The Freedmen's Bureau

“[T]here is hereby established in the War Department…a bureau of refugees, freedmen, and abandoned lands, to which shall be committed, as hereinafter provided, the supervision and management of all abandoned lands, and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen from rebel states…. The said bureau shall be under the management and control of a commissioner to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” March 3, 1865. 

Welcome to Civics and Coffee. My name is Alycia and I am a self-professed history nerd. Each week, I am going to chat about a topic on U.S history and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history; and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. 

INTRO MUSIC

Hey everyone. Welcome back. 

As the end of the war drew near, Congress and President Lincoln became acutely aware that should the Union prove victorious, plans would need to be in place for how to properly support the newly emancipated men, women, and children in the south. How would they be integrated into society? Who would be responsible for their education? These questions prompted Congress to create an agency designated to assist the newly emancipated, referred to as freedmen, in carving out a new life. 

A bill that took a year of debates, the Act to Establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees made big promises. However, as I will cover, politics would cause the bureau to fall short of its many lofty calls. 

So this week, I am diving into the history of the Freedmen’s Bureau. How did it get started? What were its goals? And how did it fall short?

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

Once President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863 it became clear that the Civil War was focused on eradicating slavery from the nation. With that clear cause, came some important questions; namely, what would the United States look like once the slavery system was repealed? 

In Congress, Massachusetts Representative T.D. Eliot introduced the idea of a bureau. In his proposal, the bureau would provide support and protection to the newly freed Black Americans and would be overseen by the Department of War. Eliot wasn’t entirely novel with his idea - the idea for an agency or bureau had long been pushed by abolition activists and aid societies. Eliot introduced his bill in late 1863, and the House debated the bill for two months before voting to approve it on the thinnest of margins - 69 to 67 on March 1, 1864. As is part of the legislative process for a bill becoming law, the proposal was then sent to the Senate for consideration, landing with the chamber’s select committee on slavery and freedom, run by Charles Sumner. 

The Senate seemed distinctly focused on what executive department would hold authority and jurisdiction over the proposed bureau. Some felt that the Treasury Department, and not the Department of War, would be a better place for the agency since the treasury department held control over the confiscated land. Senators knew that any mechanism meant to support the integration of Black Americans would likely require at least some opportunities to homestead and so they argued that an agency focused on supporting newly freedmen should go with the department best suited to offer tangible support. Other Senators, however, felt that the Department of War was a better place for the agency since it had much more experience dealing with people displaced by conflict. 

Those arguing in favor of the bureau falling under the Treasury Department won out and the Senate decided to amend the bill to include this alteration. This was a questionable decision as the House had very narrowly passed the bill the first time, but the Senate charged ahead, passing their amended version of the bill on June 28, 1864 with 21 in favor to 9 opposed. Because the Senate amended the bill and did not approve the original legislation received from the House, their new version had to go back to the House for review and approval before it could head to the President’s desk for signature. Normally, whenever a bill is amended between the chambers, a conference of both members of the House and Senate is convened to help flesh out the details and come up with a compromise that is agreeable to both chambers. 

When it came time to conference over the freedmen’s bureau bill, the conference process was extensive and a new version of the bill did not come about until several months later on February 1, 1865. In this version of the legislation, the agency established would be called the Department of Freedmen and Abandoned lands and would be completely independent, falling under neither the War nor Treasury Departments. This decision generated even more debate as some were uncomfortable letting the agency exist on its own and some Congressmen expressed concern about the federal government stepping in to provide support to a specific group of people, in this case the freed men and women, while excluding others. As Iowa Senator James Grimes argued, quote: “are they free men, or are they not? If they are free men, why not let them stand as free men?” end quote. 

Grimes’ declaration seems a bit short sighted. Sure, the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery was making its way through the ratification process; but eliminating slavery alone did not mean that Black Americans were economically or even politically free. They were starting from scratch; it makes sense that in securing their release from bondage the federal government would also look for ways to get them on a level playing field with their white neighbors. As Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner observed quote: “the curse of slavery is still upon them,” end quote. 

The Senate again rejected the latest version of the bill and asked for a second conference to try to settle the differences once and for all. Finally, after more than a year of debate and back and forth, the bureau was set to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Department of War, basically ending where they started off. Members of the Senate were not pleased with the final text of the bill, but moved forward to pass it anyway, voting 21 to 9 in favor of the bill on March 3, 1865. The House also voted to approve and President Lincoln signed the bill the same day. The text of the bill - a portion of which I read at the top of this episode - set up what came to be known as the Freedmen’s Bureau and was given the authority and responsibility to assist formerly enslaved individuals in the process of moving from slavery to freedom. As historian Eric Foner described, quote: “bureau agents were supposed to establish schools, provide aid to the poor and aged, settle disputes between whites and blacks, and among the freedpeople, and secure for former slaves and white unionists equal treatment before the courts,” end quote. They were also charged with helping distribute confiscated land. And if that wasn’t enough - they had just a year to do it as the original bill limited the agency’s existence to one year after the end of the war. This work would require a sustained, robust effort and a significant amount of financing. And here is where Lincoln’s assassination had an arguably tangible, direct impact on the success of reconstruction.

At its peak, the Freedmen’s Bureau employed no more than 1,000 agents throughout its 15 state operation. This made accomplishing their goals incredibly difficult, if not impossible. In fact, the bureau would achieve success in only two areas - medicine and education. Overseen by General Oliver O. Howard, the Freedmen’s Bureau and its agents worked with northern societies to establish thousands of schools throughout the south. By 1869, the bureau had helped initiate 3,000 schools serving 150,000 youths and helped establish a number of universities for Black Americans, including one of the oldest in the country, Howard University, which was named in honor of the Commissioner of the Bureau, General Howard. To ensure access to medical care, bureau agents took over army hospitals built during the war and expanded the system into other communities to serve both black and white patients. 

