STATEMENT
OF
BR. VIAJ. GEN. O. O. HO WARD
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
IN DEFENSE AGAINST THE CHARGES PRESENTED BY
HON. FERNANDO WOOD~
AND
ARGUMENT OF EDGAR KETCHUM, EsQ,
AO  F COUNSEL FOR GEN. HOWARD IN SUMMING UP THE CASE UPON
THE TESTIMONY BEFORE THE COMMITTEE,
NEW YORK:
BRADSTREET PRESS, 18 BEEKMAN STREET,
I870.








GENERAL HOWAtRD'S STATEiENT,
The Hon. Fernando Wood, introducing his charges against lue,
used these words:
" That General Howard had been guilty of malversation and dereliction of duty on the following points:
" First, That he has taken from  the appropriations made for, and
the receipts-of, that bureau, more than five hundred thousand dollars,
improperly and without authority of law, for the Howard University,
hospital, and lands."
In reply, I do not deny the amount alleged to have been appropriated to the Howard University, including all the buildings constructed therewith, the hospital, with its several wards and out-buildings, and the lands, so -far as the indirect aidL in their purchase and
the necessary grading and sewerage connected with the structures
are concerned.
But I do deny that this amount, or any amount whatever, with my
knowledge and consent, has been expended "improoperly and without
authority of lawz."
A portion of this money has been expended in the structures themselves.
By reference to the appropriation act, approved SMarch 2, 1867, it
will be seen that Congress appropriated $o00,000 to the rental, repairs, and construction of buildings for the education of the pleople
committed to my charge, and for asylums; this was for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1868. Subsequently, by act of Congress of July,
1868, all unexpebded balances in the hands of the Comimnissioner not
required for the legitimate purposes of the bureau are devoted to
the work of education, according to the laws already existing. These
laws, and the authorized regulations of the bureau under them, directed the educational aid from  the regular appropriation to rental,
repairs, and construction, the transportation of teachers, and supplies
for the schools, also to the payment of superintendents, clerks, and
agents, engaged in the school work. This method of expenditure
was set forth in my request for the appropriation, and is evidently
intended by the wording of the act of July, 1868 (section 2).
The freedmen's hospital in this District., including the main
structure, all the wards and necessary outbuildings, was demanded
in the reduction of the number of hospitals in different parts of the
country. It was necessary to make provision somewhere for the aged,
the infirm, the deranged, and the imbecile that were already on our
hands, for whom it was impossible to make provisior  in the different
States. Very many came from  Virginia, Freedmen's Village, for example, where there were none to take care of them. The former
system of providing for these indigent people in families became im



4                 STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.
practicable, especially where large numbers of the inhabitants had
lost their property by the war. Families to which some of the freed
people belonged had become scattered or extinct, and where this was
not the case I had no power of compulsion. I could not send a decrepit or imbecile freedman to a family that refused to receive him.
Upon breaking up the hospital at Louisville, Kentucky, neither
the State nor the city could be induced to take charge of the poor
inmates, and I was obliged to bring many of them here. In my
judgment the hospital, or, more accurately, the asylum fobr aged and
infirm  freedmen, became an absolute necessity  Possibly the "improperly and without authority of law" may have been asserted in
the charge because the government did not itself hold the land upon
which these buildings were erected. There was no other method of
holding land than by trustees. The act of Congress, approved March
2, 1867, which provides that the Commissioner may transfer sums of
money from the "Freedmen's and Refugees' fund" to institutions
incorporated shows a recognition of the' organizations which may
properly execute the trusts conferred by the several laws bearing
upon the subject of education. There was no direct method of holding land by the government, either for educational buildings or
asylums, provided for in the law itself; therefore I chose two methods
that I deemed safe and right: one to use corporate bodies that from
their charters could properly receive and execute the trusts imposed,
and the other by an order, or orders, to impose special trusts upon
selected trustees to carry out the object of an appropriation, or to aid
me in the exercise of existing discretionary power. The latter method
has been employed in very few cases indeed, and only when some
pressing necessity seemed to me to render this course unavoidable.
The trustees of Howard University had their powers conferred
by Congress, and willingly undertook, not only the work of education
pertaining to the classes especially committed to my charge, but
offered me the advantage of a portion of their land for the asylum.
Certainly the University in its medical department, receives benefits
from the asylum, and will do so as long as it shall continue. Yet I
can conceive of no better advantages, none more economical, than are
here afibrded to me as Commissioner of the bureau for its purposes.
It is found by the testimony that a portion of the $500,000 named
was transferred to the University for its use. This came from the
"Freedmen's and Refuglees' fund" and was therefore in exact accordance with the act referred to above (act of March 2, 1867).
If it be claimed that the University charter does not call bfor the
education of refugees and freedmen, or their children, the answer is,
that its charter is not limited; that in the reception of all the funds
derived from the government the University corporation formally
accepted the conditions expressed in the order of transfer and in the
contracts for building. The deeds of transfer of the buildinrgs also
expressly demand and secure the fulfillment of this important condition.
The uniform interpretation of the law with reference to ". Refugees'
and f reedmen's fund" has been, as it was doubtless originally intended, to complrehend any incorpororated institutions that would obligate themselves faithfully to educate refugees and fieedmen and
their children.




STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.
The preliminary meetings of the trustees of the Howard University show beyond question that the original design was the education
of freedmen and their descendants; and the classes in the several
departments, from its beginning till now, show that that design has
been carried into execution-the charter is not limited, but was intended to comprehend this object.
Do I not, then, rightly claim that the appropriation made for, and
the receipts of the bureau which have been devoted to the Howard
University, hospital, and lands, have been used properly and with
express authority of law?
"Second, That portions of the land alleged to have been sold for
the benefit of the Howard University fund were disposed of improperly to mrembers of' his own family and officers of his staff."
The second point is not true. No members of my family nor
officers of my staff have owned any of the land. Some officers of
the bureau have purchased land, as did other people, at the market
price, and I have never in any way sought to influence or control the
sales in their favor.
"Thitcr'd, That bonds issued in aid of the First Congregational
Church of the city of' Washington were taken in payment for a portion of this land, which have not yet been redeemed or paid, nor
have they been returned in his official accounts as such."
The third point is not true; certainly I have no knowledge of any
such transaction. If it were true it would in no way apply to me,
for I could not officially account to the government for the property
of the University.
" Fourth, That the University building and hospital were built of
patent brick furnished by the American Building-Block Company;
in which General Howard, Charles Howard, General E. Whittlesey,
and J. W. Alvord, all attached to the bureau, were interested as
stockholders."
The fourth point, so far as my interest in the Washington Building.
Block Company is concerned, is not true. I was in the company,
but left it before commencing to build the structures of the University`f the material in question.
The other gentlemen named remained in the company, as I firmly
believe, with no intention of wrong-doing.
The operation in the manufacture gave employment to a large
number of colored men that were then out of employment. The
specimen material seemed excellent, and they believed they were
doing a good work by this investment of their means with no very
considerable prospect of profit at the low price at which they pro —
posed to furnish the block. The business head and manager, as well
-as the employes at the yard, had no government position. As now
appears, no dividend was ever declared, and these gentlemen have
realized nothing thus far from their investment.
" Fifth, That the specifications for the construction of those buildings provided that the material used in their erection should be
taken from the brick made by this company, thus preventing com-.petition, and securing the use of that brick, and no other, for that
purpose."
The fifth point is a mistake.  By reference to the University,




STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.
hospital, and dormitory contracts it will be seen the specifications were
confined to the class of material, viz,: 66American building-block,"
not to the company, as specifications always do provide for specific
material in any given building. The competition, it is trlue, was not
great, because this company could make block for less than it could
be made and transported from New York and Philadelphia, where
were the nearest work s of manufacture.
The company never put the block or its heavier material, e. g. the
corner blocks, water-table, &c,, at as high prices as at New York. I
was much pleased with the building-block; the recommendations
were abundant from our first scientific men and experts; the speciinens were hand some, those that had age were very fine. Our trustees, without any exception, approved of the material and asked fbor
its use by a unanimous resolution,
The University and dormitory stand so firmly that experts and experienced builders express complete confidence in their safety and
durability.  I have had no mercenary mnotire whatever in the use of
this patent block.
"6Sixthi  That the brick so used was unfit and nearly worthless;
parts of the building have fallen down in consequence, and other
parts have since been repaired and rebuilt, at an expense of $13,000."'
The sixth point will certainly not apply to the University nor to
the dormitory, and  I doubt not a different report would have been
made even of the hospital building had it not been subjected to so
unfavorable conditions in building-to frost, thaTw, and heavy rain.
It will be observed that the University, including all that was
added to perfect the structures and the present hospital building,
including the loss, compare most fkvorably in point of cost with any
other large buildings in this city or elsewhere.
"'8venth, That bvy his consent and kniowledge lumber. belonging
to the government was used by this company and appropriated to its
own benefit, being resold to its employaes."
The seventh point is far from being true. The University did lease
an old building or buildings to the company (Coyle's old sand lease
of one acre becarme the company's), and the University repaired these
buildings; I never authorized the issuing of lumber to the BuildingBlock Complny.
Once an officer said to me that some lumber had been improperly
taken to the works, and I told him to demand payment of the compatny if this was true, as has been shown in the testimonyof Maj or Brown.
"Eighth, That he pays rent to the Howard University from  tho
funds of' the bureau for the privilege of a headquarters."
The eighth point is true. I have rented most of one floor and part
of another for the purposes of the bureau since the building became
the property of the University, not before. When in town the buildings I was obliged to rent cost much more, and the pay went to private
parties, while now the money goes to pay the teachers of the children
of freedmen. In this way we have economy to the government and
have secured good accommodations for the bureau work.
"Ninth, That he draws three salaries, viz.: one as a brigadier general in the United States army, another as Commissioner of the
Freedmen's Bureau, and a third as head of the Howard University?"




STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.                7
The ninth point is in no sense true. The salary of the president,
which is fixed by the recorded resolution, I have never drawn. To
draw the salaries of Commissioner and of my rank in the army at the
same time would not be possible. I have never attempted it. I have
drawn my army pay and allowances, which are less than I would have
received commanding a department. The sum fixed by law for the
Commissioner has been saved.
" STenth, That he has paid from the funds of the bureau over
$40,000 for the construction of the First Congregational Church in
this city, taking the church bonds in return, which he has either
returned in his accounts as cash on hand or sent South for the purposes of the bureau."
The tenth point is surely not sustained by facts. The treasurer
and agent of the University and the treasurer of the incorporated
Normal School at Richmond, Va., did invest in the notes or bonds,
secured by deed of trust upon the church property, but not by my
orders or instructions. The security is good, and I have no doubt of
the propriety of this investment. The institutions have suffered no
loss by it, and it is intended by all parties concerned they shall not.
"Elevenlh, lHe has advanced a large sum from the funds of the
bureau to the Young Men's Christian Association of this city, taking
their bonds in payment, which have been sent to Tennessee to help
the Freedmen's schools in that State."
The eleventh point is not true at all. I have only given my private subscription to the Young Men's Christian Association, and
never directly or indirectly any government funds whatever.  I
did sell, as has been shown in evidence, $1,500 of the Young Men's
Christian Association stock that I held, to a corporate body, the
Fisk University, guaranteeing it at par, and have since fulfilled my
guarantee.
"6 Twelftlh, That he caused or knowingly allowed lands in this city,
owned by an officer of the bureau, to be transferred to a freedmen's
school in North Carolina, the officer taking the money appropriated
for that school and the school the lands in this city; thus perpetrating a fraud both upon the government and the freedmen."
The twelfth point gives, as I view it, a false impression. Surely
no officer of the bureau, other than myself, has ever, to my knowledge, transferred any lands to any freedmen's school. If' there is
blame in the actual transaction doubtless referred to in this point
I alone must bear it. I received through J. [. McKim, Secretary of
the Freedmen's Union Commission from England, some money to
invest in land for freedmen, or in some agricultural operation
connected with them. It was when the black men were not so
popular as they are now, and lots could not be purchased by those
in need except for cash. Through Dr. J. M. Thompson I learned
that I could obtain a square or half square of land from Moses
Kelly, Esq., by the payment of part cash and the rest in mortgage
notes with deferred payments. I wrote to Mr. McKim and asked if
I had not better invest the money (about $1,000) in this land, and
sell lots on time to the freedmen, and as the money came in reinvest
it for a similar purpose. He expressed his cordial approbation of my
plan.




8                STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.'
The Virginia avenue, which passes, touching the land on the north,
had an appropriation for completion. This appropriation was not
enough for the work, and proper access to the land was delayed. I
therefore resolved to sell it as a whole. I gave five cents per square
foot. At the same price I offered two thirds of the square bordering on Virginia avenue to the Saint Augustine Normal Institute in
North Carolina, for the investment of any fund that was not immediately needed. Land on the next street east was at the time held
at thirty cents. The Virginia avenue was in process of completion,
and the new railroad (Baltimore and Potomac) to pass near it. The
transfer of the land was agreed to and made, and the money derived
from it used to take up the notes. The original fund was again
invested for the agricultural department of the University, in which
students without means are working for support. If it be asked
where the Saint Augustine Institute received its money for this
investment, I answer it was from the dividend of that raised from
the Barry farm. Since the property has belonged to the Saint
Augustine Institute I have allowed it to be graded, especially and
mainly to give work to destitute freedmen and also to enhance the
value of the property. The grading gave work and bread to a large
number of industrious colored people after the extreme hardship and
destitution of the winter, during the spring and summer following.
The most of them were purchasers of lots on Barry farm, of which I
will speak under the next point.
"Thirteenth, That he was interested in the purchase of a farm of
about three hundred acres, near the lunatic asylum in this county,
for which the public funds and other property of the government
were used. Buildings were erected thereon built of lumber belonging to the government and then let or sold to freedmen at exorbitant
prices; and that he and his brother Charles Howard were personally
interested in this transaction as a private pecuniary speculation."
The thirteenth point I regard a misstatement, containing a charge
having no foundation in fact.
I will give a brief history of the " Barry farm" transactions. Let
me first present the order which is already in evidence, viz.:
WAR DEPARTMENT,
BUREAU OF REFUGEES, FREEDMEN, AND ABANDONED LANDS,:WASHINGTON, April 23, 1867.
SPECIAL ORDERS, I
No.;61. 
II. Brevet Brigadier General George W. Balloch, Chief Disbursing
Officer of this Bureau, will transfer the sum of fifty-two thousand
($52,000) dollars to a Board of Trustees, consisting of S. C. Pomeroy,
J. R. Elvans, and O. O. Howard; this amount to be held in trust by
them for the benefit of three normal collegiate institutions or uni-:versities, embracing the education of Refugees and Freedmen; said
institutions being incorporated, or as:soon as they shall be regularly
incorporated;'one located-: in the District of Columbia, one in the
State of Virginia, and:the third in the:State of North Carolina. The
said Trustees may invest the said fifty-two thousand ($52,000) dollars




STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWARD.                9
in land, with a view of relieving the immediate necessities of a class
of poor colored people in the District of Columbia, by rental, by sale,
or in such other way as their judgment shall direct for this purpose,
provided all proceeds, interest, or moneys received for rental or sale
over and above necessary expenses shall be annually transferred to
the said three institutions, and in all cases to be divided equally
between them.
By order of Major General 0. 0. cHOWARD, Commissioner.
A. P. KETHUM, A. A. A. General.
This order explains itself.
Now with regard to a few facts that constrained me to the course
I pursued.
A gentleman living on Meridian Hill, prior to the issuing of the
above order, had a long row of government sheds used for barracks
or hospital purposes during the war, situated on lands valued at
$1,500 an acre. In these buildings refugee colored people had taken
up their residence from all quarters. Some were cultivating small
gardens, and some bad no employment. They could not possibly pay
him rental, and he was constrained by circumstances to sell his land.
The colored people were very poor and destitute and he disliked to
turn them off, so that he did what hundreds of others have done in
perplexity —came to the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and
asked him what could be done. I said to this gentleman that there
were thousands in the same condition, and I did not know what
could be done. I was charged with "feeding people in idleness,"
and I must not make paupers of them. I got into the carriage with
him, and we rode to the old buildings. I called out all the men I
could find (some of them were quite intelligent) and talked with
them; asked them what they wanted to enable them to become self:
supporting.  Several answered "land."  They realized that they
could not stay long where they were. I said, Now if I could manage
to secure you a homestead, say an acre of land apiece near the city,
might I rely upon it that you would work and repay the outlay?
Some promised earnestly to do so, and recieved aid as I will explainothers hung their heads and said nothing. Now this is a description
of quite a number of communities at that time in Washington and
its vicinity. In meditating upon this condition of things, and this
pressing necessity, I thought it would be well to take a portion of
the " Freedmen's and Refugees' Fund," which had been accumulating
mainly from the rental of abandoned property, and which I had
already devoted in my discretion to educational purposes, and pur.
chase a farm as near Washington as possible, divide it up into acre
lots, give lumber enough for small and comfortable tenements, and
sell to the poor freedmen on time, on a bond to be followed by a deed
in fee as soon as the terms of the bond should be fulfilled.
I had great difficulty at that time in finding anybody who would
sell, and had, finally, to purchase without being known in the matter
or without having the object of the purchase revealed. After select.
ing trustees and taking legal advice, the purchase was made and the
plan was carried into execution.




