoring,

and turning your Back fully own your very own (Negro) African American People

"Speak" now or Forever hold your Peace and the real change you claim to seek "Well"

"You" Mr. President Barack Obama continue to just walk away from it (Thee) Negro African American descendants whom all prayed for this day to come

for a (Negro) African Citizen to hold office of the President of the United States of America"

And Make Real Change that includes the (Negro) People in the History of 2014 and well into 2080

There is noting hard about this issue of Reparations at all, and Congress will never cross this path to be 100% Fair in 2014 as they the "White Control Ruling Class"

Forever place old holds on the Issue of Their own criminal pass to ungodly hold on to the rightful "ill-gotten gains" acquired by evil, dishonest

"Killer Means of Slavery being set into play well into 2016 election until the Death of not only you ,

but the passing death of our own (Negro) Grandchildren forever suffering narrow-minded;

bigoted endless bounded black listed forbidden Congress old school Laws

School Home work for this Very Day

dor·mant

1. Lying asleep or as if asleep; inactive.

2. Latent but capable of being activated: "a harrowing experience which . . .

lay dormant but still menacing" (Charles Jackson).

3. Temporarily quiescent:

a dormant volcano. A.K.A (Thaddeus Stevens)

United States of America "Slavery"

When war began in April 1861, Stevens argued that the Confederates were revolutionaries, to be crushed by force.

He also believed that the Confederacy had placed itself beyond the protection of the U.S. Constitution by making war, and in a reconstituted United States,

slavery would have no place. Speaker Galusha Grow, whose views placed him with Stevens among the members becoming known as the Radical Republicans

(for their position on slavery, as opposed to the Conservative or Moderate Republicans),

appointed him as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. This position gave him power over the House's agenda.

Abolition—Yes! abolish everything on the face of the earth but this Union; free every slave—slay every traitor—burn every rebel mansion,

if these things be necessary to preserve this temple of freedom to the world and to our posterity.

Stevens accepting renomination for his congressional seat, September 1, 1862

In July 1861, Stevens secured the passage of an act to confiscate the property, including slaves, of certain rebels. In November 1861,

Stevens introduced a resolution to emancipate all slaves; it was defeated.

However legislation did pass that abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories.

By March 1862, to Stevens's exasperation, the most Lincoln had publicly supported was gradual emancipation in the Border States,

with the masters compensated by the federal government.

Stevens and other radicals were frustrated at how slow Lincoln was to adopt their policies for emancipation; according to Brodie,

"Lincoln seldom succeeded in matching Stevens's pace, though both were marching towards the same bright horizon".

In April 1862, Stevens wrote to a friend, "As for future hopes, they are poor as Lincoln is nobody."

The radicals aggressively pushed the issue, provoking Lincoln to comment: "Stevens, Sumner and [Massachusetts Senator Henry] Wilson

simply haunt me with their importunities for a Proclamation of Emancipation.

Wherever I go and whatever way I turn, they are on my tail, and still in my heart, I have the deep conviction that the hour [to issue one] has not yet come."

The President stated that if it came to a showdown between the radicals and their enemies, he would have to side with Stevens and his fellows,

and deemed them "the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with" but "with their faces ... set Zionwards".

Although Lincoln composed his proclamation in June and July 1862, the secret was held within his Cabinet,

And the President turned aside radical pleadings to issue one until after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September.

Stevens quickly adopted the Emancipation Proclamation for use in his successful reelection campaign.

When Congress returned in December, Stevens maintained his criticism of Lincoln's policies, calling them "flagrant usurpations, deserving the condemnation of the community".

Stevens generally opposed Lincoln's plans to colonize freed slaves abroad, though sometimes he supported emigration proposals for political reasons.

During the Confederate incursion into the North in mid-1863 that culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg,

Confederates twice sent parties to Stevens's Caledonia Forge. Stevens, who had been there supervising operations,

was hastened away by his workers against his will. General Jubal Early looted and vandalized the Forge, causing a loss to Stevens of about $80,000.

Early said that the North had done the same to southern figures, and that Stevens was well known for his vindictiveness towards the South.

Asked if he would have taken the congressman to Libby Prison in Richmond; Early replied that he would have hanged Stevens and divided his bones among the Confederate states.