But the major charge for the bureau - the one most desperately sought by Black Americans in order to stand on their own two feet - was land. Initially, the Bureau was given authority to divide abandoned and confiscated land into 40 acre plots for rental and eventual sale. This was curbed quickly by President Andrew Johnson who announced in the summer of 1865 that confiscated land needed to be returned to its former owners. This understandably angered and frustrated the freedmen and women who were trying to carve out a life for themselves and their families. A committee of formerly enslaved individuals even went so far as to write a petition to General Howard and the President writing partially quote, “we want homesteads. We were promised homesteads,” end quote. They pointed out that freedom - true freedom - would not be viable without access to land. 

Unfortunately their pleas fell on deaf ears and the unfulfilled promise of homesteads meant that newly freedmen and women were bound largely to the same economic system that dominated their lives before the civil war. But now, instead of their being an economic incentive to ensure the relative safety and health of their labor, former enslavers remained singularly focused on their bottom line. This led to a proliferation of unfair labor contracts, failure to pay wages for work provided, with little recourse for the workers who had neither the means nor the support to seek out legal or other options to ensure a fair wage. Land exclusion and these poor labor contracts all but guaranteed Black Americans would remain locked in a terrible economic situation. They were limited in their opportunities; stuck in jobs in the service industry, or as farm hands or unskilled laborers. Women did not fare much better; while they could sometimes choose to avoid the manual labor of working in the fields, they too were limited in what jobs they could have and many of them ended up as domestic workers which somehow still managed to anger some southern residents who felt that Black women were getting above their station by choosing not to work in the fields. 

Making matters worse, the news of the failed promise of homesteads fell to local bureau agents to share. Realizing there were limited options, it was actually bureau agents - the same men tasked with ensuring freedmen and women were successfully moved from slavery to freedom, who recommended the freedmen go back to the people who once held them as property for work. While some agents worked diligently to try to secure as far a labor contract as possible, several of them did not. In fact, more than a few agents helped coerce Black Americans into signing unfair labor contracts with their former enslavers. As historian Eric Foner observed, quote: “the failure of land reform produced a deep sense of betrayal that survived among the former slaves and their descendants long after reconstruction,” end quote. 

In 1866, it became clear to some in Congress that the Bureau’s work was not yet done and that the agency needed more time and money to truly accomplish its goals. On January 5th, 1866, Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced legislation proposing an extension of the bureau. The bill not only removed the extension date, but also extended the purview of the agency to include freedmen and refugees throughout the country, not just states of the former confederacy. Trumbull’s bill also invested more authority in military Governors to enforce provisions protecting African Americans. The Senate debated the bill for a number of weeks before eventually passing it 37 to 10 on January 25th. President Johnson vetoed the bill on February 19th, claiming there was no need to extend the bureau and that doing so would be an infringement on state’s rights. In his message Johnson wrote quote, “offenses that may be committed by individuals should not work a forfeiture of the rights of whole communities. The country has returned, or is returning, to a state of peace and industry, and the rebellion is in fact at an end,” end quote. In his mind, since the war was over and the bureau was established as a wartime measure, there no longer a need for the bureau and that the federal government should let states decide how to best provide for their residents. Johnson articulated his concern for the potential for the bureau to become a permanent part of the federal government with quote “powers greatly enlarged” end quote. 

Johnson also included in his veto message his belief that land distribution was against the constitution, which provided the protection for citizens to pursue life, liberty, or property. And in an example of just how unaware - or perhaps, uninterested - Johnson was about the state of newly freedmen and women, Johnson also included in his veto that freedmen were no longer at risk and that they had the power to bargain since their labor was essential, writing quote: “his condition is not so exposed as may at first be imagined,” end quote. In Johnson’s opinion, if the freedmen didn’t like their labor or living situation, they could move. Which begs the question, without money or a mechanism to earn a consistent living, how - exactly - were black families supposed to pick up and leave? 

And while Congress had overridden Johnson’s veto in the past, they were unable to secure the necessary ⅔ votes to extend the bureau as written. Unwilling to give up, Congress introduced another bill which was much more moderate in May, 1866 which passed in July. Johnson again tried to veto the bill, but this time Congress did have the requisite votes and successfully overrode the President. The Bureau was extended another two years. 

The Freedmen’s Bureau lasted from 1865 to 1872, when political pressure from white southerners finally forced its termination. Despite lasting seven years, a bulk of the work accomplished by the Freedmen’s Bureau was completed between June of 1865 and December of 1868. The agency did achieve a number of successes in uplifting the lives of newly freed Black Americans. It helped establish schools, including historically black universities throughout the south, and helped freedmen and women reunite with their families and secure legal recognition for their marriages. They also helped feed millions of Black Americans and at least initially tried to help freedmen gain access to much needed land. 

But, the bureau suffered from the racial attitudes and political infighting of the period. It never received the funding nor staffing needed to fully meet its many goals. Its failures - and the failures of the federal government to assume a larger role in ensuring a successful transition from slavery to freedom - locked Black Americans into a cycle of poverty for decades to come - prompting their later decision to migrate elsewhere in search of greater economic opportunities and more political freedom. 

Thanks peeps. I’ll see you next week.

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OUTRO MUSIC