10                 STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWVARD.
The following tabular statement will exhibit the cond clition of the
fund when I turned it over to my successor:
1. Original purchase money......................... $52,000 00
2. Expended for roads, streets, and surveys...............    7,517 95
3. Lumber for houses...........................  16,407 60
Total........,,.......$......... $75,925 55
Amount returned to fund while I was Treasurer and appropriated as per account current..............31,178 12
Amount on hand turned over to John A. Cole, my successor as Treasurer...................................  10,081 41
Unsold lots valued at............................. 12,426 76
Amount doe on contracts April 17, 1869...................  28,783 71
Total............................. e$82,470 00
Balance in favor of fud.c........................ $6,544 45
This balance is sufficient to cover the interest on the money used
for the time invested.  Now, as to the character and use of this -fund:
It can not be assumed that the " Barry farm" fund is public money
of the United States if the original order of' expenditure was in
accordance with law-it became at once a fund held in trust for the
three institutions designated by the trustees.  Therefore an investment of' the find in accordance with  the request of the official
representatives of these institutions became proper after the transfer
to them  of any sum in the hands of the treasurer.
The Normal School at Raleigh, N. C., invested a portion of its
dividend in the two thirds of' square No. 1025, as explained under the
last point.  The Normal School at Richmond, Va., invested its first
dividend in the mortgage notes or bonds of the First Congregational
Church.
The latter investment was a good one; the former, the land is
worth three or fbur times its cost, and the officers of' the school now
highly value their investment.  I parted with this land at precisely
the same figure that was given, viz.: five cents per square foot, except
that a small alley was reckoned out in the purchase and reckoned in
at the sale-not affording enough gain to cover interest on the notes,
the surveys, and other expenditures.
Not regarding the fund as belonging to the United States, I did
not act as a United States disbursing officer, but deposited  it, as
instructed  by the trustees, in the  Freedmen's Savings Bank, and
invested it from time to time in United States bonds and such other
securities as the trustees approved, in this way increasing the fulnd
by the interest till the dividend should be -made.  I was not, as is
charged, interested privately in the purchase of this farm; have not
made a dollar of gain by it in the purchase and sale of lots; nor has
my brother or myself been interested in the purchase of lumber as a
private pecuniary speculation, and never, to my knowledge, was there
a single instance of' exorbitant charge for the lumber furnished to
the fieedmen.  I never heard of a complaint of that to any officer or
agent who came in contact with the settlers.
"Fourteenth, He has discharged the duties of the office of Commissioner of the bureau with extravagance, negligence, and in the
interests of himself' and family and intimate friends."




STATEMENT OF GENERAL HOWVARDo                 1I
This is not true. Extravagance and negligence on my part ca.n
not be proved. I halve labored bard, with fidelity and success-as the
results accomplished will show-in securing the reward of labor to
freedmen; establishing justice; providing for the poor without pau.
perizing them; caring for the helpless indigent, the sick and orphan
children in asylums, leaving but one asylumn as a legacy to the
government; and more than all, in codperating, according to the
requirements of law, with benevolent and educational associations —upward of thirty in number-so as to more than equal the appropriations of the government in the establishment of schools of every
description from the primary to the University.
These schools have been more than two thousand, with pupils at
times numbering two hundred and fifty thousand.
A careful, dispassionate survey of my work and that of the officers and agents who have aided me, instead of intently gazing at the
flaws which every human enterprise must present, will completely
vindicate me from this charge.
The only member of my fkmily who has ever had any connection
with the bureau is General C. H. Howard, my brother, and he calme
into it not at my request, but was first detailed by the War Departs
m.ent, at General Saxton's request, in South Carolina. I consulted
not his but wfhat I believed to be the public interest, in his retention,
For according to my deliberate conviction his individual interest
would have been better subserved by a discharge long before it took
place; and as to intimate friends, permit me to say that they have
become so by a faithful discharge of public duty. No corrupt intern
est of any of them has appeared or been favored by me.
". Fifteenth, That he is one of a ring known as the'Freedmen's Bua
reau Ring,' whose connections and influences with the freedmen's
savings banks, the freedmen's schools of the South, the political man
chinery of a party in the Southern States; and whose position has
been to devote the official authority and power of the bureau to
personal and political profit."
The fifteenth point is imperfect in its expression. The charge of
"Freedmen's Bureau Ring" is denied, unless it is to be understood
that certain individuals who are and have long been earnest worker
for the benefit of their fellow men are intimate and zunitect in good
wcorks. The " ring" is placed in good connection with the freedmen's
savings banks and the freedmen's schools of the South, but the political party is not specified. I hope those who work against the
poor and lately enslaved are not intended; if so, I deny the connection. But as to devoting the official authority and power of the bureau to personal and political profit, I am in no way guilty. There,
are no facts to sustain such a charge.




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It was said by Sir Francis Bacon, the king's solicitor, in a judicial charge upon the commission of the Oyer and
Terminer, held for the verge of the Court, that'" It is the happy estate and condition of the subject of this realm  that he is not to be
impeached in his life, lands, or goods, upon flying rumors, or wandering fames or reports, but by the oath and presentment of men of
honest condition, in the face of justice."
We too, happily, stand in the face of justice; but all our efforts
have iailed to obtain an acknowledgment from any one who has ape
eared before you that he is the originator or procurer of these charges.
rue, indeed, the honorable gentleman from  New York, my own
Representative, has declared himself responsible, as he is responsible,
for the action he has taken; but he has at the same time declared in the House, and in this room, that he had no personal knowledge of the matters brought hither, that he had no acquaintance
even with the accused person, and that he had no feeling against
him, but was rather predisposed in his favor upon his war record.
I proceed now, sir, to examine these charges in their order. I take,
therefore, the
FIRST CHARGE.
" That he has taken from the appropriations made for, and the re.
ceipts of that bureau, more than five hundred thousand dollars, improperly and without authority of law, for the' Howard University,
hospital, and lands.'"
We say government funds have been used for these objects, as follows: First, from the appropriation by Congress for educational pur.
poses (act of July 13, 1866, and act of March 2, 1867); Second, from
the Refugees and Freedmen's fund (act of March 2, 1867). But one
fund, namely, the appropriation fund, has been used for the erection
of hospital buildings.
The lands used for the university and hospital buildings were not
purchased by the government, but by the corporate body known as
"Howard University."  The Howard University derives its funds
partly by transfer of money from the refugees and freedmen's funds
and partly by gifts from societies and individuals. The lands have
been paid for from funds so derived and from funds arising from the
sale of lots.
First authority. The act to establish a Bureau for the relief of
Freedmen and Refugees, approved March 3, 1865, enacts as follows:
"'Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America, in Congress assembled, That there is hereby
established in the War Department, to continue during the present
war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter, a Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, to which shall be committed, as




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                13
hereinafter provided, the supervision and management of all abandoned lands and the control of all subjects relating to refugees and
freedmen fiom rebel States, or from any district of country within
the territory embraced in the operations of the army, under such
rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the head of the bureau and approved by the President. The said bureau shall be under
the management and control of a commissioner to be appointed by
the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
whose compensation shall be three thousand dollars per annum."
In the act making appropriations for this bureau, approved
March 2, 1867, for the year ending June 30, 1868, an appropriation
was made for building of schools and asylums, including construction, rental, and repairs, five hundred thousand dollars.
The act continuing the Freedmen's Bureau, taking effect July 16,
1868, sec. 3, provides as follows:
"And be it further enacted, That unexpended balances in the hands
of the Commissioner, not required otherwise for the due execution of
the law, may be, in the discretion of the Commissioner, applied for
the education of freedmen and refugees, subject to the provisions of
law applicable thereto."
These acts allowing construction give ample authority for the
expenditure of money in the erection of Howard University.
Now, as to the funds transferred from the refugees and freedmen's
ftnds, the words are: "That the Commissioner be hereby authorized
to apply any balance on hand, at this date, of the refugees and freedmen's fund, accounted for in his last annual report, to aid educational
institutions actually incorporated for loyal refugees and freedmen."
The interpretation of this last clause has been uniformly considered
to embrace incorporated educational institutions that had the intention, or had already assumed the trust of educating loyal refugees and
freedmen. Any other interpretation would render the act ineffectual,
for we know of no institutions whatever that have been incorporated
expressly and solely for the education of refugees and freedmen.
More enlarged powers are found in the act approved June 15,
1866, which has never been modified or repealed. These words occur
in it:
" SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That where accounts are rendered for expenditures for refilgees or freedmen, under the approval
and sanction of the proper officers, and which shall have been proper
and necessary, but can not be settled for want of specific appropriations, the same may be paid out of the fund for the relief of refugees
and freedmen, on the approval of the Commiissioner of the Bureau of
Refugees and Freedmen."  Approved June 15, 1866.
The only requirement with respect to this fund in any given case
is to show that the expenditures for refugees and freedmen were
"proper and necessary," and approved by the Commissioner in the
exercise of the discretion plainly given him.
In this discretion the expenditures for Howard University were
embraced.  With regard to the hospital, the appropriate name is
asylum; for the majority of its inmates are not really sick, but aged,
infirm, imbecile, or insane.
This asylum is the provision made by the Commissioner for cons




14~                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
solidating  the numerous hospitals and asylums throughout the
Southern States.
The authority for the expenditure of money for asylums is found
in the act above referred to and approved March 2, 1867.
This authority is clearly conferred by the act approved April 7,
1869, as follows:
"6 An act relating to Freedmen's Hospitals:
6" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
Stales of America, in Congoress assembled, That the Commissioner of
thle Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen is authorized and directed to
continue the freedmen's hospitals at Richmond, Virginia; Vicksburg,
Mississippi; and in the District of Columbia, including the asylum
for aged and infirm freedmen and for orphan children: Provided, that
the expense thereof shall be paid by the Commissioner out of moneys
heretofore appropriated for the use of the bureau: And provided
furtlher, that said hospitals shall be discontinued as soon as may be
practicable in the discretion of the President of the United States."
Approved April 7, 1869.
Here, sir, I may say at the outset, while looking at the law, that
the gentlemen on the other side were under a mistake when they
made the comparisons in regard to appropriations and expenditures,
as was very apparent from  the evidence of Dr. Brodhead, when he
testified before the committee. They thought the Commissioner was
restricted to the specific item in making expenditures under a given
appropriation.  That was an error.
The act of' May 8, 1792, Statutes at Large, vol. i., sec. 9, p. 281,
provides: "That the forms of keeping and rendering all public
accounts whatsoever shall be prescribed by the Department' of the
Treasury."
Now, under that act the Secretary of the Treasury did issue his
warrantts, and they have been produced before you in evidence, bringing all the work of the bureau under one specific head, and the
accounts all stand under one head accordingly. Both Brigadier
General George W. Balloch, Chief Disbursing Officer of the Bureau
of Refuigees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, and the other officers
of that bureau have uniformly rendered their public accounts under
the forms prescribed by the Department of the Treasury.
And our opponents were mistaken again, for they alleged more
differences than the figures show. They took the appropriations
for the two years, comparing them with the expenditures for four
years and upward, whereas it might be found upon examining the
whole of the amounts of appropriations and expenditures that there
is but a single instance in the years 1666 and 1867 In which the
expenditures under a particular head were beyond the appropriations
under that head, namely, that of clerks.
But under the head of' clerks have been included agents, and so it.may appear that $198,600.73 were expended in excess of the particular appropriations, amounting to $165,600. Further than this there
is no excess, and this difference is in no wise material. A single
head covers the whole work and characterizes the account of the
bureau.
Yet even without the act of 1792 and the warrants of' the Secrer




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                15
tary of the Treasury under it, the act of 1868, which provides that
all unexpected balances are to be expended in the discretion of the
Commissioner, would be sufficient for us on this point.
SECOND CHARGE.
"That portions of the land alleged to have been sold for the benefit
of Howard University fund were disposed of improperly to members
of his own family and officers of his staff"
No proof whatever has been brought to show that land of the
Howard University was sold to any members of the family of General Howard.  But it has been understood from the beginning that
one lot was taken by General Howard himself  There have been no
lots sold to officers of his staff, for General Balloch and Mr. Alvord
are not accurately officers of his staff It means, I suppose, officers
of the bureau; and we are willing to accept it as meaning that and
to answer it accordingly.
Now, sir, as to the lot taken by General Howard. You will remember
that the Smith farm was without any improvements, and that it was
outside the limits of the city. Doubtless the owner sold it gladly;
and when these parties purchased it they had a great work to do.
There were one hundred and fifty acres of land without even an
inclosure. It was procured for a university. But that would not
occupy one hundred and fifty acres, and nothing else should come
upon the land that would injure the university or the neighborhood.
You have learned from evidence here that General Howard had
his own dwelling in G street; that it was worth and was sold for
$10,000. That was located nearer his place of business and more
conveniently for his mode of living. But there was something to be
done, and the object was to establish the Howard University.
The question was, can it secure such improvements as will advance
the character of the neighborhood? can it attract men hither of spirit
and ability, friendly to the object, and ready to help it forward? I
do not wonder that they offered General Howard an acre. He seems
to have been prominent in procuring the land. General Whittlesey
was with him; but I think it clear that General Howard was the
principal actor.
Under these circumstances why should not these men who had
charge of this matter, in order to induce General Howard to begin
the improvement, offer him  this acre of land?  It was the most
natural thing in the world.
They did offer the land. General Howard was engaged in his official duties here and in the South, and an answer does not seem to
have been promptly made. The parties here were all friends; there
were no suspicions lurking in any bosom; there was no apprehension
that any person Would put by anything to bring it into such a court
of inquiry as this, or to tell what happened in the meetings, or
whether General,Howard was advised to accept or not to accept.
IIt resolved to build his house on the ground, and seems to have
left the offer unanswered for a while, but in August, 1867, he formally declined it. Then a committee is appointed to fix a valuation
upon the lot. It is on Seventh street, upon the high land, and over