Stevens pushed Congress to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime measure, did not apply to all slaves, and might be reversed by peacetime courts;

an amendment would be slavery's end.[38] The Thirteenth Amendment[a]—which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime—

easily passed the Senate, but failed in the House in June; fears that it might not pass delayed a renewed attempt there.

Lincoln campaigned aggressively for the amendment after his re-election in 1864, and Stevens described his December annual message to Congress as

"the most important and best message that has been communicated to Congress for the last 60 years".

Stevens closed the debate on the amendment on January 13, 1865. Illinois Representative Isaac Arnold wrote:

"distinguished soldiers and citizens filled every available seat, to hear the eloquent old man speak on a measure that was to consummate the warfare of forty years against slavery".

The amendment passed narrowly after heavy pressure exerted by Lincoln himself, along with offers of political appointments from the "Seward lobby".

Allegations of bribery were made by Democrats; Stevens stated "the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America."

The amendment was declared ratified on December 18, 1865. Stevens continued to push for a broad interpretation of it that included economic justice in addition to the formal end of slavery.

After passing the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress debated the economic rights of the freedmen.

Urged on by Stevens, it voted to authorize the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands,

with a mandate (though no funding) to set up schools and to distribute "not more than forty acres" of confiscated Confederate land to each family of freed slaves.

Stevens worked closely with Lincoln administration officials on legislation to finance the war.

Within a day of his appointment as Ways and Means chairman, he had reported a bill for a war loan.

Legislation to pay the soldiers Lincoln had already called into service and to allow the administration to borrow to prosecute the war quickly followed.

These acts and more were pushed through the House by Stevens. To defeat the delaying tactics of Copperhead opponents, he had the House set debate limits as short as half a minute.

Stevens played a major part in the passage of the Legal Tender Act of 1862, when for the first time the United States issued currency backed only by its own credit, not by gold or silver.

Early makeshifts to finance the war, such as war bonds, had failed as it became clear the war would not be short.

In 1863, Stevens aided the passage of the National Banking Act, that required that banks limit their currency issues to the amount of federal bonds that they were required to hold.

The system endured for a half-century, until supplanted by the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

Although the Legal Tender legislation allowed for the payment of government obligations in paper money,

Stevens was unable to get the Senate to agree that interest on the national debt should be paid with greenbacks.

As the value of paper money dropped, Stevens railed against gold speculators,

and in June 1864 after consultation with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, proposed what became known as the Gold Bill—

to abolish the gold market by forbidding its sale by brokers or for future delivery.

It passed Congress in June; the chaos caused by the lack of an organized gold market caused the value of paper to drop even faster.

Under heavy pressure from the business community, Congress repealed the bill on July 1, twelve days after its passage.

Stevens was unrepentant even as the value of paper currency recovered in late 1864 amid the expectation of Union victory,

proposing legislation to make paying a premium in greenbacks for an amount in gold coin a criminal offense. It did not pass.

The (First) Reconstruction Era of the United States

Problem of reconstructing the South

As Congress debated how the U.S. would be organized after the war, the status of freed slaves and former Confederates remained undetermined.

Stevens stated that what was needed was a "radical reorganization of southern institutions, habits, and manners".

Stevens, Sumner and other radicals argued that the southern states should be treated like conquered provinces, without constitutional rights. Lincoln,

on the contrary, said that only individuals, not states, had rebelled.

In July 1864, Stevens pushed Lincoln to sign the Wade–Davis Bill, which required at least half of prewar voters to sign an oath of loyalty for a state to gain readmission.

Lincoln, who advocated his more lenient ten percent plan, pocket vetoed it.

Stevens reluctantly voted for Lincoln at the convention of the National Union Party, a coalition of Republicans and War Democrats.

He would have preferred to vote for the sitting vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, as Lincoln's running mate in 1864,

but his delegation voted to cast the state's ballots for the administration's favored candidate, Military Governor of Tennessee Andrew Johnson,

a War Democrat who had been a Tennessee senator and elected governor. Stevens was disgusted at Johnson's nomination, complaining,

"can't you get a candidate for Vice-President without going down into a damned rebel province for one?"

