tucky --
Mr. Ritter -- Mr. Rousseau's Threat -- Mr. Shanklin's Gloomy
Prospect -- Mr. Trimble's Appeal -- Mr. Mckee an exceptional
Kentuckian -- Mr. Grinnell on Kentucky -- the Example of
Russia -- Mr. Phelps -- Mr. Shellabarger's Amendment -- Mr.
Chanler -- Mr. Stevens' Amendments -- Mr. Eliot closes the
Discussion -- Passage of the Bill -- Yeas and Nays.

On the day succeeding the passage of the bill in the Senate, it was
sent to the House of Representatives, and by them referred to the
Select Committee on the Freedmen.

On the 30th of January, Mr. Eliot, Chairman of this committee,
reported the bill to the House with amendments, mainly verbal
alterations.

In a speech, advocating the passage of the bill, Mr. Eliot presented
something of the history of legislation for the freedmen. He said: "On
the 3d day of last March the bill establishing a Freedmen's Bureau
became a law. It was novel legislation, without precedent in the
history of any nation, rendered necessary by the rebellion of eleven
slave States and the consequent liberation from slavery of four
million persons whose unpaid labor had enriched the lands and
impoverished the hearts of their relentless masters.

"At an early day, when the fortunes of war had shown alternate
triumphs and defeats to loyal arms, and the timid feared and the
disloyal hoped, it was my grateful office to introduce the first bill
creating a bureau of emancipation. It was during the Thirty-seventh
Congress. But, although the select committee to which the bill was
referred was induced to agree that it should be reported to the House,
it so happened that the distinguished Chairman, Judge White, of
Indiana, did not succeed in reporting it for our action. At the
beginning of the Thirty-eighth Congress it was again presented, and
very soon was reported back to the House under the title of 'A bill to
establish a Bureau of Freedmen's Affairs.' It was fully debated and
passed by the House. The vote was sixty-nine in favor, and sixty-seven
against the bill; but of the sixty-seven who opposed it, fifty-six had
been counted against it, because of their political affinities. On the
1st of March, 1864, the bill went to the Senate. It came back to the
House on the 30th of June, four days before the adjournment of
Congress. To my great regret, the Senate had passed an amendment in
the nature of a substitute, attaching this bureau to the Treasury
Department; but it