16                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
looks the city. They fixed the price at a thousand dollars, a trifle more
than it cost, for they gave $147,500 for the one hundred and fifty acres.
They put in a condition that he should build a house on the lot to cost
not less than $10,000. Was not this a fair consideration? It has been
emphasized that General Howard got a house-lot there for $1,000
which might have been sold for $2,000 or $3,000. But it was more
than a money consideration when they could bring General Howard
with such a house there, and so begin their work and get it in a state
of forwardness. I say, therefore, he gave the fullest consideration
for the lot. The house, which was to be worth $10,000, has been
shown to be worth more than $15,000.
As to the purchase of lots by the officers of the bureau: General
Balloch gave $4,300 for his lot, and he built a valuable house upon
it; Mr. Alvord purchased a lot for $3,100, and he, too, built a good
house. Are they to be condemned for doing this?
THIRD CHARGE.
"That bonds issued in aid of the First Congregational Church of
the city of Washington were taken in payment for a portion of this
land, which have not yet been redeemed or paid, nor have they been
returned in his official accounts as such."
That charge was certainly made without knowledge, by some
person who heard the "flying rumors" or "wandering fames and
reports," but who was not at all acquainted with the facts. There
has been no attempt to prove it.  "That bonds issued in aid
of the First Congregational Church were taken in payment for a
portion of this land." Does it mean that Howard University sold
lots for these bonds? It did not do so. Of course what follows falls
with this.
FOURTH CHARGE.
"That the University building and hospital were built of patent
brick, furnished by the American Building-Block Company, in which
General Howard, Charles Howard, General E. Whittlesey, and C. W.
Alvord, all attached to the bureau, were interested as stockholders."
Little need be said of this. The committee remember perfectly
well that General Howard, after beginning this enterprise with the
others soon left them. The project was to procure the manufacture
of this building-block in Washington. But when the trustees of
Howard University chose to have it for the new building General
Howard quitted the enterprise. He sold out his interest some two
months before the first blocks were made for Howard University.
That charge, therefore, is disproved, and by testimony which was produced on the other side. The note given for that interest was dated
in August, but the arrangement for its transfer was made prior to
the 9th of July, as fully proved.
FIFTH CHARGE.
"That the specifications for the construction of those buildings
provided that the material used in their erection should be taken




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                 17
from -the brick made by this company, thus preventing competition
and securing the use of that brick, and no other, for that purpose."
This is incorrect. There is no company named in the specification.
The material is named in it. That is no specification which does not
name the material, of which the building is to be constructed. It is
the very nature of a specification to do this.  " Thus preventing competition, and securing the use of that brick, and no other, for that
purpose." But there was a price fixed, and it was $40; upon that
every one would estimate. The specification named the material and
the price, which was five dollars less per thousand than it was sold
-for anywhere else. The transaction was fair and open, and could not
operate unjustly toward any one.
SIXTH CHARGE.
"' That the brick so used was unfit and nearly worthless, parts of
the building having fallen down in consequence, and other parts
have since been repaired and rebuilt at an expense of $13,000."
No part of the case has been more fully investigated. Artificial
stone in itself is no novelty; cities are built of burnt clay; but this
block is differently made. Some have approved of, who afterward
condemned it; some have doubted, who afterward believed in it. We
have in the testimony ground for a reasonable judgment. The
report of the commission of General Hardee, J. W. Rumsey, and others,
minutely describes the material and its manufacture, and the building of the hospital and its fall. Major King, who made the experiments for the commission, and Mr. Rumsey have also testified on
this trial, and Mr. Yanderburgh, the patentee. The testimony shows
that the stone so made is as truly stone as any produced by natural
causes, and that it will become as hard as any. The elements of both,
are alike. This is shown by Mr. Vanderburgh, whose enthusiasm
never obscured his clearness. But opinions differ; Mr. Clarke and,
Mr. Mullett testified against it, and the Rev. Dr. Sunderland. Mr
Clarke had thought well of it but changed his mind. The hospital
fell. Few could volunteer a defense of the new material at such a
time. And here I call the attention of the committee to the fact
that when a part of the north wall of the dormitory fell, while under
construction, the cause of it was a bad foundation, which had been
laid without sufficient bonding, so that it opened and let down the
superstructure. The proof on this point was complete, and showed
there was no fault in the building block. I said few could volunteer
a defense of the new material at that time; yet defense could be
made.
Large buildings had been constructed of it in various parts of the
country, and they stood firm; and so did the University itself-as
Mr. Rumsey said, " strong and safe, and with as few cracks in its
walls as any building of its size he ever saw." If panic must prevail
the jniversity must be abandoned and lost. It had cost $150,000
and supplied a want never met here before, and seemed to be strong
and safe. Was it to be sacrificed with all the hopes and interests
depending on it?
The majority of the trustees (General Howard was absent at the
2




f18                ARGUMENT OF MRE. ETCHUM.
time from Washington) differed from the president, Dr. Sunderland,
and he retired, leaving on record his opinion, which was unfavorable.
I do not blame Dr. Sunderland for retiring. He has left on record
his opinion. And yet the building stands firm, and is of excellent
use, and Mr. Vanderburgh said that when this Capitol should be
crumbling in ruins that University would be adamant. The reason
he gave was that those elements of the atmosphere which corrode
marble harden the block.
The length of the hospital building ran north and south. In the
middle was a hall-way formed by two cross walls running east and
west. The block was made in cold weather and used sooner than it
should have been. It was laid up in November and December and
exposed to the weather, and the mortar became frozen before it could
set, and frost produces expansion. At each end, therefore, of the
cross walls they exerted a great pressure against the exterior walls,
tending to throw them outward.
It was near twelve o'clock on a morning in December that the east
wall fell out. The sun had thawed the mortar, and then, according
to the testimony, the wall "sloughed off;" opening a semicircular
space like an inverted arch. The fall was not by the crushing of the
material, but by the sliding out of the whole mass, and it was thrown
out where it had been met by the cross walls and not at the ends
of the building.
After one o'clock, when the afternoon sun was upon the west wall,
that thawed and fell out also, and the appearance on that side was
like the other. The cross walls and the end walls stood firm.
This description, which is drawn from the testimony of Mr. Vanderburgh and the report of the commission appointed to examine the
case, may show the error of those who imputed this injury to the use
of the building-block, as if that had been the only reason why the
building fell.
The story went forth in the newspapers that this block was worthless, and alarm was felt concerning the University building on the
part of its friends, and its enemies plied their arts to convince the
public that it must be abandoned as unsafe.
Those men were courageous who bore up against this influence,
and they deserve praise. They have their reward it the present
condition and continued use of the buildings on the University
grounds.
To show that the cause which produced the fall of the hospital
would have operated in a similar way upon walls in the like condition, built of burnt brick or stone, I quote Peter Nicholson, the
author of an English work, " The Mechanics' Companion," which is of
high repute.
He says: "There is nothing so prejudicial to a building as alter.
nate rain and frost, if exposed; for the rain makes way through the
pores- into the heart of the stone and mortar, and when the freezing
comes on the water is converted into ice, which expands beyond the
original bulk with such power that no known force of compression iscapable of resisting its expansion. In consequence of this the
heaviest stones and even the largest rocks have been burst."
And I beg leave to refer to the report' of President Barnard of




ARGUMENT OP MR XET'rCI'UMt 
Colnmbia College, in New York, who was a Commissioner to the
French Exposition, giving a description of the Coignet artificial stone,
It was remarked upon the trial that this was a very different thing
from our building-block, but I think it will appear on examination that the two substances are very much alike. It is sand and
lime with moisture and pressure, but Coigant had also a little cement.
The foundations of the building for the French Exposition were
built of this material. And a good reason is given for it. It can be
made in large pieces, so that a wall can be constructed with fewer
joints, lessening the liability to settle and crack the walls of the
superstructure. And this material can be made in beautiful forms
without the expense of cutting. So iron buildings are constructed.
The metal is run into the mold and it is soon ready. But the iron
is more costly than the sand and lime. This material is much
cheaper and may be as beautiful.  Why should it be utterly
condemned?
The time may come when this block will be in common use
notwithstanding the obloquy cast upon these men for the faith they
had in it.
Mr. Rumsey, a witness for the prosecution, said that if the University were built of pressed brick it would have cost $25,000 more
than it has. And another said that if the cornice surmounting that
building were made of' brown stone it would have cost as much as all
the exterior walls of the present University. If the trustees of the
University instead of constructing this building of a material so cheap
had used what was more costly, could they have escaped censure?
Then the complaint would have been that they had expended so
much more money.
This sand was good and it was near. An important object was to
give employment to the poor, that paupers might earn their living.
It was not to give them money. It would be well to give them a
fair remuneration for their work; they would be taught that "he
who will not work neither shall he eat," provided he can get work
to do.
A witness not friendly to the material said it was fasciniting in
its appearance, and was in good repute when these contracts were
made. There are gentlemen in New York who built their houses
of it. They ridicule the idea of any danger. The steeple at Morrisania fell from the ignorance of these who erected it, the immediate
support of blue-stone giving way.
The honorable Representative from New York (Mr.Wood) has said —
and I refer to it again because he was absent when I alluded to
it this morning —that he never had any acquaintance with the officer
accused; that he had had no business with him; that he had no feel
ing against him, and that his prepossessions were rather in his favor
on account of his war record. I was glad to hear that, and I thank
him for it. I hope that he has no more hostile feeling now than he
had at the beginning.
As to the loss of $13,000 by the fall of the. hospital  That is a
m-istake.  We have found it is $22,000, which' shows how misinformed these accusers were.
It could not be otherwise than that common brick should be used




20                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
instead of the block in rebuilding the hospital. The common brick
was as cheap, and care would be taken to prevent a renewal of the
former calamity, and there would be a silencing of evil tongues; and
so the common brick was used.
You remember that General Howard built his own house,of this
material of which the University and hospital were constructed. Surely
a man under covenant to expend $10,000 on his house, and who
expended over $15,000 for it, where his family were to live, would
take care to have it safe. It has been said that it fell. But it never
fell. In the rear of the house, before the leader from the roof had
been provided, the water came down spreading and freezing upon
the wall, the ice standing an inch thick on a surface of several feet in
width. As soon as this came off the damage appeared on the face of
the block. The effect was to scale the surface. General Boynton
and Mr. Harvey said it fell. Mr. George Cook, who did the work,
said it did not, but was repaired by removing the outside half of the
blocks and substituting new pieces..Peter Nicholson in his book has
told us that any material will suffer in that way if' thus exposed.
General Boynton spoke of other buildings falling there, but soon
corrected himselfi saying he did not mean they fell, but that portions
were taken down.  But George Cook told us how that happened;
that the frost affected them in the same way; that the buildings
were not finished, and, being injured in a similar manner, had to
be mended. The house of General Howard has not been painted,
and stands very firm in all its parts.
SEVENTH CHARGE.
"That by his consent and with his knowledge lumber belonging
to the government was used by this company, and appropriated to its
own benefit, being resold to its employ6s."
As to the last part, there is no word of proof upon it. Here again
is shown what 1" wandering fames and reports" the authors of these
charges sent abroad.
The contrast between the rest of the charge and the proof becomes
absurd, but must be shown. All that was proved was that two
colored men with two carts took government lumber, part of the
debris of an old shed, and carried it to this hill. The witness failed
to state who gave the order. He inquired of the men and they said
General Charles Howard authorized them to take the lumber. But
this is mere hearsay and no proof. The quantity of this lumber so
taken was five hundred feet, and it was worth one and a half cents a
foot, or $7.50 for the two loads.
Mr. Alvord shows an order from the assistant commissioner signed
by Major Clark for lumber, and says the lumber was for sheds for
the University but that it was never delivered, enough having been
obtained for the purpose from the material of other sheds taken
down.
EIGHTH CHARGE.
"That he pays rent to Howard University from the funds of the
bureau for the privilege of a headquarters."
And so he does. Why not? Boys sometimes call a companion an




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                 21
Indian giver: he gives and then snatches away. That is not fair even
among boys. But if this Howard University is legally transferred to
its corporation why should it not have rent? This thing was not
done in a corner, it is set upon a hill as a city that can not be hid.
The Treasury Department has the report of it, and Dr. Brodhead,
the second comptroller, who came here as a witness, and who knows
the law perfectly, has either passed the accounts or will pass upon
them as the law requires.
Here is a charge that 1" he pays rent to the Howard University
from the funds of the bureau for the privilege of headquarters.' Yes,
he paid $5,000 to strangers, and here he pays $3,000 to friends-I
mean strangers or friends in respect to the great work to be done
for the freedmen. But he pays $3,000 for the rent of better accomriodations than the bureau had before, and the money goes to the support of'the other part of the house, which is a great object.
The expenditure is within the purview of the law, within the object
and intent of Congress, and above all within the object and intent
of th6 nation, and why offer reproach for this? I think it to be
praised. I think this thing, and all these things-for several others
like it appear in this history-go on like a river with successive falls,
at each of which the power is used beneficently, the same waters,
fresh and vigorous, turning mill after mill in all their progress to
the sea. But it is noticeable that while the former rent was $5,000
this is only $3,000. Yet here is an officer who'" belongs to a ring and
goes for his friends."  How is it he did not choose to pay $5,000 to
the University? The accommodations were better and he had a discretion. The reason is he was a true economist. He was not to
squander merely because he had money under his charge, as enemies
Pretend he did. He was not watching for a hole in the bag out
of which the money could be taken. No, he acted as in view of the
whole world, and with a good conscience.
Right here it is natural to recall the picture of Mr. Rumsey, who
was a witness, who was a brother member with General Howard of
the Congregational Church, who built the church edifice and who
built the University —to recall the picture of Mr. Rumsey, disappointed at having been underbid by Mr. Cook upon the job of the
extras for the University, exhibiting in the bureau office his dissatisfaction at the furnishing to the Sunday-school children of' the premiums for bringing into the school new scholars without examination
into the color of the eyes and skin, and at the non-recognition by
the Commissioner of the buroau (a brother member of' the same
church) of Mr. Rumsey's right to have the job without competition,
and at his own price. General Howard was administering the law
for the public interests and not in the interest of friends. He might
have been compliant and Mr. Rumsey might have remained friendly.
But he was faithful to his duty and Mr. Rumsey went his way.
I was much impressed with the proof brought to show that the
Commissioner wartmed the rooms of' the bureau by a heating apparatus which allowed the warm  air to escape into the upper rooms
occupied for the University. The expense was $40 a month. It was
a small thing to bring into this case in connection with the dealings
of this officer with the interests of four millions of people with a fund




2-2                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
of $13,0000000. But such charges characterize this proceeding generally. I am not speaking of the gentleman who brought the resolution before the House; I ofer no reproach to him for bringing in
the charges  I hold them responsible for this who are at the bottom
of' it; because there is a spirit here that marks the whole case, and
must be exhibited to the committee and to the country for the
understanding of it.
Here is a small committee-room.  The House is larger in its numbers and in its area. But the people fil the country. Was it the
plan that these charges should go out and things be so fixed that
without hearing both sides-and without an opportunity of hearing
both sides-there should be suspicion and malediction all over the
country on account of this bureau? They knew some hated it;
they knew it was very popular among the masses of the people; and
now is it to be so misrepresented and belied for the purpose of blackening the name of the man put in charge of it, of blackening the
character of those who have sustained him, defhming the Congresses
that have sustained him with their enactments and their sympathy?
Is that the object?  If it was the object then ought such proofs
as these to appear along with the charges, so the spirit that prompted
them may be made manifest.
NINTH CHARGE.
"That he draws three salaries-namely, one as brigadier general of
the United States army, another as Commissioner of the Freedmen's
Bureau, and a third as the head of Howard University."
There is not a word of truth in this, and not a word of proof to
excuse it. But there are plenty of people all over the country who
have no more doubt that General Hoeward has done this than that the
Capitol is here. They say "It is, a shame." 1"It is a good way of
making money."  There may be men in office who do such things;
but it has not been done here, and not a word of testimony has been
offered to show it.
Sir, is there no responsibility for this on the part of those who have
invented these charges?  "' Shall a man scatter firebrands, arrows, anc
death, and say, Am not I in sport?" Upon highes tauthority he is
responsible and shall be condemned.
General Howard is the president of Howard University, and you
know under What circumstances. Others preceded him and they
departed.  At last he was called at o salary of one dollar per annum
(merely nominal, of course), and he is subjected to this reproach. It
may appear in the course of this argument that the authors of these
charges knew this one to be untrue. There waets a resolution that
$5,000 should be paid to, the president of the University when he
should perform the full duty required by the office. But General
Howard received notice, with the appointment, that his salary was
one dollar per annum, and he answered it, " I accept."  Is he to be
blamed?  Ought not a man who will do so, to, be praised rather
-than condemned for it?