Stevens campaigned for the Lincoln-Johnson ticket; it was elected, as was Stevens for another term in the House.

When in January 1865 Congress learned that Lincoln had attempted peace talks with Confederate leaders,

an outraged Stevens declared that if the American electorate could vote again, they would elect General Benjamin Butler instead of Lincoln.

Presidential Reconstruction

Before leaving town after Congress adjourned in March 1865, Stevens privately urged Lincoln to press the South hard militarily, though the war was ending.

Lincoln replied, "Stevens, this is a pretty big hog we are trying to catch and to hold when we catch him.

We must take care that he does not slip away from us."[97] Never to see Lincoln again,

Stevens left with "a homely metaphor but no real certainty of having left as much as a thumbprint on Lincoln's policy".

On the evening of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.

Stevens did not attend the ceremonies when Lincoln's funeral train stopped in Lancaster; he was said to be ill.

Trefousse speculated he may avoided the rites for other reasons. According to Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg,

Stevens stood at a railroad bridge and lifted his hat.

In May 1865, Andrew Johnson began what came to be known as "Presidential Reconstruction": recognizing a provisional government of Virginia led by Francis Harrison Pierpont,

calling for other former rebel states to organize constitutional

conventions, declaring amnesty for many southerners,

and issuing individual pardons to even more. Johnson did not push the states to protect the rights of freed slaves,

and immediately began to counteract the land reform policies of the Freedmen's Bureau.

These actions outraged Stevens and others who took his view.

The radicals saw that freedmen in the South risked losing the economic and political liberty necessary to sustain emancipation from slavery.

They began to call for universal male suffrage and continued their demands for land reform.

Stevens wrote to Johnson that his policies were gravely damaging the country and that he should call a special session of Congress,

which was not scheduled to meet until December. When his communications were ignored,

Stevens began to discuss with other radicals how to prevail over Johnson when the two houses convened.

Congress has the constitutional power to be the judge of whether those seeking to be its members are properly elected;

Stevens urged that no senators or representatives from the South be seated.

He argued that the states should not be readmitted as thereafter Congress would lack the power to force race reform.

In September, Stevens gave a widely reprinted speech in Lancaster in which he set forth what he wanted for the South.

He proposed that the government confiscate the estates of the largest 70,000 landholders there, those who owned more than 200 acres (81 ha).

Much of this property he wanted distributed in plots of 40 acres (16 ha) to the freedmen; other lands would go to reward loyalists in both North and South,

or to meet government obligations. He warned that under the President's plan,

the southern states would send rebels to Congress who would join with northern Democrats and Johnson to govern the nation and perhaps undo emancipation.[104]

Through late 1865, the southern states held white-only balloting and in congressional elections,

chose many former rebels, most prominently Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens,

voted as senator by the Georgia Legislature. Violence against African-Americans was common and unpunished in the South; the new legislatures enacted Black Codes,

depriving the freedmen of most civil rights.

These actions, seen as provocative in the North, both privately dismayed Johnson and helped turn northern public opinion against him.

By this time, Stevens was in his seventies and in poor health; he was carried everywhere in a special chair.

When Congress convened in early December 1865, Stevens made arrangements with the Clerk of the House that when the roll was called,

the names of the southern electees be omitted. The Senate also excluded southern claimants. A new congressman, Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes, described Stevens,

"He is radical throughout, except, I am told, he don't believe in hanging. He is leader."

As the responsibilities of the Ways and Means chairman had been divided, Stevens took the post of chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations,

retaining control over the House's agenda.

Stevens focused on legislation that would secure the freedom promised by the newly ratified Thirteenth Amendment.

He proposed and then co-chaired the Joint Committee on Reconstruction with Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden.

This body, also called the Committee of Fifteen, investigated conditions in the South.

It heard not only of the violence against African-Americans, but against Union loyalists, and against what southerners termed "carpetbaggers",

northerners who had journeyed south after the restoration of peace. Stevens declared: that "our loyal brethren at the South,

whether they be black or white" required urgent protection "from the barbarians who are now daily murdering them."

The Committee of Fifteen began consideration of what would become the Fourteenth Amendment.

Stevens had begun drafting versions in December 1865, before the Committee had even formed.

