ates
containing refugees and freedmen. It would, by its very
nature, apply with most force to those parts of the United
States in which the freedmen most abound; and it expressly
extends the existing temporary jurisdiction of the
Freedmen's Bureau, with greatly enlarged powers, over those
States 'in which the ordinary course of judicial proceeding,
has been interrupted by the rebellion.' The source from
which this military jurisdiction is to emanate is none other
than the President of the United States, acting through the
War Department and the commissioner of the Freedmen's
Bureau. The agents to carry out this military jurisdiction
are to be selected either from the army or from civil life;
the country is to be divided into districts and
sub-districts; and the number of salaried agents to be
employed may be equal to the number of counties or parishes
in all the United States where freedmen and refugees are to
be found.

"The subjects over which this military jurisdiction is to
extend in every part of the United States include protection
to 'all employes, agents, and officers of this bureau in the
exercise of the duties imposed' upon them by the bill. In
eleven States it is further to extend over all cases
affecting freedmen and refugees discriminated against' by
local law, custom, or prejudice.' In those eleven States the
bill subjects any white person who may be charged with
depriving a freedman of 'any civil rights or immunities
belonging to white persons' to imprisonment or fine, or
both, without, however, defining the 'civil rights and
immunities' which are thus to be secured to the freedmen by
military law. This military jurisdiction also extends to all
questions that may arise respecting contracts. The agent who
is thus to exercise the office of a military judge may be a
stranger, entirely ignorant of the laws of the place, and
exposed to the errors of judgment to which all men are
liable. The exercise of power, over which there is no legal
supervision, by so vast a number of agents as is
contemplated by the bill, must, by the very nature of man,
be attended by acts of caprice, injustice, and passion.

"The trials, having their origin under this bill, are to
take place without the intervention of a jury, and wit