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                 23
EVENING SESSION.
MR. XKETCHUM resumed his argument on behalf of General Howard.
He said:
Ma. CHAIRMAN: Thanking you and the committee for your indulgence, I will now proceed with what I have to say upon these
charges. And first, I beg leave to add a few words respecting the
lumber. I omitted to say this morning, what has been shown in the
testimony, that a rumor did come to General Howard on that subject, through Major Brown, and that he immediately ordered the
seizure of all the lumber on the University grounds, and it was
seized accordingly. Therefore, so far as General Howard was concerned, his duty was performed.
I beg leave to add a few words on that first charge in reference to
the order for the transfer of $125,000 to the Howard University,
which order was made on March 12, 1869. The act of June 16, 1866,
has, in the second section, these words: "That where accounts are
rendered for expenditures for refugees or freedmen, under the approval and sanction of the proper officers, and which shall have been
proper and necessary, but can not be settled for the want of specific
appropriations, the same may be paid out of the funds for the relief
of refugees and freedmen, on the approval of' the Commissioner of
the Bureau of Refugees and Freedmen," giving authority to the
Commissioner, and permitting his fiat to pass the account in the
Treasury Department. That is the act of June, 1866. The order
runs that Brevet Brigadier General George W. Balloch, Chief Disbursing Officer, will transfer the sum of $125,000 to the Howard
University institution, &c., under the act approved March 2, 1867,
said sum to be paid out of. the balance on hand March 2, 1867, of
the Refugees' and Freedmen's fund. Now the amount that was on
hand March 2, 1867, of that fund was not equal to $125,000. That
has appeared in the testimony. If this order had been correctly
made it would have given the date, as to the funds on hand, not
March 2, 1867, but March 12, 1869, the date of the order itself. The
money was then on hand —$145,000 and more. A  part of the
$125,000 was on hand on the 2d of March, 1867, but not the whole
of that amount. This order stood well enough in respect to so much
as was on hand on the 2d of' March, 1867 — say $97,000 or less; and
it would amount to an inaccuracy as to the specification- of date.
I turn now to the act of' 1868, chapter 63: "And be itffurther enacted, That unexpended balances in the hands of the Commissioner,
not required otherwise for due execution of the law, may be, in the
discretion of the Commissioner, applied for the education of freedmen and refugees, subject to the provisions of law applicable thereto." This act of' 1868, along with the preceding acts, fully empowered the Commissioner in the premises; and the error was in the
date, and it is for the authorities to say how it shall be corrected if
it ought to be corrected. I am not informed whether these accounts
have been passed in the Treasury, but the gentlemen there understand their duty, and if there is an error they will see to its being
corrected. It is only a clerical error.




24                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
MR. HOAR. Of what are you now speaking?
MR. KETCHUM. Of the transfer of $125,000 to the Howard University by the order of March 12, 1869, which order directs that that
money shall be transferred by General Balloch out of the balance on
hand of the Refugees' and Freedmen's fund on the 2d of March,
1867, at which date there was not $125,000 of that fund in his hands,
although a larger sum was in his hands after that date and at the
date of the order. That is the explanation to be given of it. I
recollected to-day that it was a matter of particular inquiry by Mr.
Wood and Mr. Bradley.
MR. TYNER. And your view is that that order of March, 1869, is
based on the act of June 15, 1866?
MR. KETCHUM. And also on the acts of 1867 and 1868-all three of
them come in to give authority.
I reach now the
TENTH SPECIFICATION.
"That he has paid from the funds of the bureau over $40,000 for
the construction of the First Congregational Church, taking the
church bonds in return, which he has either returned in his accounts
as cash on hand or sent South for the purposes of the bureau."
Here again is shown a total misconception of facts. It is wholly
untrue, and seems to have grown out of the impressions those witnesses had who came here and told the committee they heard General Howard say in meetings of the trustees that he had, or would
have, money of the bureau, which he could lend for the benefit of
the church; and that if they would make bonds he would lend
money on them. This specification has been drawn in accordance
with that story, but it is an entire mistake, and they were entirely
mistaken in their impressions.
"He has paid from the funds of the bureau over $40,000 for the
construction of the First Congregational Church." Hle never paid a
dollar, and had not a dollar of the bonds of the church, and was not
therefore to return a dollar as cash on hand, and was not to send the
bonds anywhere for purposes of the bureau. But it will be recollected perfectly well that a fund had been transferred, and had been
for a certain time in the hands of General Balloch, the treasurer of
the University, for the University; that it was a charity fund which
was to be invested, and of course to bring interest; and the question
was where it should be placed. The trustees of the University
resolved that they would loan it on some of those bonds, and they
did so-it was not the Refugees' and Freedmen's fund after that transfer and acceptance, and could not be. The Retained Bounty fund
of which these men spoke was not a fund which could be transferred for educational purposes.  That had another object, and
another use altogether. As a matter of fact, therefore, that fund
never was given to the University, and it never did in any way reach
the hands of these church people.  It has been amply brought
before the committee by the testimony, although it has been suppressed from those partial reports in the newspapers that have been
spoken of to-day, that the property of the church was worth more
than $100,000, and that the church mortgage was only $40,000, or,




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                25
to speak more exactly, $38,000. Senator Pomeroy has spoken of the
value of those bonds, and of his willingness to take them if the
Howard University did not want to keep them; and Mr. Rumsey
himself, who was not friendly to the accused, said these bonds were
a most ample security.
Now it is true that -the trust deed did not contain the provision
that careful conveyancers insert in such papers, for an insurance,
making it for the benefit of the holder. The treasurer thought
that it did, but when examined more carefully it was found that
the clause was not in the trust deed itself. But the insurance
is made, and is made for the benefit of the holders of the trust deed,
and of the persons interested beneficially under these bonds. But
the land itself is ample security without the house; it is. ample
security for $38,000. In the State of New York, in loaning the
United States Deposit fund, no note is taken of buildings, but the
land on which the loan is made must be worth a certain proportion
of value beyond the loan. I refer to that provision as having been
drawn by wise men with great care, and having existed nearly forty
years with safety to the fund; and I say that this trust deed is
ample security for the money advanced, and that the Howard University can go into the market and get the cash for these bonds if
it wishes to do so. If it were otherwise, if it were as the old Chancery bill of foreclosure used to say: "a slender security for the
same," and if the fund was put to risk by means of that, it would be
a different thing. But even then this charge, as made in this paper,
would fial, and we have a right to say that we stand here on
the charges made.  We are not here to solicit changes in these
specifications.  They stand or fall as they are.  And what is
said of the loan by the University upon these church bonds is to be
said also of the loan by the Normal School at Richmond, Va., on
some others of them. Nothing could show clearer than the testimony
of Mr. Manley of that institution how free it was to loan or not upon
that security, and how freely and cheerfully it loaned upon what it
took. But it was the trustees of the University and the trustees of
the Richmond school that invested the money, and it was the corporation of the church that borrowed it. The Freedmen's Bureau
and its Commissioner neither borrowed nor lent.
ELEVENTH SPECIFICATION.
"H Ie has advanced a large sum from the funds of the bureau to the
Young Men's Christian Association of this city, taking their bonds in
payment, which have been sent to Tennessee to help the freedmen's
schools in that State."
I suppose that in a court of law this would have fallen as soon
as the testimony upon it was heard. It is entirely untrue.
"' He has advanced a large sum from the funds of the bureau to the
Young Men's Christian Association;" all the rest depends upon that,
and that is not true. General Howard has not advanced any sum
from the funds of the bureau to the Young Men's Christian Association. He did individually hold $1,500 of bonds or stock of this
Young Men's Christian Association, and a school in Tennessee did




26                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
choose to invest that money in these bonds, being guaranteed for a
year that they should be at par, and then within a year General
Howard individually took up the bonds at par and interest.
That is the whole of it. It is personal and not official. It was
not the money of the bureau.  This specification, therefore, is
entirely without foundation. It is another evidence of the recklessness of those who accused this public officer before the country.
TWELFTH SPECLFICATION.
"That he caused or knowingly allowed lands in this city owned by
an officer of the bureau to be transferred to a freedmen's school in
North Carolina; the officer taking the money appropriated for that
school and the school the lands in this city, thus perpetrating a fraud
both on the government and on the freedmen."
If this were so it was hazardous to leave such a public officer in
charge of the money which remained in the bureau during the
weeks of this investigation. It would be strange if such a thing
could be said with any truth and that officer be left in full exercise
of the large powers conferred on him by law. But it was too reckless
and wrongful an accusation to inspire fear.
I will refer to the testimony. The committee recollect that Mr.
McKim, secretary of the Freedmen's Union Commission, informed
General Howard that he had two hundred pounds sterling, which
friends in England thought could be well employed in getting homesteads for the freedmen. Months passed before an answer was sent
to Mr. McKim, when General Howard wrote, saying, "I think I have
found a place where this can be done. There is a square (describing
square 1025) which can be obtained and so employed; what do you
think?" Mr. McKim replies, " I think well of it, and I send you the
money." General Howard invested that money and gave his own
obligation for the difference, and that was some $8,400. So it
remained for a time; but there are difficulties in the way of placing
the freedmen on that property. The people do not like them in the
city.  There are hindrances which we all understand and which
operated to such a degree that the original idea in connection with
this land was changed. The piece of land I refer to is square 1025
east of the Navy Yard, on the eastern branch of the river, near the
shore, and on Twelfth street East and Virginia avenue. It was found
that would not do. They could not well and wisely place the colored
people there. In the mean time they find that they can get a far better
piece of ground, more extensive, and which will accomplish far better
the end they have in view.
That is the Barry farm, which is three hundred and seventy-five
acres in extent. The Barry farm charge comes in just after that upon
this square 1025. They are linked together very closely.
MR. HOAR. I should like you to state with as much particularity as
if we never heard it before, all about this land, the sources from
which the money came, the original transactions, and what became
of the property.
MR. I(ETCHt1M. If you permit me, then, Mr. Chairman, I will just
bring together for that purpose the Barry farm and this square 1025.




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.               27
While holding square 1025 the Barry farm comes in view. It was
learned from the land agent that Barry farm, across the river, near
what is called Union Town, and running up to the asylum grounds,
might be purchased for $52,000. Senator Pomeroy, who came here
and testified before you the other evening, was very anxious that
that enterprise should be undertaken. He urged it very strongly,
and believed that if a settlement could be made on that ground these
colored people would have comfortable homes for small prices, and
that they would be able to pay for them. The problem was how to
do it. Nobody would sell land to colored people. This plan was
devised: That there should be trustees, and that a fund should be
transferred to these trustees, destined ultimately for three educational institutions of the higher order, in equal parts. Therefore
first the $52,000 must be taken by the trustees and invested in
land, and then the land must be sold and the proceeds given to
those institutions.  Senator Pomeroy, Mr. Elvans, and General
Howard were made the trustees under that order, and received
that fund; but owners of land would not sell to colored people,
and if those names appeared the person who was to sell would reject
the contract.  So the land agent advised that Mr. Elvans should
go and get the land. Senator Pomeroy went with Mr. Elvans, took
the money, and got the land, and Mr. Elvans immediately conveyed
it to the trustees. Now the school at Raleigh was to receive one
portion of that fund; but it had no need to use this money at that
time, and as Rev. J. Brinton Smith testified here very heartily, the
school chose to take the square 1025 and invest so much of the money
as was then coming to it in that square. There was nothing personal
in that except the obligation of General Howard for the deferred
payments of square 1025. It was not that he was engaged in a moneymaking operation. It was that he was engaged in an enterprise to
further the great object which he had in view, that these poor colored
people should not have to dwell in Murder Bay and such places in
this city, paying all they could get for wages in high rents for
wretched domiciles, filthy and miserable. That was the story of this
square 1.025. It was purchased at five cents a foot and was conveyed
at five cents a foot, so much of it as was conveyed. A part which
was nearest the shore was taken by the Block Company. Five acres
of square 1025 were taken by the school, and Mr. Smith says they
would not sell it for $13,000, which is much more than they paid for
it. Dr. Thompson testified that the square was worth $35,000, that
it was worth about eighteen cents a foot, and it cost only five cents
a foot. In the next street land had sold at thirty cents a foot, but
that was more improved.
Here I may call the remembrance of the committee to the fact
that this land was rough, that one part of it was higher than grade,
and another part of it lower than grade. There was a ravine, as Mr.
Bradley called it.  The school at Raleigh held that property in
fee. There came a time in a season of cold and want when these
Barry farm occupants and owners were without employment (and so
without money) and without food and clothing. It is well known
that frQomthe beginning the government had been engaged in distributing charity among these people, and that they have been sus



28                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
tained with rations and supported in various ways. Large sums of
money were so expended. What should be done with them now?
Something must be done; they could not get work in the city at that
time; they were destitute and ready to starve. This plan was
devised. There should be work done in grading that piece of ground
belonging to the school at Raleigh, and instead of giving money to
these people to feed them during the season of want they should be
given work and paid wages. A contract was therefore made with a
fit person to do that grading, to take off the hill and throw it into
the ravine, and then to pay these men for their work instead of
bestowing upon them charity. From early in March until September, 18(S9, they worked on that ground under contract with Mr. Vanderburgh, who came here and told the committee all about it, and
showed that some $30,000 out of $32,000 in all had been paid for
the labor of these colored men, and for horses and carts, the difference being all that he received on his contract, which was only a
fair and reasonable remuneration.
Therefore this charge is refuted, but it has been sent over the
country as it stands, and the guilt belongs to those who sent it.
THIRTEENTH SPECIFICATION.
"i That he was interested in the purchase of a farm of about three
hundred acres, near the lunatic asylum in this county, for which the
public funds and other property of the government were used, buildings were erected thereon, built with lumber belonging to the
government, and then let and sold to freedmen at exorbitant prices;
and that he and his brother Charles were personally interested in
that transaction as a private pecuniary speculation."
That is already seen to be untrue. It is severe, like the rest,
and imputes fraud in very plain terms; but it is not true. He was
-not individually interested in the purchase of the farm, nor was
his brother interested in it in any way. "For which the public
funds and other property of the government were used."  Well,
public funds devoted to the use of the freedmen had been transferred to the trustees and in their hands were used in the first instance to pay for this land.'6 Buildings were erected there, built of lumber belonging to the
government."  Yes, $76 per house was used in building dwellings on
the acre lots.
" And then let or sold to the freedmen at exorbitant prices."  They
were not let, they were sold and contracts were given for deeds upon
full payment of the purchase money, and the purchasers were to pay
installments on these acre lots; they paid $10 a month, which was
not more than they would have been paying anywhere else for rent
witthout acquiring any interest in the land, rent would have been a
loss of so much money, but here the $10 was a payment toward the
fee simple of the property and went toward the extinguishment of
the debt.
Now as to the exorbitancy of the price. That charge is easily disposed of, The price of one of these acre lots with the house was
from $125 to $300; the average was $225. That is very cheap for




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                29
an acre of land and a dwelling near this city. An acre is equal to
sixteen lots of twenty-five feet by a hundred. And here they had
the acre and also the house for $225, at an average. Was that
exorbitant? It was far otherwise.
"He and his brother Charles were personally interested in that
transaction as a private pecuniary speculation."  Mr. Chairman, if
this were spoken against a man of bad character it might not trouble
him much; and if it were uttered against a man of very good character who could immediately expose it, it might not trouble him
much; but for such a charge to be sent over the country for weeks
and read by men who never hear of its refutation, or of the condemnation of the accuser, this is aggravating. It stands here and is presented before this committee and before Congress against General
Howard. It is a great wrong but it is now exposed.
MR. HOAR. Was it or not in evidence that these lots with the hou ses
were sold to persons who bought them at the average cost of the lot
and lumber without profit?
MR. KETCHUM. It was. They were sold without profit. So there
was every disposition to benefit the freedmen and not the slightest
disposition to deal hardly with them. And look at the consequences.
I may here recall for a moment the case of square 1025. Fifty cents
per day of their wages was left undrawn by these workmen of their
own accord-not by stipulation, but of their own accord, which shows
their character and disposition. Under the advice of a very worthy
man, Mr. Vanderburgh, the contractor, this fifty cents a day of their
wages was left behind and paid on their debt for their land; so they
not only got their living for these seven months, but were able to pay
the balances on their homesteads, and to come out free.
But the expenditure of the $32,000 on that square has been
telegraphed over the country as a dishonest act on the part
of General Howard, by which his own land was improved to that
extent by the use of the public money. That would have been robbery indeed, but it has appeared in proof that the statement is
wholly untrue.
Perhaps some of the gentlemen of the committee may have seen
Barry farm. I have. A man will be found there who will tell you
that he has been in every great city in the world; that he was a
steward on steamships; and he will tell you that his place as he has
improved it has cost him  $3,000. You will see his house, well
painted, on the west side of the road toward the lunatic asylum. It
has rooms on both sides of the hall. It is nicely carpeted, fitly furnished, humbly and plainly. Pictures of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton,
and General Grant, hang on the walls of his parlor. That man's son
walks seven miles each day to the Howard University and back, getting his education there. That is the condition of one man. You
may see another, some thirty-six years of age, very black, very
strong, very happy, working on his place.  He will welcome
you. His little house cost him some ninety dollars.  You will
see his mother. That aged " aunty," as she raises herself up to look
at you, will tell you that she has had eleven children, and that all of
them were sold away from her. She lived down in Louisiana. The
man will tell you that he was one of those children. He went down




