Truth a Little Sharply Put.
May 4, 1866
Summary
Congress debates over how the Freedmen's Bureau was able to achieve the funds of eleven million which were originally supposed to be three million. Southern leaders question how they can be robbed of property, education and their way of life, and expect to fund the Freedmen's Bureau.
Transcription
In the House of Representatives, on Tuesday, a debate sprang up on the appropriations (some eleven million dollars) to the Freedmen's Bureau. The appropriation for sites, building school-houses and asylums, was in the original bill three million dollars. Mr. Stevens, after a little debate, moved to reduce it to two million dollars. A sharp debate arose upon this point, in the course of which the following occurred: Mr. Chandler understood Mr. Eliot to have said that school-houses had been taken I from white children for the education of colored children. Mr. Eliot denied having stated it in that way. Mr. Chandler. - No sir; not in that way; but that is the fact- that is the whole of the position as I understand it - taking away the verbiage in which the statement was in clothed. Mr. Eliot. - Then the gentleman does not understand it at all. Mr. Chandler. - Of course not. It is impossible to understand a system by which white people are robbed alike of their property and of their system of education, and are to be taxed besides to sustain the Freedmen's Bureau, raised for the purpose of holding the South in subjugation to a political party. It is impossible to understand a system so linked together with infamy under the pretext of philanthropy.
About this article
Source
Contributed By
Brooke Beam
Identifier
BeamBrooke-18660504-Truth a Little Sharply Put.pdf
Collection
Citation
“Truth a Little Sharply Put.,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/136.