In January 1866, a subcommittee including Stevens and John Bingham proposed two amendments:

one giving Congress the unqualified power to secure equal rights, privileges, and protections for all citizens;

the other explicitly annulling all racially discriminatory laws.

Stevens believed that the Declaration of Independence and Organic Acts already bound the federal government to these principles,

but that an amendment was necessary to allow enforcement against discrimination at the State level.

The resolution providing for what would become the Fourteenth Amendment was watered down in Congress; during the closing debate,

Stevens said these changes had shattered his lifelong dream in equality for all Americans.

Nevertheless, stating that he lived among men, not angels, he supported the passage of the compromise amendment.

Still, Stevens told the House: "Forty acres of land and a hut would be more valuable to [the African-American] than the immediate right to vote."

When Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced legislation to reauthorize and expand the Freedmen's Bureau,

Stevens called the Bill a "robbery" because it did not include sufficient provisions for land reform

or protect the property of refugees given them by the military occupation of the South.

Johnson vetoed the Bill anyway, calling the Freedmen's Bureau unconstitutional, and decrying its cost—

Congress had never purchased land, established schools, or provided financial help for "our own people".

Congress was unable to override Johnson's veto in February, but five months later passed a similar bill.

Stevens criticized the passage of the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 arguing that the low-quality land it made available would not drive real economic growth for black families.

Congress overrode a Johnson veto to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (also introduced by Trumbull),

granting African-Americans citizenship and equality before the law, and forbidding any action by a state to the contrary.

Johnson made the gap between him and Congress wider when he accused Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips of trying to destroy the government.

After Congress adjourned in July, the campaigning for the fall elections began.

Johnson embarked on a trip by rail, dubbed the "Swing Around the Circle", that won him few supporters;

his arguments with hecklers were deemed undignified. He attacked Stevens and other radicals during this tour.

Stevens campaigned for firm measures against the South, his hand strengthened by violence in Memphis and New Orleans,

where African-Americans and white Unionists had been attacked by mobs, including the police. Stevens was returned to Congress by his constituents;

Republicans would have a two-thirds majority in both houses in the next Congress

Radical Reconstruction

In January 1867, Stevens introduced legislation to divide the South into five district

each commanded by an army general empowered to override civil authorities.

These military officers were to supervise elections with all males,

of whatever race, entitled to vote,

except for those who could not take an oath of past loyalty—most white southerners could not.

The states were to write new constitutions (subject to approval by Congress) and hold elections for state officials.

Only if a state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment would its delegation be seated in Congress.

The system gave power to a Republican coalitions of freedmen (mobilized by the Union League), carpetbaggers and co-operative southerners

(the last dubbed scalawags by indignant ex-rebels) in most southern states.

These states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in mid-1868.

Stevens introduced a Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnson from firing officials who had received Senate confirmation without getting that body's consent.

The Tenure of Office Act was ambiguous, since it could be read to protect officeholders only during the tenure of the president who appointed them,

and most of the officials the radicals sought to protect had been named by Lincoln. Chief among these was Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a radical himself.

Stevens steered a bill to enfranchise African-Americans in the

District of Columbia through the House; the Senate passed it in 1867,

and it was enacted over Johnson's veto. Congress was downsizing the Army for peacetime; Stevens offered an amendment,

which became part of the bill as enacted, to have two regiments of African-American cavalry. His solicitude for African-Americans extended to the Native American;

Stevens was successful in defeating a bill to place reservations under state law, noting that the native people had often been abused by the states.

An expansionist, he supported the railroads.[126] Although he sought to protect manufacturers with high tariffs,

he also sought unsuccessfully to get a bill passed to protect labor with an eight-hour day in the District of Columbia.

Stevens advocated a bill to give government workers raises; it did not pass.

Freedmen's Bureau, Securities wrongfully remove from "Power" to overthrow The First Reconstruction Era Mr. President Barack Obama for your almost finished complete package understand of the need to act now in 2014

For a New Real Reparation Acts on behalf of The (Negro) African Americans within the United States of America

Is for you to (Really) understanding the down fall of the "Freeman's Bureau"

And from there (I) will give you the New Plans for Reparations and Reconstruction formula of The New World"

Namely The United States of America in 2014

While you are thinking on this Issue Mr. President Barack Obama Keep lock deep in your deep dark attic over burden perpetuate skilled Mind

"Like a Test of Faith" "You" Mr. President Barack Obama already took on Everyone..!