80               6aEP~~ARGUMENT OF MR. RETCHUM.
to Texas, and when he came up through Louisiana and Alabama he
found his old mother and brought her up here with him, along with
his wife and son. And there they live. "Have you paid for your
place?" you may ask him, and he will say, "Don't owe fifteen cents
on it, sir."
You go into the school, and you see a boy of ten years old who
will answer answer any question in geography when the others fail, though
they may be older; he is a bright boy, though of dark complexion.
These people are happy there, having homes and having comforts.
And this is the enterprise in which these gentlemen are engaged,
under the authority and means provided by Congress. Surely, Mr.
Chairman, these were not things to abuse anybody for who had a part
in bringing them about. This is the Barry farm.
FOURTEENTH SPECIFICATION.
This, indeed, does not specify anything —which is my embarrass.
ment. It says that "he has discharged the duties of the office of
Commissioner of the bureau with extravagance and negligence, and
in the interests of himself, family, and intimate friends." It must
be considered in the light of what has been said, and of what may
be said hereafter.
Then the
FIFTEENTH SPECIFICATION)
6 That he is one of a ring known as the Freedmen's Bureau ring,
whose connections and influences with the freedmen's savings banks,
the freedmen's schools of the South, and the political machinery of
a party in the Southern States; and whose position has been to de.
vote the official authority and power of the bureau to personal and
political profit."'
As to the fourteenth specification, of negligence and extrava.
gance, I can only say there has certainly not been any personal
negligence in the administration of office, because it has been shown
to the committee that more than the office hours were devoted
by General Howard to the business, and that his time and attention
were given assiduously to this work, and the world knows that it
has been very extensively and beneficently performed.
As to the many things announced to be under this head which
flitted before this committee and passed away, some of them quite
undefined and none of them proved, I can hardly know how to refer
to them without a waste of time.
Take for instance the Mr. Alden who came here from Florida, and
who had a claim against the bureau on account of some property of
confederates which he had leased, and which had been restored to
the former owners under President Johnson's order. He told of sales
of rations which men who were bureau agents told him they had
made, It did not seem very credible on the face of it. He did not
come before the committee in a very good aspect. There were cir.
cumstances attending his case which were suspicious, for there was
reason to believe he came to testify because he had not yet succeeded
upon his claim before the bureau. And it turned out after he left
that (Gen Ely, whom he named as the bureau officer whose clerk made




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                81
confessions to him, was no bureau officer, he having been mustered
out of service some time before. He never was a bureau officer in
Florida at all, but was in South Carolina, and was discharged long
before, There was a vagueness about all this witness said which
deprived it of the character of legal testimony.
So far as the matter of the house in Florida and the stealing of it by
a Mr. Sutton was concerned, it was of small value, but was believed
to have been taken away illegally, and immediately the Commissioner
gave orders for the prosecution of Sutton, and professional aid was
employed for that purpose. Here there was no fault.
Possibly the sale of the hospital lot for $6,000 to Howard Univer.
sity, after it had been purchased for $12,000, may be brought under
this head.
The explanation of that is that the Retained Bounty fund was in
the hands of General Balloch as its trustee, that its earnings of
interest were $6,000, and that the principal only had to be accounted
for. Under the order of the President it was brought into the
bureau, and under the order of the Commissioner of the bureau it
was placed in the hands of General Balloch, and he must be ready to
answer to any bounty claims at any time they should be authenticated. But they were to be answered to the extent of the capital
only, without interest.
The land which had been bought for $12,000 was sold to the University for $6,000, and the Retained Bounty fund remained intact,
and the gain enured to the benefit of the Howard University.
It was designed by General Butler originally that that fund should
be for the benefit of the poor freedmen, and it can now be seen how
they are deriving benefit from this operation.
MR. HOAR. I do not think that I am quite possessed of your explanation; be good enough to state again.
GEN. HOWARD. General Butler had command in North Carolina
and Virginia. He retained by an order of his a portion of each
colored man's State bounty, for the benefit of the women and chil.
dren. It remained in the hands of General Butler's disbursing
officers in North Carolina and Virginia. Operating under the President's order when I took charge of the Freedmen's Bureau after its
organization, that money came into my hands, and I made General
Balloch trustee thereof, and he invested a portion of it for a school
up here prior to any law. I reported it to Congress and asked for a
law, and a law was passed, and I was subsequently authorized to
invest that sum in government securities.
This order of General Butler's was in 1864. I took charge of the
bureau in 1865, and the investment was made January 3, 1867.
MR. KETCHUM. The investment in this land was prior to the act of
Congress approved 2d of March, 1867, the enactment of which General Howard procured, giving a legal character to the fund, and
authorizing its investment in government bonds,
This land was sold to the Howard University for' $6,000, and the
money was, with the rest of the Retained Bounty fund, invested by
General Balloch in government bonds under the act of Congress.
MR. HOAR. From whom was this land purchased?
MR. KETCHUM. From strangers.




32                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
MR. HOAR. At what price?
MR. KETCHUM. At $12,000, including the building.
MR. HOAR. And it was paid for out of this Retained Bounty fund?
MR. KETCHUM. Yes; and after it was paid for it was rented at
$1,200 a year for two or three years.
MR. HOAR. Having purchased it from the Retained Bounty fund at
a cost of $12,000 you sold it to the Howard University for $6,000;
was that because the price of $12,000 was too large, or was it because the other $6,000 was not needed as a gift?
MR. KETCHUM. The $6,000 had become a gain by rent, or interest,
or both. There was no injunction or obligation to increase the fund;
there was only an obligation to hold it safely. This gain accrued to
the Howard University, and the Retained Bounty fund remained intact. The Howard University, for the hospital and the asylum, obtained this house and land for $6,000, instead of $12,000.
MR. HOAR. In other words, you gave to the University, by reason of
making that sale at $6,000 less than the cost, the $6,000 which had
been a gain, and you kept your original fund intact?
MR. KETCHUM. Yes, sir; that was the operation.
General IHOWARD remarked that the four years' occupancy of the
house had injured it very much and reduced its value.
MR. HAMILTON inquired where this fund was invested.
MR. KETCHUM. It was invested in a piece of land where the hospital now is, prior to act approved March 2, 1867; but it is now invested in United States bonds, which I believe the Commissioner of
the bureau caused to be purchased.
There is another item to which I may refer. Just south of the
Capitol you may see prominent a row of frame houses, buff color,
with gables facing toward it. They are on square 640, and there are
ten houses that cost $1,300 each. The land belonged to the University; the buildings were erected as tenements for the poor, and were
rented to them. They are in good order, better than tenements ordinarily found for poor colored people in this city, or in any other
city, I suppose. The people who dwelt in them are comfortable and
pay their rent. Under the order of the Secretary of War and Judge
HIolt's opinion they were transferred to the Howard University by
the Commissioner of the bureau, and they now belong to the Howard University, and it receives the rents, which form part of its
revenue.
Squares 1054 and 1055 have been referred to in the testimony as
Lincoln Green. They lie east of the Capitol, and almost as far from
it as the Treasury Department is west. These two squares of land
were conveyed to the same trustees that hold the Barry {arm, Senator
Pomeroy, Mr. Elvans, and General Howard. There are seventy-six
tenement houses on them. They are the houses that were built
where the sand was brought of which testimony was given here.
They cost about as much apiece as the other houses on square 640.
When General Grant was Secretary of War he recommended this
work to be done for the aid of the freedmen.
The money derived from this property is devoted to educational
purposes for the freedmen. There is no evidence before the committee that the houses were extravagantly built, or that they were un



ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                33
necessary, or that they were unused. No rent has been lost, nor anything done in regard to them  which would show extravagance,
negligence, or want of care.
The CHAIRMAN. Do I understand that these belong at present to
the Howard University?
MR. KETCHUM. NO, sir; they are held in fee by the trustees, Senator Pomeroy, General Howard, and J. R. Elvans, the same trustees
who hold the Barry farm. They are held for educational purposes
generally, the funds to be devoted, under the laws concerning the
Freedmen's Bureau, to those objects.
GEN. HOWARD. They are not limited to those three institutions
mentioned before.
MR. HOAR. Under what authority of law do you say that this fund
was so disposed of?
MR. KETCHUM. I understand it to be under that discretionary power
which is given to the Commissioner for the use of those moneys, that
is, for the benefit of the freedmen, and for their education, &c. That
I understand to be the authority which is broadly given by those sections to which I have already referred.
GEN. HOWARD. That and the absolute necessity there was to provide tenements for the poor.
MR. KETCEHUM. And here, Mr. Chairman, it may be well to express
a thought which has often occurred to me, and which may have occurred to members of this committee. Here is a bureau of the War
Department. It is really a civil service and not military. There is
a bureau in the Treasury called the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The act concerning internal revenue is very long, with many sections.
This Freedmen's Bureau has been treated very differently by Congress.
The sections referring to it are few, and the discretion and authority
given are large. Now if Congress believed that this officer was a bad
man it certainly would not have left him with so large discretion.
It would have bound him with many directions and limitations.
I refer to this because the question brings it up, showing the
discretion which the Commissioner had, and showing how he has
been exercising it to the best of his ability, and with the best coun.
sel he could get in Washington, from gentlemen in the Senate, and
in the l)epartments, and even from gentlemen on the bench. It was
testified by Senator Pomeroy that the Barry farm enterprise was not
undertaken without prior communication with the excellent Dr. Brodhead, of the Treasury Department, the Second Comptroller, and even
with the Chief Justice himself.
The CHAIRMAN. What was the cost of that property on square 1054?
MR. KETCHUM. The cost of the houses was about the same as that
of the houses on square 640 —$1,300 each.
GEN. HOWARD. The cost of the two squares, 1054 and 1055, was
$25.000. The houses averaged about $1,300. That was Major Brown's
testimony.
MR. KETCHUM. These poor people were scattered all over the city,
in various barracks and other places, where the land belonged to private owners, who demanded a restoration of their property and who
were to have it. It was therefore necessary to remove all of them,
and they would have been homeless if provision had not been made
3




34                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHU;M.
for them, and under the advice referred to, of' the Secretary of War
and now President, General Grant, this enterprise was undertaken
that they might have homes. That was the necessity of the case,
and the houses have been so occupied since.
"In the interest of himself and family and intimate friends," the
charge goes on to say.
He has no family but his wife and little children, and "his intimate friends" is too broad and vague a term for me to notice more
particularly.
In the fifteenth specification it is charged that " he is one of a ring
known as the Freedmen's Bureau ring."
Now, Mr. Chairman, what is a ring?  We do not find a definition
in the dictionary. I think Edmund Burke said that "A party is an
association of men with the object of promoting the public welfare
on some principle of government on which they are agreed."  That
is a party formed for the welfare of the State.
But a ring is very different. And I undertake to give a definition
of the ring. It is a secret association of dishonest persons (sometimes
pretending to be opposed to each other) for committing depredation
on public or private interests for their own advantage. That is
very different from a party. It is of less magnitude; it is selfish instead of patriotic, and it is secret instead of public. Its existence
may be suspected or may be known but will not be acknowledged by
its members. They keep their ways secret. They are dishonest.
They want to commit depredations on public or private interests, and
too often they do-it; and it is for their own advantage. That is what
this charge must intend.
So the difference between a party as defined, and a ring as intended
by this charge, is as wide as the difference between patriotism and
treason-between virtue and vice.
Party is necessary to give effect in government to the popular will.
The same thing is necessary for success in any great public service.
There must be men associated for its advancement, and they must be
of one mind in respect to the animating principle. And they must
know, and understand, and confide in each other.
In England the Stuarts and the Star Chamber could not be resisted and overcome by a single man. The patriots of that country
were combined for strength, and they established the rights of the
people against tyranny.
A hundred years ago, when independence was to be achieved by
the United Colonies of America, there must be agreement and codperation between Washington and Franklin, the Adamses, Jefferson,
Hamilton, Sherman, and the rest, whose wisdom and courage won
what we enjoy to the full-independence, freedom, and prosperity.
S(o the vast work, opened before this country at the close of the
rebellion, for the protection, relief; and elevation of the enslaved race
made free, demanded talents for administration, and a distribution
of labor among men of congenial spirit, with a heart for the work.
Such men, with this accused officer at their head, became enlisted
in this service, in the spirit of patriotism and of true religion.
~ It is no wonder that when there was government aid under law for
the freedmen there should be schools and savings banks. No wonder




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.               35
that education and industry and thrift should go hand in hand, raising the people who for two hundred years had labored without wages,
and lived without rights which their masters or any others were
bound to respect.
General Saxton, before the Freedmen's Bureau was created, began
a Freedmen's Savings Bank at Beaufort, S. C., and had gathered from
the people there, who were working industriously, some $200,000. It
was my privilege to invest this in government bonds, and under
General Saxton's direction to turn it over to this Freedmen's Saving
and Trust Company, upon its being chartered by Congress.
The influence and operation on these poor people was very good,
and will be lasting. This. savings bank has received in all thirteen
millions of dollars of these people all over the country, and has now
about a million and a half remaining on deposit.
Colonel Eaton, the actuary, has testified here that the average duration of deposits is three months, and he says that the money already
drawn has been drawn by depositors mainly for the purpose of paying for land-that they have invested in land, and are getting homesteads for themselves. There is nothing evil in that. They are not
political institutions, they are kept and carried on for the benefit of
these people themselves.
Something has been said here about certain expenses that were paid
by the bureau. When the bank was established in Washington, the
Commissioner of the bureau allowed the cashier who testified before
you to occupy a cellar room, and afterward, on the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Nineteenth street, to occupy a room where there
was a bureau officer in one part and a bank clerk or cashier in
another part. Certainly this was not extravagance or negligence-it
was for the benefit of the freedmen. You will recollect that the only
thing to be paid out of the gains of this bank are its expenses, and
that a.ll beyond expenses was to be divided among the depositors.
Therefore, whatever expenses the bank incurred would be so much
lost by the depositors, and whatever it saved would be so much
gained by them. But the bureau derived an advantage from the services of these bank officers in various ways, in regard to bounties,
education, &c. That has all been explained in the testimony. It is
one of those things that seem too small to make so great clamor about.
The freedmen's schools are also a part of the wrong charged
against General Howard. Certainly no one who was concerned in
getting up these charges ever went to the South and entered any of
these schools-never went there to see what kind of' people were
there and what benefits were bestowed and received. They hate the
bureau and General Howard, and so they calumniate the schools with
them. The freedmen's schools are blessings to the people and the
country, while these accusers see nothing in them but political machinery for operation to their injury.
Mr. Chairman, it is a shocking perversion of truth to say that the
devoted self-denying men and women who composed the body of laborers for the welfare of the freedmen, from the chief in Washington
to the humblest teacher in the plantations, composed a " ring."
Their animating principle was benevolence, and the daily fruits of
their labor appeared in the improvement of the freed people.




