South: but to step further to free labor organized
primarily for the laborers’ benefit, this not only
was unthinkable for the white South but it even
touched the economic sensibilities of the white
North. Already the nation owed a staggering
debt. It would not face any large increase for
such a purpose. Moreover, who could conduct
such an enterprise? It would have taxed in ordinary times the ability and self sacrifice of the
nation to have found men in sufficient quantity who
could and would have conducted honestly and
efficiently such a tremendous experiment in human
uplift. And these were not ordinary times.
Nevertheless a bureau had to be established at least temporarily as a clearing house for the numberless departments of the armies dealing with freedmen and holding land and property in their name.
As General Howard, the head of the Bureau said, this Bureau was really a government and partially ruled the South from the close of the war until 1870. “It made laws, executed them and interpreted them. It laid and collected taxes, defined and punished crime, maintained and used military force and dictated such measures as it thought necessary and proper for the accomplishment of its varied ends.” Its establishment was a herculean task both physically and socially, and it