And "Personalized with great success....xoxoxooxox!

Freedmen's Bureau

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, usually referred to as simply the Freedmen's Bureau,

was a U.S. federal government agency that aided distressed freedmen (freed slaves) during the Reconstruction era of the United States,

though by 1870 it had been considerably weakened.

The Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which established the Freedmen's Bureau in March 1865, was initiated by President Abraham Lincoln

and was intended to last for one year after the end of the Civil War.

The Freedmen's Bureau was an important agency of the early Reconstruction,

Assisting freedmen (freed ex-slaves) in the South. The Bureau was part of the United States Department of War. Headed by Union Army General Oliver O. Howard,

The Bureau was operational from 1865 to 1872. It was disbanded

under President Ulysses S. Grant.

The Bureau encouraged former plantation owners to rebuild their plantations, urged African Americans to gain employment,

Kept an eye on contracts between labor and management, and pushed both whites and blacks to work together as employers and employees rather than as masters and as slaves.

Throughout the first year, it became clear that these tasks were more difficult than had been previously believed.

In 1866, Congress renewed the charter for the Bureau, which President Andrew Johnson vetoed because he thought it was unconstitutional.

Its powers were expanded to help find lost family for African Americans and teach them to read and write so they could better do so themselves.

Bureau agents also served as legal advocates for African Americans in both local and national courts, mostly in cases dealing with family issues.

By 1869, the Bureau had lost most of its funding and as a result been forced to cut much of its staff.

Day-to-day duties

The Bureau helped solve everyday problems of the newly freed slaves, such as clothing, food, water, health care, communication with family members, and jobs.

It distributed 15 million rations of food to African Americans and set up a system where planters could borrow rations in order to feed freedmen they employed.

Although the Bureau set aside $350,000 for this service, only

$35,000 (10%) was borrowed.

Despite the good intentions, efforts, and limited success of the Bureau, medical treatment of the freedmen was severely deficient.

Jim Downs, Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction (NY: Oxford U.P., 2012)

Gender roles

Freedman's Bureau agents, at first, complained that freed women were refusing to contract their labor.

They attempted to make freed women work by insisting that their husbands sign contracts making the whole family to work in the cotton industry,

and by declaring that unemployed freed women should be treated as vagrants just as men were.

The Bureau did allow some exceptions such as married women with employed husbands and some "worthy" women who had been widowed

or abandoned and had large families of small children and thus could not work. "Unworthy" women, meaning the unruly and prostitutes, were the ones usually subjected to punishment for vagrancy.

Under slavery, some marriages were informal, though there are many documented accounts of slave owners presiding over marriage ceremonies for their slaves.

Others were separated during wartime chaos. The Bureau agents helped many families in their attempts to reunite after the war.

The Bureau had an informal regional communications system that

allowed agents to send inquiries and provide answers.

It sometimes provided transportation to reunite families. Freedmen and freed women turned to the Bureau for assistance in resolving issues of abandonment and divorce

Education

The most widely recognized among the achievements of the Freedman’s Bureau are its accomplishments in the field of education.

Prior to the Civil War, no southern state had a system of universal, state-supported public education.

Former slaves wanted such a system while the wealthier whites opposed the idea.

Freedmen had a strong desire to learn to read and write and worked hard to establish schools in their communities prior to the advent of the Freedmen's Bureau.

Oliver Otis Howard was the first Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner.

Through his leadership the bureau was divided into four divisions: Government-Controlled Lands, Records, Financial Affairs, and Medical Affairs.

Education was considered part of the Records division. Howard turned over confiscated property, government buildings, books,

and furniture to superintendents to be used in the education of freedmen and provided transportation and room and board for teachers.

The Misses Cooke's school room, Freedman's Bureau, Richmond, Virginia, 1866.

By 1866, missionary and aid societies worked in conjunction with the Freedmen's Bureau to provide education for former slaves.

The American Missionary Association was particularly active, establishing eleven colleges in southern states for the education of freedmen.