36                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
That man is to be pitied who, looking upon all this can see nothing in it to commend, but only something to revile.
"As heaven's blest beam turns vinegar more sour,"
so benefits and blessings, however abundant and visible to the good,
are only bitterness and gall to the malevolent. And this is the
due reward of malevolence.
"Truth dwells with all that truth prefer,
But seeks not them that seek not her."
Upon them, under a law divine and just shall be sent strong delusion
that they should believe a lie, losing all the rich enjoyment that God
gives to man in the perception and promotion of truth in the world.
General Howard had friends around him from the centre to the
circumference of the field he occupied, courageous and faithful; not
dishonest or unworthy.
He would not to-day win the verdict of the committee or the
approval of Congress by the sacrifice of one of those faithful and
excellent persons.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE BY THE BUREAU.
Now, sir, allow rme to call attention to what really has been done
by the Freedmen's Bureau. Let me remind you of General Sherman's march-that march from Chattanooga to Atlanta, back through
Georgia to Resaca, thence through the mountains into Alabama,
down central Alabama to Gaylesville, then again to Atlanta, and
then to Savannah.
Here was a great extent of country traversed by our army through
a width of two hundred miles. In all that country the population
became chaotic. As the army marched it was approached by the
poor and wretched, who thought, and had a right to think, that here
was freedom for them. They gathered about the army, clung to it
with all their- poverty and wretchedness, their raggedness and
nakedness, their hunger and thirst, their weakness and sickness; and
they were not repelled. The army went from Savannah to Beaufort,
South Carolina, and from Beaufort to Columbia, thence eastward to
Raleigh in North Carolina, and thence to Richmond. At Wilmington, North Carolina, it was necessary to ship eight thousand of
these poor people southward to the Sea Islands, in charge of General
Saxton, for it was necessary that they should have some resting
place, and there they could be sustained. There were in different
places in the South one hundred and forty-eight thousand of these
poor refugees and freedmen to whom the commissary department had
been issuing rations, and these were to be transferred to their future
homes, or to homes where employment could be found. If only a
hundred thousand of them had been supplied with rations for the
five years in which the bureau has been performing its work, at
twenty cents for each a day, that would have cost $36,500,000, and
if that hundred thousand people (not the one hundred and fortyeight thousand, you perceive) had been supplied with clothing. at
$10 a year each, that would have cost $5,000,000 more, so that it




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                37
would have cost $41,500,000 to keep these hundred thousand for five
years as paupers. This was the operation that was going on at that
time.
Then began transportation. These poor people who had followed
our army were to be sent to homes; were to be set to work if possible; were to be shown to some way of living. And this became the
work of the bureau.
It is a matter of history that General Howard commanded the
right wing of General Sherman's army in its march to the sea; that
he saw these people on the way, knew their condition and that of the
country, and knew their wants. That march completed, and Mr.
Lincoln, who had already selected General Howard for the place of
Commissioner of the bureau, being taken away, Mr. Stanton took
care to place him where Mr. Lincoln had designed him to be, and
President Johnson made the appointment. Thus he came to the
work with a full knowledge of what was required, and he irmmediately set himself about it.
Then a plan was formed to organize joint-stock companies to take
up plantations and work them by free labor. These joint-stock companies were more profitable to the poor, who get a partial support
from them, than they were to the members, for they lost much of
what they put in, and the companies were in many cases a failure. Their benevolence was rewarded by partial good to the poor,
but they made nothing for themselves. It will be remembered
that as the months rolled on the hope of profit from the culture
of cotton was dissipated, and the crop became an utter loss. The
people had nothing to live upon, and authority was then given by
law to issue rations to all classes. Seventy-five thousand people were
thus fed in South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi,
in five months. Then came a great trouble. The abandoned lands
which had been put in charge of this bureau must be taken from
the freedmen and others and restored under the order of President
Johnson to those who had held them, and many controversies grew
up, some specimens of which have appeared in the testimony here.
Peace and good order must be maintained, and they were. Eight
hundred thousand acres of this land were restored to applicants.
You have heard very little complaint here on this subject, and such
as came did not, I think, commend itself to your respect.
Then the administration of justice had been abolished. There
was no law, there were no courts; the strong might overcome the
weak-the poor especially under charge of the bureau were defenseless. So it became a necessity that the bureau should establish justice, and it did so. Its officers exercised authority to effect arbitra
tions. The officer of the bureau would be an arbitrator with some
planter and some other person, and they would hear the case and
determine it; and this went on until the habit returned of looking to some authority and submitting to its decisions.  And
after this practice had been established it was found safe under
Mr. Johnson's reconstructed  governments to transfer this jurisdiction to those authorities, but always with the concession on their
part that the colored man should be a witness. The colored man in
the South had never been a witness until these operations of the




38                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
bureau secured his right to be heard as such in courts of justice.
That was a great advantage, and it was won by this bureau. We have
heard no praise of the bureau for this from the other side. In North
Carolina there were three thousand fobur hundred and five such cases
in three months, and there were a hundred thousand cases in all in a
year, under the administration of the bureau.
It will be remembered that when, early in 1865, the bureau took
charge of' issuing rations to colored people there were one hundred
and forty-eight thousand persons so supplied by the commissary department of the army. It will be interesting to see how these numbers became reduced. In September, 1865, the number was reduced
to seventy-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty. There had been a
rigid examination of each applicant, and every one was rejected who
could help himself'. There was a continuous reduction, so that on
the 1st of September, 1866, the number had become twenty-nine
thousand nine hundred and nineteen, and in the next year, 1867, to
eleven thousand six hundred and fifty-eight. And then aid was only
given to the helpless and the destitute freedmen and refugees.
There was a special fund of $500,000 (afterward increased) set
apart by the Commissioner, under the sanction of the Secretary, and
fifty-eight thousand persons, white and colored, were fed daily in
1865, upon authority of the act of Congress then passed, under the
necessities of the case. In the year ending 1st September, 1868,
there was an average number of sixteen thousand eight hundred and
four persons fed under that law, and in 1869 the average fell to one
thousand nine hundred and eighty-three. During the same period
clothing was distributed among the destitute to the amount of
$252,547, besides old clothing from quartermasters that was unfit to
issue to the troops. Employment was found for multitudes, who
were put in a self-supporting condition.
But one of the very early things done in this work was to secure
the rights of the freedmen by contracts under which they should do
the work and have their pay secured. These contracts were printed
and written, and in a single State no less than fifty thousand in one
year were drawn and executed in duplicate. The good results that
followed the use of these contracts became well known to the couantry at that time.
By the operation of the medical department, hospitals and asylums
for the sick and infirm old people and orphans who had been abandoned by their former owners were provided, and the death rate
was reduced in the first six months from thirty per cent. to four per
cent. The number of hospitals established by the bureau over the
country was fifty.six. The number of patients in 1867 was one hundred and forty-four thousand one hundred and forty-nine; in 1868
one hundred and sixty-five thousand four hundred and forty-nine; in
1869 sixty-five thousand six hundred and thirty.
The bureau has had under its care seven hundred thousand sick
and infirm persons, for whom no provision was made by the regular
authorities. Insane persons are included in that number. For more
than a year efforts were made to transfer these to the local authorities. Now the fifty-six hospitals are reduced to one, and the five
orphan asylums are reduced to one, and these are located in this Dis



ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                39
trict. I will ask General Howard to read a paragraph which I have
marked on page 10 of his last year's report:
General HIoward read the paragraph, as follows:
" A vast amount of such testimony to the industry and progress of
the freed people could be gathered from the records of this office,
and it is con-firmed by the fact that the great mass of freedmen are
now self-supporting, and that many have commenced planting and
other business on their own account. In spite of all disorders that
have prevailed and the misfortunes that have fallen upon many parts
of the South, a good degree of prosperity and success has already
been attained. To the oft-repeated slander that the negroes will not
work, and are incapable of taking care of themselves, it is a sufficient
answer that their voluntary labor has produced nearly all the food
that has supported the whole people, besides a large amount of rice,
sugar, and tobacco for export, and two millions of bales of cotton
each year, on which was paid into the United States Treasury during
the years 1866 and 1867 a tax of more than forty millions of dollars
($40,000,000). It is not claimed that this result is wholly due to the
care and oversight of this bureau, but it is safe to say, as it has been
said repeatedly by intelligent southern men, that without the bureau
or some similar agency the material interests of the country would
have greatly suffered, and the government would have lost a far
greater amount than has been expended in its maintenance."
MR. KETCHUM. By the first section of the act of' June, 1866, Congress
provided that all the public lands in Alabama, Mississippi, and other
States should be opened to settlement according to the stipulations
of the homestead law of 20th May, 1862. Under that law homesteads
upon the government lands in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Arkansas, and Florida, were obtained and the freed people were
encouraged to get them. Four thousand families availed themselves
of the opportunity. In South Carolina alone, under the influence of
Governor R. K. Scott, late Assistant Commissioner, forty thousand
acres were purchased by the freedmen and are held by them now.
Then as to the school work: at the beginning of the war, in 1862,
the work began of,.ea(ching these people on the Sea Islands, and I
had the pleasure of seeing it there at that time. The work went on
and when this bureau came into existence it was found that the
benevolent associations which had been engaged in it had accomiplished much, and therefore it was provided in the act of 16th July,
1866, that the Commissioner should at all times cooperate with
private benevolent associations of citizens, in aid of freedmen and
with agents and teachers duly accredited and appointed by them,
and should hire buildings for purposes of education. These associations did as much for the government as the government did for them
and sometimes much more. Take for example the American Missionary Association, whose Iepresentative, Rev. George Whipple, was
examined before you.  In the work of that association there was
expended from 1862 to 1869, $1,650,000. This was in teaching the
freed people. The bureau by rental, construction and repairs, and
by transportation as authorized by the act of Congress, appropriated
$213,000 of this-not one seventh of the whole amount above mentioned. The $213,000 was not paid to or received by the American




40                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
Missionary Association. The great part of it was disbursed by the
bureau itself in the way of construction and repairs. These things
were necessary. The Rev. Mr. Whipple testified here of them. One
of the unpleasant things that followed his testimony was that it was
next day reperted in The Cincinnati Gazette, whose correspondent
here is HI. V. Boynton, a witness for the prosecution, that the Rev.
George Whipple, the secretary of the association, had testified that it
had got $240,000 out of the bureau through the hands of' myself, their
treasurer, the counsel of General Howard, and that a ]arge portion of
the money had been sent over to Charles Howard, the Western secretary at Chicago. Next, the same thing appeared in the Journal of Commerce in New York, with this slight addition that " of course for these
curious proceedings there was no authority of law." And so the
stories have gone forth concerning the American Missionary Association. It shows the spirit which animates the men who make this
pursuit. That American Missionary Association expended six times
as much as the government in the work it did. It is a noble institution and has produced important results. You heard from it that it
had sent forth four hundred colored teachers qualified to instruct
their people. You heard from Mr. Whipple that the association is
attending more and more to normal school instruction, and that the
four hundred teachers it has sent out are but a tenth of the number
the people want.
A circular was issued by the Commissioner as soon as he came
into office, calling upon the benevolent associations to make known
their willingness to cooperate with the bureau, and some thirty of
them responded-associations composed of men of various religious
denominations of the country. None were excluded.
Perfect liberality has been shown by the American Missionary
Association in its work. It is not sectarian. And a large catholicity
has been shown by the bureau in its cooperation with benevolent
associations, apportioning its aid according to the amounts invested
by them.
And here may I not refer to the very singular exhibition made
one day, when General Avery of North Carolina, who had been a
bureau officer, declared with so much vigor, if not bitterness, that
he had protested against the appropriation of money to the Normal
School at Raleigh, in North Carolina, because its trustees had been
rebels?  He was an inspector of schools, and yet he did not take the
trouble to go and see that school. He saw the position in which
that placed him, and he began to explain that he had been very
much engaged on court martial duty, and so had not been to that
school, the building for -which had been erected during that time.
But before he was on court martial duty the school had been kept in
another house, and he acknowledged he had never visited that. He
was indignant because the bureau gave money for the benefit of that
school, the trustees of which, he said, were notorious rebels. I was
very glad when the Rev. J. Brinton Smith came here to tell us how
that matter was. Those trustees were selected by the Episcopal
bishop. They belonged to his church and were men of' excellent
character. And I was pleased to learn something of Colonel Cox,
one of those trustees. It appeared that Colonel Cox, who had been




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                41
a confederate officer, had " accepted the situation" and had come in as
a Christian gentleman and an American citizen to do his duty faithfully to the country, and that he had been elected by the Republican
party county attorney. That was the indorsement which his neighbors had given him. And yet here was a protest which General Avery
made against General Howard's administration on that ground. Now
who can doubt that General Avery had some personal reason for
coming here and saying what he did?
But as those "protests " came in it was seen that they established
the more clearly the justice and liberality with which this office had
been administered by its incumbent.
Remember that the act of July 16, 1866, sanctioned all the Commissioner had done, and enlarged his powers. The bureau cooperated
with private associations. In every State at least one normal school
has been established for the freed people; the University in this
District was also established.
At this point I desire to express my acknowledgments as a citizen
to the IHon. Mr. Hoar ot Massachusetts, a member of this committee,
for the very interesting and instructive speech made by him in the
House of Representatives on the 6th of this month, upon " Universal Education as a National Concern and a National Necessity." I
have been much impressed by the history he gives of the desire of
Washington for national education. In his first speech to Congress
(1.789) he recommended to their patronage the promotion of science
and literature, concluding a paragraph on that subject with these
words:'" Whether this desirable object will be best promoted by affording
aid to seminaries of learning already established, by the institution
of a national university, or by any other expedients, will be well
worthy of a place in the deliberation of the legislature."
But Congress took no action upon this recommendation. Then in
1796, when the Farewell Address was to be made and Washington
received from Hamilton the first draft, he returned it with regret
that the topic of education was omitted, and praying that a section
might be introduced expressive of the sentiments he then repeated.
-Hamilton replied, wafering a piece of paper on the original, in
which, in the short paragraph as it now appears in the Address, the
expression was given.
Again in his last address to Congress he renews his recommendation, and especially the desirableness of a national university, but
this was also fruitless.
At last in his will he inserted the paragraph so earnestly desiring
this object for his country, and devoting $10,000 toward the endowment of a national university.  He had before that time selected
a site for it-the same now occupied by the National Observatory
in this city.
It is affecting to read the concluding paragraph on this subject, on
the fourth page of the speech, and I beg leave to quote it here:
" Congress, so far as I can learn, has done nothing to accomplish
this the great living and dying wish of Washington. Let us remember that he spoke to our generation as to his own. Every year that
the accomplishment of his cherished wish is deferred is a new dis



AS2 VARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
obedience and a new ingratitude. Perhaps in the mysterious Providence of' God the realization of the dream of' Washington has been
deferred until the enfranchised race, whose enslavement he lemented,
could be admitted to their share of the light of knowledge. To our
endless shame be it spoken, the legacy bequeathed by Washington
to his country for purposes of national education was suffered to
revert neglected to his estate, while the command which, to use the
language of his, will, he did'most positively and most solemnly
enjoin should in every part thereof be religiously ftulfilled, without
evasion, neglect, or delay'-that his emancipated slaves should be
taught to read and write-was disobeyed because a compliance with
it was prohibited by law."
Is it not rernarkable that a University should now be founded here
in that which is before you, receiving all applicants irrespective of
race or color or previous condition of servitude, and that this should
owe its existence to the just action of the Commissioner toward the
freedmen, under the discretion given by Congress?
But this present year-may I not say it?-signalized by the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, sees your public servant, under
whose administration of' affairs the freedmen have been conducted
hitherto acd this University established, arraigned for alleged
offenses that, if committed, would banish him from the society
of honorable men.
Would Washington, in view of what is before you, have sanctioned
the spirit or the conduct of the assailants?
It is true indeed that the university proposed by Washington was
to afford the wealthy home education for their children instead of
foreign, which was then, he said, too common, little qualifyilng them
for usefulness in a republican country like ours, while the University
looking from  its northern eminence upon this Capitol instructs
chiefly the poor who must earn something by daily labor to meet
their small expenses. But this is to the advantage of the latter. It
is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth.
In the recently published diary and correspondence of Henry
Crabbe Robinson, the English barrister, he tells of a member of
the House of Lords, of great wealth, who, approaching the lord
chancellor, asked him how he should make his son a great lawyer.
"Make him a poor boy," said the lord chancellor. And the mind at
once recurs to Lord Eldon, the great judge of equity, and Sir
William Scott, master of the civil law, the sons of a coal-heaver of
London.
I will ask General Howard to read the paragraph at the bottom of
page 11 of his report.
General Howard read as follows:
"My former reports on this subject and those of the general superintendent of education have been so full that a very brief review
only is here needed. I found many schools already in existence
in those localities that had been for some time within the lines
of our armies; these had been established and maintained to a
great extent by benevolent associations of the North. As early as
September 17, 1861, the American Missionary Association commenced
a school for' contrabands' at Hampton, near Fortress Monroe. On the




