ted.
Its report was rejected. I was appointed a member of the second
committee.

I examined the bills, and I marked out every section that was not
essential to the working of the measure. Four sections remained.
I then added a section which provided for the lease and ultimate sale
of the confiscated lands to the freedmen and refugees. President
Johnson's restoration of those lands made that section non-operative.
The committee, upon the motion of General Schenck, transferred the
jurisdiction of the Bureau from the Treasury to the War Department.
The bill was accepted by the committee, and passed by the two Houses.

When within a few days I was in the Senate Chamber, Mr. Sumner came to
me, and said in substance: "The Freedmen's Bureau Bill as it passed is
of no value. I have spent six months upon the bill, and my work has
gone for nothing. You and General Schenck cannot pretend to know as
much as I know about the measure."

With some feeling, which was not justifiable, I said: "I have not
spent six hours upon the measure, but after what you have said I will
say that the fifth section is of more value than all the sections which
you have written." I did not wait for a reply. The subject was not
again mentioned; our friendly relations were not disturbed, and it is
to Mr. Sumner's credit on the score of toleration that he passed over
my rough remarks, even though he had given some reason for a retort.

My next difference from Mr. Sumner was a more serious difference, but
it passed without any break in our relations. He had not acquired the
church-going habit, or he had renounced it, and my church-going was
spasmodic rather than systematic. Thus it became possible and
agreeable for me to spend some small portion of each Sunday in his
rooms. The controversy over Mr. Motley and his removal from the post
of minister to Great Britain excited Mr. Sumner to a point far beyond
any excitement to which he yielded, arising from his own troubles or
from the misfortunes of the country. To him it was the topic of
conversation at all times and in all places. That habit I accepted at
his house with as much complacency as I could command. Indeed, I was
not much disturbed by what he said to me in private, and certainly not
by what he said in his own house, where I went from choice, and without
any obligation to remain resting upon me. In all his conversation he
made General Grant responsible for the removal of Motley, acc