The primary focus of these groups was to raise funds to pay teachers and manage schools, while the secondary focus was the day-to-day operation of individual schools.

After 1866, Congress appropriated some funds to use in the freedmen's schools.

The main source of educational revenue for these schools came through a Congressional Act that gave the Freedmen's Bureau the power to seize Confederate property for educational use.

George Ruby, an African American, served as teacher and school administrator and as a traveling inspector for the Bureau, observing local conditions,

Aiding in the establishment of black schools, and evaluating the performance of Bureau field officers. Blacks supported him, but planters and other whites opposed him.

Overall, the Bureau spent $5 million to set up schools for blacks. By the end of 1865, more than 90,000 former slaves were enrolled as students in public schools.

Attendance rates at the new schools for freedmen were between 79 and 82 percent.

Brigadier General Samuel Chapman Armstrong created and led Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in 1868.

The Freedmen's Bureau published their own freedmen's textbook. They emphasized the bootstrap philosophy, meaning that

everyone had the ability to work hard

and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do better in life.

These readers had some traditional literacy lessons and others on the life and works of Abraham Lincoln,

excerpts from the Bible focused on forgiveness, biographies of famous African Americans with emphasis on their piety, humbleness and industry;

and essays on humility, the work ethic, temperance, loving your enemies, and avoiding bitterness.

By 1870, there were more than 1,000 schools for freedmen in the South.

J. W. Alvord, an inspector for the Bureau, wrote that the freedmen "have the natural thirst for knowledge," aspire to "power and influence … coupled with learning,"

And are excited by "the special study of books." Among the former slaves, children and adults sought this new opportunity to learn.

After the Bureau was abolished, some of its achievements collapsed under the weight of white violence against schools and teachers for blacks.

After the 1870s, when white Democrats regained power of southern governments, they reduced funds available to fund public education.

In the 1890s they passed Jim Crow laws establishing legal segregation of public places. Segregated schools and other services for blacks were consistently underfunded.

By 1871, Northerners' interest in reconstructing the South with military power had waned. Northerners were beginning to tire of

the effort that Reconstruction required,

Were discouraged at the high rate of continuing violence around elections, and were ready for the South to take care of itself.

All of the southern states had created new constitutions that established universal, publicly funded education.

Groups based in the North began to redirect their money toward universities and colleges founded to educate African-American leaders.

Teachers

Until recently historians had believed that most Bureau teachers were well-educated women motivated by religion and abolitionism.

New research finds that half the teachers were southern whites; one-third were blacks, and one-sixth were northern whites.

Few were abolitionists; few came from New England. Men outnumbered women.

The salary was the strongest motivation except for the northerners, who were typically funded by northern organizations and had a humanitarian motivation.

As a group, only the black cohort showed a commitment to racial equality; they were the ones most likely to remain teachers.

The school curriculum resembled that of schools in the north.

Colleges

The building and opening of schools of higher learning for African Americans coincided with the shift in focus for the Freedmen's Aid Societies

from an elementary education for all African Americans to a high school and college education for African-American leaders.

Both of these events worked in concert with concern on the part of white officials working with African Americans in the South.

These officials were concerned about the lack of a moral or financial foundation seen in the African-American community and traced that lack of foundation back to slavery.

Generally, they believed that blacks needed help to enter a free labor market and reconstruct family life.

Heads of local American Missionary Associations sponsored various educational and religious efforts for African Americans.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong of the Hampton Institute and Booker T. Washington began the call for institutions of higher learning

So black students could leave home and "live in an atmosphere conducive not only to scholarship but to culture and refinement".

Most of these colleges, universities and normal schools combined what they believed were the best fundamentals of a college with that of the home.

At the majority of these schools, students were expected to bathe a prescribed number of times per week,

maintain an orderly living space, and present a particular appearance. At many of these institutions, Christian principles and practices were also part of the daily regime.

Educational legacy

Despite the untimely dissolution of the Freedman's Bureau, its legacy still lives on through historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Under the direction and sponsorship of the Bureau, together with the American Missionary Association in many cases, from approximately 1866 until its termination in 1872,

an estimated 25 institutions of higher learning for black youth were established,

many of which remain in operation today (for example, St. Augustine's College, Fisk University, Johnson C. Smith University, Clark Atlanta University,

Dillard University, Shaw University, Virginia Union University, and Tougaloo College).