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                43
8th of January, 1862, Rev. Solomon Peck, D.D., of Boston, established
a school at Beaufort, South Carolina. Another was opened at Hilton
Head the same month byBartfard K. Lee, Jr. A more general movement was inaugurated by the efforts of' E. L. Pierce, Esq., of Boston,
and Rev. M. French, and on the 3d of March, 1862, about sixty
teachers and missionaries were sent out by societies organized in
Boston and New York.  Others followed, some working independently, others supported by local churches, and others by new relief
associations formed in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and other
towns. In the early part of 1864 an efficient school system was instituted in Louisiana by Major General Banks, then in command of
that State. I did not attempt to supersede these benevolent agencies
already engaged in the work of education, but gave them every possible facility for continuing and enlarging their operations."
MR. KETCHUM. In the first year there were ninety-six thousand
seven hundred and seventy-eight pupils reported and there were
nine hundred and seventy-five schools. The schools are now two
thousand one hundred and eighteen and the pupils two hundred and
fifty thousand, and there are a million and a half to be instructed.
MR. HOAR. Do you mean a million and a half' of the school age?
MR. KETCHUM. Yes, sir.
MR. HOAR. In that you count something besides colored children?
MR. KETCHUM. Only colored children. This I gather from  the
reports and authorities of the bureau put in evidence. I will now
ask General Howard to read from page 12 in reference to teachers.
General Howard read as follows:
"Too much praise can not be bestowed upon the noble band of
Christian teachers who have carried on successfully this work of
education. Many of' them have come from the very best circles of
refined and cultivated society and have been exposed to privations,
hardships, and perils which would have discouraged any who were
not moved by the spirit of the Divine Teacher. To them belongs
the credit in great measure for all that has been accomplished. They
have done the hard work; they have been the rank and file in the
long fight with prejudice and ignorance. When they first entered
the field as teachers, so general and bitter was the opposition to the
education of the blacks that scarcely one white family dared to welcome them with hospitality. When they were insulted and assailed
very few had the courage to defend them; but their good conduct
finally overcame prejudice and better sentiments have gradually
grown up in many parts of the South. Hostility to teachers and
schools has in a great measure ceased."
MR. KETCHUM. The colored people have themselves given in the
last year for school-houses and teachers no less than $200,000.
iNow a few words as to bounties. The soldiers were everywhere
defiauded by agents. Since April 17, 1867, the total amount of the
bounties paid to soldiers through the agency of the bureau has been
$5,831,417.89, and the balance in the Treasury on these bounties not
yet called for is $1,220 6i56.52. A part of the system is a full, complete, and minute record of each case, so that its history can be easily
traced.




A44                ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
BRITISH AND AMERICAN EMANCIPATION.
The British government in 1833 abolished slavery in the colonies,
giving $100,000,000 to the masters, with an apprenticeship of the
freedmen for seven years; but Bermuda and Antigua waived the
apprenticeship and had very favorable results, while elsewhere, with
apprenticeship, there were disappointment and disaster, so much that
the complete liberation was afterward anticipated by two years.
This government gave instant freedom to four million of slaves, and
devoted some $13,000,000 through this bureau to the benefit of the
freed te)ople; and education was provided for, and industry enjoined
uponl them.
Pauperism was soon reduced and independence grew up on every
side. In five years the work has been done so well, with the means
employed, that the experiment of emancipation has become a great
success, and the nation has a right to regard its colored population,
once slaves, as a most hopeful element of strength, rapidly growing
in knowledge, prosperity, and usefulness.
We boast not of our slavery, but of its overthrow and of the policy
and firuits that followed it. In the past we refined upon the cruelties
of ancient Rome in the ingenuity of our system for the supremacy of
the master over the slave; but, led through the wilderness of our
rebellion by the Hand that governs the universe and turns the hearts
of men as the rivers of water are turned, we have been brought into
a land of peace wherein dwelleth righteousness.
It is guilty Manasseh who humbling himself in his affliction is
brought again to his kingdom. It is Saul of Tarsus which persecuted
in times past now preaching the faith which once he destroyed.
So appears our nation in the contrast between ten years ago and
the present time.
A VIEW OF LOSS AND GAIN.
Allow me now to show you what is the loss and what is the gain
by the action of General Howard in some of those things in respect
to which he is most bitterly assailed by his accusers.
In the first place, I may say here that as to the sand, of which we
have heard so much, and as to which it was said there was a loss of
$4,030, there is a great mistake. The testimonywhich came in afterward
by Major Clark showed that there were six thousand surplus bushelsat squares 1054 and 1055 at the time Mr. Perkins was discharged, and
then three thousand of those bushels were used, leaving only three thousand surplus. So the loss by the mistake in bushels —which was a mistake as to the number of bushels in a load-amounted only to $1,935,
WVhat was saved by the use of the building-block for the University,
instead of pressed brick, was $25,000. What was saved by the lumber
bought in the State of Maine, about which there can be no dispute
whatever upon the testimony, was $7,086.98. And when it was complained that there had been a loss by sea from the want of insurance,
it turned out that the government never permitted insurance. There
was saved by the Smith farm to the University as follows: Paid for
the farm $149,500; received for sales of lots $172,234; excess over
amount of purchase money $24,734. And there remain fifty-two
acres of that land which are reserved to the Univeristy, and they are




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                45
worth at least $3,000 each. That would be $156,000, making a total
gain from the Smith farm of $180,734. Obtained by donations fotb the
Howard University, from private sources, by General Howard's own
personal efforts, $58,000. Total gains $270,820.98. Loss by the fall
of the hospital, $22,000, and expense of extra work on University
building, $5,000, and loss by the sand at squares 1054 and 1055, $1,935,
making a total of $28,935. This deducted from the above leaves
a net gain of $241,885.98.
WHO ARE THE ASSAILANTS?
Mr. Chairman, I alluded this morning to the fact that no person
appearing before this committee had acknowledge himself the originator or procurer of these charges. But we are not blind. And I
think I ought to make some examination of the evidence before you
with a view to his discovery.
I say that if' any of those who have appeared before the committee
are at the origin of those charges as prompter and solicitor, we have
a right to expose them, for the assault is upon a man high in office
greatly trusted by the government and the country, a soldier who
has fought bravely in its defense, and a man whose Christian character is dear to his associates and to multitudes of good men thronghout the land. At an early period of this trial I presented to a witness
called by the prosecution-a gentleman of some eminence, the Rev.
Dr. Boynton of this city-a pamphlet, and I showed him pages 2 and
5. He admitted he wrote them. On page 2 it was complained that
General Howard in a public assembly, where people were gathered
to contribute as Christians toward the foundation of a church in this
city, had made an appeal for aid, presenting himself as one for
whose sake the money should be given. That is the spirit of the
charge. That extract is copied in the testimony. It was explained
in evidence that in Mr. Beecher's church in Brooklyn in 1866, at the
meeting of the Congregational Union, the reverend gentleman who
was the witness had preached a sermon, and that one of his people,
General Howard, had been called up and had made an address. In
fact there was much enthusiasm. Many persons sent up money for
the object; some was specially marked as a gift to General Howard,
and Mr. Beecher handed it over in the pulpit saying, "This is for
you." But it was at once made a gift to the church. "It is all your
gift to the church," said Mr. Beecher in that undertone of' his which
is allowed to be heard by the whole congregation. General Howard,
so cordially received, did say to those people: "Well, if' you are
disposed to give me anything, give me a house for the Lord in the
national capital, where I want to see it established." He was engaged
in that movement and greatly aided it. But on page 5 it is complained
that General Howard in the Sunday school had offered rewards to
the scholars for bringing in other children, without respect to color,
whereby colored children had been brought into the school without
consulting the pastor. Why was this treasured up by that witness
against General Howard and made prominent in that pamphlet which
he admitted was written by him? It was a bitter attack upon General
Howard and was widely distributed over the country. I feel humili



46                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
ated as I refer to it. But the surgeon must look upon what is
repulsive and so must the advocate. And here is one of those
repulsive things. Especially I desire to deal considerately with one
who is a teacher of religion, and I leave him here with the wondering
words of the Roman poet:
" Can such anger dwell in heavenly minds?"
Now another witness appears in this case, Henry V. Boynton. He
testified that in a church of which it appears from his testimony his
father was the minister, something occurred which led him to say to
General loward one evening at the close of a meeting, when persons
of both sexes were present, that if he (General Howard) had two
arms he would attack him, and that if any of his friends would say
what he had said he would settle the matter at once. With pain I
refer to this, and from necessity. "Affliction cometh not from the
dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground." What is on
these palpers and what has been before Congress and this committee
and before the country came not without a cause. It has cost much
labor. It must have cost much money. And there has been a bitterness in it which can not be accounted for except there be something
besides a desire for the public welfare. Some heart must have been
set upon revenge.
Allow me to refer to some things notorious: attacks in the newspapers every day, and all over the country. Four of them are corresponded with by this witness, one by letter every day, and the rest by
brief dispatch; and two hundred more by exchanges. That is a great
power, and he knew that it was a great power. We have heard of it
on this trial, and I call attention to it here because I think it has
much significancy.
In the summer of 1868 two persons witnesses here called at General Howard's house-Dr. Hiram Barber and Mr. Delano. They sat
with him holding earnest conversation. There were difficulties in
the church, and they were of the church, and they set before General
Howard the power of the press, the fact of his being a public man,
the value of the friendship and favor of those who wielded the power
of the press, and the terrors for those who defied that power. They
set before him the value of winning regard and not provoking enmity.
They set before him the probability that he would desire public favor, and they recommended him to provide for it, and come over
to their side and to the side of that minister (the Rev. Dr. Boynton)
whose pamphlet I have referred to-which pamphlet had not yet
been published. The committee excluded the pamphlet from the
evidence, all but those two passages, and I do not regret it. There is
enoulgh of' it in to show the animus. There was a father and there
was a son. Whether, as in the case of the old Carthaginian, the oath
of eternal enmity was put to the son, or whether the son volunteered
an oath of' eternal enmity, I know not. But that the son was determined, whether for causes connected with a father's changed position
(tor it appeared that he quitted the church) or not, to have revenge
upon those who had been concerned in the dismissal of his father,
there can be little doubt. These are some of the facts, and here




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                 4:
are some of the results.  General IH. V. Boynton, was summoned
here as a witness the first week, and from day to day he was in
the corridor.  And sometimes when the committee was not in
session he was inside. He was in full concert with the counsel and
the honorable gentleman who introduced the resolution on which
this inquiry was based. He was waiting at the door to catch the
witnesses as they entered or retired and to gather what he could from
them, and to send it off; not honestly, but garbled and falsified.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you think it necessary to go into this matter of
conspiracy?
MR. KETCrHUM. I have not a particle of animosity against this man,
and yet so great has been the wrong perpetrated by him, so constant
his assault upon my friend, this accused public officer, so widespread
the effects of them, that if I should let this only opportunity pass
of presenting his conduct before the committee, and so before the
House and the country, I should feel that I greatly failed in my
duty. But the moment the chair interposes I will suspend.
MR. TYNER. I think, Mr. Chairman, that if Mr. Ketchum thinks it
necessary in the line of his duty to examine here inlto the conduct
and the spirit of these witnesses with a view to show the origin of
these charges he has a legal right to do so.
MR. l-OAR. One of the witnesses has testified to important matter
obtained by him in conversation with General Howard, and I think
it clear the counsel has a right to proceed-of course not intimating
how the argument may affect the committee.
The CHAIRMAN. Confine it as closely as possible to what came
before the committee.
MR. KETCHUM. I will do so. You recollect Dr. Barber and his testimony. IHe was not friendly. Dr. Barber on the first day told us,
what would certainly impress the mind of a hearer, that the Howard
University had given to General Howard an acre of ground. I asked
General Boynton whether he had obtained on the first day a report
of the testimony of Dr. Barber given that day, and he was uncertain.
I did not get a direct answer. But I think he soon perceived my
object, and then he said that on the first day of his testimony Dr.
Barber had refused to tell him what it was. I understood very well
why he said that. The papers over the country had published it as a
fact that General Howard had taken as a gift an acre of ground
purchased just befobre with public money for the Howard University,
and thus had put $1,000 into his pocket out of those public funds.
But the next day it appeared in evidence, after all the difficulties
of Dr. Barber about identifying the book of records of Howard
University containing the minutes he had drafted-it appeared from
the original minutes in his own handwriting that it was not so, but
that General Howard had declined the gift, and the witness was
brought to the recollection of that.
The second day of Dr. Barber's testifying I took care to ask him
whether he had informed any one what his testimony was on the first
day. He said, "Yes," he had told his wife. "Anybody else?" "Yes,
I told Mr. Stevens."  "Anybody else.?"."Yes, General Boynton."  So
we had it on the 21st of April that Dr. Barber on the day before, the
20th of April, had told General Boynton what he had testified. But




48                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
weeks after, when General Boynton testified, he became quite clear
in his recollection (after some obscurity) that Dr. Barber did not tell
him on the first day what he had testified, and he came to remember
it (as such witnesses commonly do upon pressure) by a fact that came
to his mind, and that was that Dr. Barber explicitly declared he
would not tell his testimony of that day! But we know the contrary
of this. So hard is it in this world to circumvent truth.
But then to help General Boynton's recollection I got the Cincinnati Gazette of the 21st of April, and found that on the 20th of
April, when General Boynton said Dr. Barber had not told him
what his testimony was, he (Boynton) had telegraphed to the Cincinnati Gazette that Dr. Barber had testified the University had
given an acre of groundto General Howard, and then General Boynton, seeing this, acknowledged it.
I asked him if he had acted as clerk to Mr. Wood in this investigation, and he said he had not. I asked him if he had not served
as clerk for Mr. Wood in getting papers from the Treasury files, but
he denied it. At length, upon close inquiry, he said that he had gone
to the Treasury Department when Mr. Wood could not go, and had
taken an order or request from Mr. Wood to get a paper he was to
testify to, and had copied it and brought it away to Mr. Wood.
Now a fair-minded witness who corresponds with newspapers would
not be testifying so. He would understand the meaning of language
better. This witness denied the name but he proved the character.
He denied that he had furnished any briefs or drafts of interrogatories to be used on this trial. Yet he admitted, after much pressure,
that he had written papers and given them to Mr. Wood, who had
brought them here for use. That is not a fair witness. That is not
a witness on whose testimony a man like General Howard should be
impeached. He denied that he was the originator of these charges
or the prompter of them. But he spends his time in writing for the
papers against him; and he told Mr. Wood he had written to the
Cincinnati Gazette all the facts about General Howard, and that if
Mr. Wood's charges were in accordance with those letters he felt
bound, as a public man who had made them public property, to
supply the proofs to sustain them.
Now was he honest in denying that he was the prompter? If he
was not, this trial leaves utter darkness upon this subject. But light
streams through the openings —openings that all the art and all the
conscience, such as it is, of this witness can not close.  -ere is a man
who tries to hide himself. He says:
"Nay, never shake those gory locks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it."
Poor refuge of the guilty —always sought, but always vainly.
Did you notice, Mr. Chairman, how, when I tried to find whether
he had not said that he would get an investigating committee out of
this Congress, and if not out of this Congress then out of the next —
did you notice how he said at last, after much deliberation, "Well, if
you put it in that shape, I say no." Was that the way an honest witness would have spoken? Wasn't it the way of' a man who was trying to pacify his conscience, such as it was, by catching at some form




