Note 87 — Chapter III

The first bill creating a Freedmen’s Bureau was introduced in the House during the 37th Congress by Mr. Eliot, of Massachusetts, who during the 39th Congress was chairman of the Select Committee on Freedmen. It was not reported, but the same bill was presented in the first session of the 38th Congress, and passed the House by a vote of 69 to 67. It was returned from the Senate on June 30, 1864, amended so as to attach the Bureau to the Treasury Department. A committee of conference agreed upon a new bill creating a department of freedmen’s affairs, reporting to the President. This passed the House, but failed in the Senate. The next attempt succeeded. Congressional Globe, 2d Session, 38th Congress, p. 1307. See Cox’s Three Decades of Federal Legislation for an account of the Freedmen’s Bureau; also Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, iii, 472-485; Wilson (Woodrow), Division and Reunion, 263.