As of 2009, there exist approximately 105 United Negro College Fund HBCUs that range in scope, size, organization and orientation.

Under the Education Act of 1965, Congress officially defined an HBCU as "an institution whose principal missions were and are the education of Black Americans".

HBCUs graduate over 50% of African-American professionals, 50% of African-American public school teachers, and 70% of African-American dentists.

In addition, 50% of African Americans who graduate from HBCUs go on to pursue graduate or professional degrees.

One in three degrees held by African Americans in the natural sciences, and half the degrees held by African Americans in mathematics were earned at HBCUs.

Perhaps the best known of these institutions is Howard University, founded in Washington, D.C., in 1867, with the aid of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

It was named for the commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau,

General Oliver Otis Howard

Church establishment

After the Civil War, control over existing churches was a contentious issue. The Methodist denomination had split into regional associations prior to the war.

In some cities, Northern Methodists seized control of Southern Methodist buildings. Numerous northern denominations,

Including the independent black denominations of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) and African Methodist Episcopal Zion, sent missionaries to the South to help the freedmen.

By this time the independent black denominations were increasingly well organized and prepared to evangelize to the freedmen.

Within a decade, the AME and AME Zion churches had gained hundreds of thousands of new members and were rapidly organizing new congregations.

Even before the war, blacks had established independent Baptist congregations in some cities and towns, such as Silver Bluff, Charleston, Petersburg, and Richmond.

In many places, especially in more rural areas, they shared public services with whites. Often enslaved blacks met secretly to conduct their own services away from white supervision or oversight.

After the war, freedmen mostly withdrew from multi-racial congregations in order to be free to worship as they pleased away from white supervision.

Northern mission societies raised funds for land, buildings,

teachers' salaries, and basic necessities such as books and furniture.

For years they used networks throughout their churches to raise money for freedmen's education and worship.

Continuing insurgency

Most of the assistant commissioners, realizing that African Americans would not receive fair trials in the civil courts,

tried to handle black cases in their own Bureau courts. Southern whites objected that this was unconstitutional.

In Alabama, state and county judges were commissioned as Bureau agents. They were to try cases involving blacks with no distinctions on racial grounds.

If a judge refused, martial law could be instituted in his district. All but three judges accepted their unwanted commissions, and the governor urged compliance.

Perhaps the most difficult region was Louisiana's Caddo-Bossier district. It had not experienced wartime devastation or Union occupation. Understaffed and weakly supported by federal troops,

well-meaning Bureau agents found their investigations blocked and authority undermined at every turn by recalcitrant plantation owners.

Murders of freedmen were common, and suspects in these cases went unprosecuted.

Bureau agents did manage to negotiate labor contracts, build schools and hospitals, and provide the freedmen a sense of their own humanity through the agents' willingness to help.

In March 1872, at the request of President Ulysses S. Grant and

the Secretary of the Interior, Columbus Delano,

General Howard was asked to temporarily leave his duties as Commissioner of the Bureau to deal with Indian affairs in the west.

Upon returning from his assignment in November 1872, General Howard discovered that the Bureau and all of its activities had been officially terminated by Congress, effective as of June (Howard, 1907).

In his autobiography, General Howard expressed great frustration in regard to what had taken place without his knowledge,

Stating "the legislative action, however, was just what I desired, except that I would have preferred to close out my own Bureau

and not have another do it for me in an unfriendly manner in my absence."

All documents and matters pertaining to the Freedmen's Bureau were transferred from the office of General Howard to the War Department of the United States Congress

State reports in May 1866

The following was summary on a state by state basis from the Freedmen's Bureau report from May 8, 1866

and filed by Generals Steedman and Fullerton, the Commissioners appointed by the President to investigate the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau in the Southern States.

Virginia

The Freedmen's bureau had, 58 clerks and superintendents of farms, paid average monthly wages $78.50; 12 assistant superintendents, paid average monthly wages 87.00;

and 163 laborers, paid average monthly wages 11.75; as personnel in the state of Virginia. Other personnel included orderlies and guards.