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.              49
of words, or lack of words somewhere, by which he could make an
answer to conceal the truth?
Mr. Chairman, an honorable man would have shrunk from doing
another thing this witness did. General Howard was willing to converse with him. He had been under the pastorate of his father, and
there could be conversation without animosity. But observe that
after the subject was disposed of which General Howard introduced,
that is, the incorrectness of some newspaper report which had been
ascribed to General Boynton, he said, "Now, General Howard, as we
are talking in a friendly way, let me ask you a question on another
subject." And here, in so friendly a way, he inquires about some
other things. They were things he had before reported, and which
he has since brought into these charges.
But why did Boynton open this? It was that he might say there
was a conversation on the subject between them. Then he could
trust to his own heart and pen to shape the language for the injury
of the man he was pursuing. Would any gentleman do that? Would
any one fit to be a public teacher and guide, having a sense of honor
and a mind to do good, do that? It was a private conversation,
where no thought of publication was entertained by General Howard.
Suppose General Boynton had said, "General Howard, sit down; I
wish to draw out from you now something to make use of to your
injury. I wield that power of the press Dr. Barber set before you a
while ago, and as you did not fall in with the plan for creating you
as a public man, I intend to destroy you soon, and you will, if you
please, just supply me with some weapons; and I can get all I need if
you only give me a chance to say we talked together on this subject."
Would Geperal Howard have been " pleased" to afford General
Boynton that opportunity? Not readily. But if that was General
Boynton's purpose he ought to have said so. On the other hand, if
it was not his purpose at that time he should never have brought
that private conversation here. But in his enmity he has come
before this committee, and taking his part in this pursuit he has
come to supply out of the treasury of his heart and tongue any lack
of testimony. That labels the man. Yet he came here on the
second day to testify, and volunteered at the beginning to correct
something he said the day before "in justice to General Howard."
We extend the hand, not to accept but to reject his proffered justice.
We have heard of Joab's salutation of Abner, and of what attended it.
But what occurred here in your presence, Mr. Chairman?  General Boynton was asked by one of your committee whether he
had obtained from any of the parties or counsel here, bound
to secrecy, any of the matters of the trial, about which he had
been sending reports to the newspapers.  He said yes.  From
whom? From General Howard and Mr. Ketchum, and from Mr.
Bradley and Mr. Wood. I had exchanged no word with him, and so
noted, on paper to the member. So he was asked when Mr. Ketchum
had told him anything, and he answered: Not Mr. Ketchum himself,
but those to whom he talked, had told him. When pressed to name
them he broke down and said he could not.
Then'as to Mr. Wood and Mr. Bradley. "Had he been present in
Mr. Bradley's office when he and his associate counsel were talking
4




50                ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
with other witnesses? " He said no, but when they were talking with
each other. "But didn't Mr. Bradley request him  to leave the
room?" Yes, he did, but it was impossible for him not to hear portions of what was said. "But did he consider it honorable to
publish what he got in that way?" Note his answer. "I did not
say I published it. What I heard I used to explain in my own
mind information obtained from witnesses."
But an honorable man would have instinctively answered, "I never
did publish it!" Because such a man never could have done so.
Then another question, " But you heard it when you ought not to
hear it, and then did make use of such information?" He answers,
"I do not know that I made use of such information, except as I
said, to explain," &c.
He does not know that he made use of that information! He does
not venture to say he did not use it; and with such a man before me
I see as clearly that he used it as I see the character of the man.
We repudiate his testimony. It is disingenuous. General Howard
would readily repeat here what he said in that conversation; but he
would differ materially from the witness in his narration of it.
This same General Boynton visited the University grounds and told
the committee of what he had seen. He had spent two hours in looking at the cracks in the University walls, and in counting the places
where new material was put in. There were twelve different cracks
and there were three hundred places mended by putting in new material. He went over the ground and looked at the ruins of the hospital and he had spent four hours at the navy yard in witnessing the
experiments of Major King with the Hardee committee, which he described with great fluency, giving exactly the relative strength of all
the different materials down to chalk, and declaring that chalk was
stronger than American building-block. He said he had a "fixed
opinion," and it was that the building-block was worthless. He
had utterly condemned the University building in his newspaper
reports, and so in all his testimony here he did, and he said
that nothing would satisfy him to the contrary, his opinion was
so fixed. But in the four walls of the University building there
are more than twenty-five thousand superficial feet, without including
projections and returns, and the three hundred blocks, if renewed,
would make but one hundred superficial feet, the two hundred and
fiftieth part of the whole; and yet because he saw these cracks and
these mendings he condemned the whole building.
Yet Mr. George Cook, a true expert, a man of open, honest countenance, the contractor for the extra work on the University, said this
penknife blade of mine could not be inserted into one of those
cracks.
A large portion of this mending was on the norfih side, where
there had been exposure to frost, and scaling in consequence. It
was local and not general. Yet here is a witness, a public instructor
and guide, determined to blast this building and sacrifice the
$150,000 it cost without once going inside to see if it might not
after all be safe; not willing even to inquire of Mr. Rumsey, the
builder, his father's friend, whether it could not be safely used.
General Boynton (educated as he said he was) did not know ex



ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.              51
actly what the water table was. He did not know, either, what to
call the raised margins of a panel. I do not blame any one for not
knowing what they are called, but when a man claims to be a civil
engineer and an expert on building materials and can not tell such
things, I do blame him because he shows himself ignorant where
he claimed to have knowledge, and that to injure one toward whom
he was hostile. He did not know that between the second and third
stories heavy panels took the place of.the common building-blocks,
although his two hours' examination of the cracks made him sure
they ran from top to bottom through the wall in the line of the
windows. He did not know whether that wall would carry on
it another wall like itself and as high without crushing, though he
seemed disposed to say it would not.  Yet Major King, a really
scientific man, knows and says that it would carry the weight of
three other walls just like itself without crushing. That is the testimony of Major King, after conducting these experiments at the
navy yard.
General Boynton said on appearing the second day, as already
alluded to, that he wished "' in justice to General Howard" to correct a
part of his testimony the day before, about the General's having said in
conversation with him that he could lend money to the church out of
the Retained Bounty fund. He thought now he might have been
mistaken, and that he said it was out of some other bureau fund.
Perhaps he had discovered (although two or three of his friends
had been swearing to the same thing) that it was impossible, because
the Retained Bounty fund was never used for educational purposes,
and as other moneys were, he saw a good time to correct himself and
escape into a broader field where he could be more plausible.
Besides, he began to feel (if' he had not felt before) that a shade of
doubt might pass over the minds of the Committee as to his entire
impartiality and disinterestedness as a witness. Here, therefore, he
could put his amendment to two good uses by opening the morning's
work with something " in justice to General 3[oward."
It would have been an honest act on his part if he had come in
here on the second day and made some atonement for the persistent
untruth with which he had plied the newspapers through so many
days, which any one could see, who understood anything of the case,
was designed to produce impressions on the public mind never to be
effaced. That would have been justice to General Howard.
There is another thing to which I must call attention. Judge
Coons was cited here from Tennessee to prove bounty frauds. He came
before the Committee, and at the public expense-an expense amounting to some hundreds of dollars-and with the expectation on the part
of the prosecution that his testimony would injure General Howard.
But they had found in the bureau his report on the intended bounty
frauds, and when Judge Coons entered the room they were disposed
to dismiss him without examination. The report of Judge Coons
will show that he charges one General Burbridge with coming to him
and proposing to make $400,000 out of the colored soldiers of
Tennessee and Kentucky, upon a plan which he said had the approval
of the bureau. He proposed making some arrangement by which
for a small sum the rights of the soldier should be bought, and




52                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
assignments of them taken, and that thirty per cent. should go to
him (Judge Coons) for helping along the plan as an officer of the
bureau. It was a good chance, he said, to make money. Judge Coons
listened to him all through. I-ie allowed General Burbridge to tell
his story, and then, like an honest man. he said no. It was just the
same with General Runkle. General Burbridge and his associates
had raised $10,000 for a fund to carry on the enterprise and their
purposes were foiled.
Now, Mr. Chairman, the men who got up the charges knew all
this. They had called in Judge Coons' report and had examined it.
My much-respected opponent, Mr. Bradley, who had been serving
here had looked into that report and he understood its purport and
effect.
Mr. Burbridge, the witness, came here and I made no objection to
his testimony, but the committee ruled out the interrogatory of the
prosecution.
The Hon. Mr. Wood then offered to prove by this witness that
General Runkle and Judge Coons were engaged in a conspiracy for
committing bounty frauds, and that General Howard knew it.
HIe was required to prove, first, that knowledge of General Howard,
but declined to do so, and put his offer on the record to stand there.
The originators of these charges are responsible for the wrong thus
done to General Howard. They study the case outside. They plan,
and plot, and prescribe. They sent away without examination the
honest witness who detected and defeated the conspiracy for committing the bounty frauds, and brought in one of t;he conspirators with
an offer to prove by him what they knew very well they could not
prove.
You recollect how this witness was received by the prosecution
that called him. He was asked his occupation; he said, after a pause,
"Well, call me a speculator;" and after another pause he added"and a distiller."  Then the Hon. Mr. Wood said, "We don't think in
New York that such people have a very high character." It was a
rebuff not usually given by an advocate to his own witness.
After that announcement of the estimation in which their witness
was held, and after dismissing Judge Coons as they did it was a
wrong to " offer to prove by this witness that there was a conspiracy
with Judge Coons and General Runkle, bureau officers in Tennessee
and Kentucky, with the knowledge of General Howard, to commit
bounty frauds," and those men are responsible for it who planned
and have carried on this prosecution. Some may be deceived by the
show of that offer upon the record in the absence of testimony that
would have shown it utterly without foundation.
Mr. Hoar here read from the minutes what took place on that subject, as follows:
Extract from proceedings of committee, June 8, 1870:
MR. BURBRIDGE. I never had any conversation or communication
with General Howard, except that which has been introduced here
to-day.
MR. WooD. I offer to prove by this witness that the agents of the




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                53
bureau, General Runkle and Mr. Coons, were particeps criminis in
purchasing these claims at a ruinous rate of discount as agents of the
bureau, one of them having $10,000 in money for that purpose; and
that General Howard was made acquainted with the facts, but not
by this witness.
MR. HOAR. I move that Mr. Wood be at liberty to proceed to prove
that knowledge of the facts which he states was brought home to
General Howard, and that when he has proved that General Howard
had knowledge of them he may then prove the circumstances to
which he refers.
MR. McNErELY. I move as an amendment that Mr. Wood be at
liberty to prove the fact which he has stated, and that he then be at
liberty to prove that it came to the knowledge of General Howard.
MR. MCNEELY'S amendment was rejected; yeas 2, nays 4.
MR. HoAe's motion was agreed to; yeas 4, nays 2.
MR. WOOD. I can only prove the fact by this witness that this
thing did occur, and if I am not permitted to prove that fiact I have
no further questions to ask him.
MR. TYNER. I move that the chairman of the committee be
directed to subpoena this witness again as soon as the fact of General Howard's knowledge has been proven by Mr. Wood. Agreed to.
MR. KETCHUM. I thank Mr. Hoar for this reiference, it makes very
plain what it was my object to show.
At this time I am constrained to say'something of that power of
the press which Dr. Barber was sent to expatiate upon at the house
of General Howard.
That power exercised for the public welfare is a good gift of
Providence, but employed for the indulgence of personal malice and
revenge it becomes a curse.
Dr. Barber and his prompters were mistaken. A. common man
with some smartness may happen to reach a place fcom, which he
can correspond regularly with several newspapers and gain access
through affiliation to several hundred more, and he may for a while
fill the air with "flying rumors and wanderlng fames and reports," may
daily reach with pointed paragraphs a great many minds and poison'public opinion, and defame personal character, and hinder important
enterprises, but the end is near and the punishment condign. Truth
rises steadily through all the debris of malice and falsehood that
were to smother and destroy it, and lifting its head into the open air
looks down upon the falsehood and it perishes.
The scene shifters amuse with their flashes of powder for lightning
and rolling cannon-balls for thunder, but when they imagine themselves gods and begin to throw squibs and pieces of iron among the
audience they are promptly expelled and punished. Then all men
see what pigmies besmeared with the grease and lampblack of their
vocation the thunderers were.
It will not be tolerated that men who command little respect
in society, who delight in mischief and indulge the basest passions
under the pretext of maintaining the public welfare, shall go on
successfully in their wickedness.
I honor General Howard for treating the solicitations of Dr. Barber




54                 ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.
as he did. His response was like that of Joseph to his tempter-of
Daniel to his persecutors. The disciple of his Master, he instinctively
followed His example. He resisted the devil. But he who resists
has the promise never broken, that the devil shall flee from
him.
The persecution of this public servant bears resemblance to that
which long since pursued another. A boy out of college, he made
speeches for independence. Entering the army he was soon called to
the side of the commander-in-chief and so went through the war of
the Revolution. IHIe rendered great services as a soldier; and then
as a citizen, in devising and establishing the constitution; and afterward as a member of the cabinet, in laying the foundations of administration of the government, and of industry and prosperity among the
people-foundations that now lie at the base of the vast structure his
prescience contemplated and which we after three generations behold.
~He possessed abilities that, employed for his own personal advantage,
might have won for him any wealth he could desire, yet he devoted
himself to his country and died without estate.
It was Tiamilton, the friend of Washington, and his Secretary of
the Treasury, that was charged with the abuse of his trust by fraudulent uses of the public money. And at last he was aroused to answer
his assailants, and at the opening he said: "Lies often detected and
refuted are still revived and repeated in the hope that the refutation may have been forgotten, or that the frequency and boldness of
accusation may supply the place of truth and proof:" Strong words,
that show human nature to have been at the that period very much
like what it is now. What Hamilton did in his place in the Treasury
for his country, Howard has done in the Freedmen's Bureau for the
colored people liberated by the war, and for the nation of which they
are so important a part.
This work has been a triumph, and it is very natural that its author
should meet with assaults from  enemies. It was said by Edmund
Burke-that great man whose sentences will often supply maxims for
our instruction and comfort in the perplexities and sorrows of our
human affairs-that " it is in the nature and constitution of things that
calumny and abuse must be an essential part of triumph." And the
history of the Freedmen's Bureau verifies it.
THE MAN REQUIRED.
Mr. Chairman, the work reviewed before you required at its head
a man of wisdom, of courage, of experience, with knowledge of the
southern country and its people; an army officer and one who would
regrard the woes and the wants of the freedmen and refugees and
carefully provide for them. It wanted a man having the confidence
of benevolent and Christian people so as to win their cooperation,
which was of so great value that the bureau could not have succeeded
without it. Aid came through the churches and Sunday schools,
and the aggregate was large. It wanted a man of integrity, honestly
to apply the large sum of money intrusted to him with such wide
discretion to the objects the nation had in view.
It required the ability of a statesman also, providing not only for




ARGUMENT OF MR. KETCHUM.                55
the present but for the future, establishing education and labor so
that the disabilities of the colored people should be removed and
their capacities made available to the country of which they were
becoming citizens.
Now, for this Mr. Lincoln selected General Howard, and he was
called to it by Mr. Lincoln's successor through Mr. Stanton, his
Secretary of War. General Howard has performed the service, and
for the manner of it he deserves well of his country. There is nothing
that shows him to have been either negligent or unjust. And
this I am well convinced you will find and report, and more: —that this
man who gave his right arm to his country and ever held his life at
her service-who at her call gave all his powers, physical, mental, and
moral to the organization and development of a plan for the elevation
and advancement of her freed people, distinguishing her among the
nations of the earth, came not hither "upon the 6ath and presentment
of men of honest condition," but upon " flying rumors and wandering
fames and reports," the creations of malice and the accepted tools ot
political hostility and design;-that this public officer, whom enemies
seeking concealment have endeavored to destroy, deserves not the
censure of his country, but her love and praise.