was not needed. General Swayne, the Bureau chief for the state, endorsed
the Governor's action and stated that the Negro was protected by his
freedom to leave when mistreated, and the planter, by the need on the
part of the Negro for food and shelter. Negroes, he said, were afraid of
contracts and, besides, contracts led to litigation.

In order to safeguard the civil rights of the Negroes, the Bureau was
given authority to establish courts of its own and to supervise the
action of state courts in cases to which freedmen were parties. The
majority of the assistant commissioners made no attempt to let the state
courts handle Negro cases but were accustomed to bring all such cases
before the Bureau or the provost courts of the army. In Alabama, quite
early, and later in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia, the
wiser assistant commissioners arranged for the state courts to handle
freedmen's cases with the understanding that discriminating laws were to
be suspended. General Swayne in so doing declared that he was "unwilling
to establish throughout Alabama courts conducted by persons foreign
to her citizenship and strangers to her laws." The Bureau courts were
informal affairs, consisting usually of one or two administrative
officers. There were no jury, no appeal beyond the assistant
commissioner, no rules of procedure, and no accepted body of law. In
state courts accepted by the Bureau, the proceedings in Negro cases were
conducted in the same manner as for the whites.

The educational work of the Bureau was at first confined to cooperation
with such Northern religious and benevolent societies as were organizing
schools and churches for the Negroes. After the first year, the Bureau
extended financial aid and undertook a system of supervision over Negro
schools. The teachers employed were Northern whites and Negroes in about
equal numbers. Confiscated Confederate property was devoted to Negro
education, and in several states the assistant commissioners collected
fees and percentages of the Negroes' wages for the benefit of the
schools. In addition the Bureau expended about six million dollars.

The intense dislike which the Southern whites manifested for the
Freedmen's Bureau was due in general to their resentment of outside
control of domestic affairs and in particular to unavoidable
difficulties inherent in the situation. Among the concrete causes of
Southern hostility was the attitude of some of the higher offici