The Bureau fed 9,000 to 10,000 blacks a month over the winter, explaining:

"A majority of the freedmen to whom this subsistence has been furnished are undoubtedly able to earn a living if they were removed to localities where labor could be procured.

The necessity for issuing rations to this class of persons results from their accumulation in large numbers in certain places where the land is unproductive and the demand for labor is limited.

As long as these people remain in the present localities, the civil authorities refuse to provide for the able-bodied, and are unable to care for the helpless and destitute among them,

owing to their great number and the fact that very few are residents of the counties in which they have congregated during the war.

The necessity for the relief extended to these people, both able-bodied and helpless, by the Government, will continue as long as they remain in their present condition,

and while rations are issued to the able-bodied they will not voluntarily change their localities to seek places where they can procure labor.

North Carolina

In North Carolina, the bureau employed: 9 contract surgeons, at $100 per month; 26 hospital attendants, at average pay each per month $11.25; 18 civilian employees, clerks, agents, etc.,

at an average pay per month of $17.20; 4 laborers, at an average pay per month of $11.90; enlisted men are detailed as orderlies, guards, etc.,

by commanding officers of the different military posts where officers of the Bureau are serving.

Some misconduct was reported to the bureau main office that bureau agents were using their posts for personal gains. Colonel E. Whittlesey,

who interrogated on this matter had stated that he was not involved in nor knew of anyone involved in such activities.

Also, the arbitrary powers of the bureau,making arrests, imposing fines, and inflicting punishments, disregarding the local laws and especially the statute of limitations,

caused resentment toward the federal government in general. These powers invoked negative feelings in many southerners that sparked many to want the agency to leave.

The recommendation of Steedman and Fullerton echoed the conclusion they had in Virginia which was to withdraw the bureau and turn day to day responsibility over to the military.

South Carolina

In South Carolina, the bureau employed, nine clerks, at average pay each per month $108.33, one rental agent, at monthly pay of $75.00, one clerk, at monthly pay of $50.00,

one storekeeper, at monthly pay of $85.00, one counselor, at monthly pay of $125.00, one superintendent of education, at monthly pay of $150.00,

one printer, at monthly pay of $100.00, one contract surgeon, at monthly pay of $100.00, twenty-five laborers, at average pay per month $19.20.

The bureau management had a systemic problem that was bad at the leadership position.

General Saxton was head of the bureau operations in South Carolina and had performed his with numerous mistakes and blunders that made matters bad for those the bureau were trying to help.

Saxton was described as being pernicious. He was replaced by Brigadier General R.K. Scott. Steedman and Fullerton described Scott as energetic and a competent officer.

It appeared that he took great pains to turn thing around and correct the mistakes made by his predecessors.

There had reports of murder of freedmen from a band of outlaws. These outlaws were though to be from other states such as Texas, Kentucky and Tennessee who were apart of the rebel army.

When citizens were asked why the perpetrators had not been arrested, many answered that the bureau with the support of the military had the primary authority.

In certain areas, such as the sea islands, many freedmen were in a state of destitution. Many had tried to cultivate the land and begin businesses with little to no success.

Georgia

There was no report to make as it had been reported in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina because the bureau did not operate in the same manner as it had in the before mentioned states.

Major General David Tilson was the commissioner for the Georgia bureau office.

He had abolished all local and state authorities and established a

moched mini United States. In doing so, it created confusion and disorder.

In some area such as the Islands off the coast of Georgia, had been a majority population of freedmen in which great disorganization characterized life on the islands.

But order was restored by mid-1865 with the freedmen receiving great economic gains.

Florida

On the whole, the bureau was working effectively for all. Col. T. W. Osborne, the assistant commissioner of the Bureau for Florida had nothing but praise in descriptions from white and blacks alike.

In 2000, the U.S. Congress passed the "Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act,"

which directed the National Archivist to preserve the extensive records of the Bureau on microfilm, and work with educational institutions to index the records.

In addition to the those of the Bureau headquarters, assistant commissioners, and superintendents of education,

The National Archives now has records of the field offices, marriage records, and records of the Freedmen's Branch of the Adjutant General on microfilm.

These constitute a major source of documentation on the operations of the Bureau, political and social conditions in the Reconstruction Era, and the genealogies of freedpeople.