people. Major-General
Fisk, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for the State of
Tennessee, in his testimony given before the Reconstruction Committee,
said:

"'During the last year, the rations issued to white people
in Tennessee have been much in excess of those issued to
freedmen. When I took charge of my district the Government
was feeding twenty-five thousand people; in round numbers,
about seventeen thousand five hundred white persons and
seven thousand blacks. The month preceding the establishment
of the Freedmen's Bureau, for rations alone for that class
of people the sum of $97,000 was paid. My first efforts were
to reduce the number of those beneficiaries of the
Government, to withhold the rations, and make the people
self-supporting as far as possible; and in the course of
four months I reduced the monthly expenses from $97,000 to
$5,000.'

"In addition to the objections already stated," said the President,
"the fifth section of this bill proposes to take away land from its
former owners, without any legal proceedings first had."

"I regret," said Mr. Trumbull, "that a statement like that should
inadvertently (for it must have been inadvertent) have found a place
in this Veto Message. The fifth section of the bill does not propose
to take away lands from any body. I will read it, and we shall see
what it is:

"'That the occupants of land under Major-General Sherman's
special field order, dated at Savannah, January 16, 1865,
are hereby confirmed in their possession.'

"Is not this a different thing from taking away land from any body? Do
you take a thing away from another person when you have it in your
possession already? This fifth section, so far from taking land from
any body, provides simply for protecting the occupants of the land for
three years from the 16th of January, 1865, a little less than two
years from this time. If the section does any thing, it simply
prevents the restoration of this property to its former owners within
that period, except upon terms to be entered into, satisfactory to the
commissioner, between the occupant and the former owner. This is all
there is of it. It is a very different thing from taking away land
from its former owners."

"Undoubtedly," said the President, "the freedmen should be protected
by the civil authorities, especially by the exercise of all the
constitutional powers o