This conclusion has the support also of General Banks, in a letter addressed to one of the Freedmen’s Commission. Here are his words:-- “The assignment of the abandoned or forfeited plantations to one department of the Government, and the protection and support of the emancipated people to another, _is a fundamental error productive of incalculable evils, and cannot be too soon or too thoroughly corrected_.” The able and elaborate report from the Freedmen’s Commission, just published, considers this question carefully. Nothing could be more explicit than the following testimony. “But, in the judgment of the Commission, the most serious error in connection with the present arrangements for the care and protection of these people _arises out of the assignment to a different agency of the care and disposal of the abandoned plantations_. To enter into the detail of all the evils and abuses that have arisen out of this error, and which are unavoidable so long as it continues to exist, would occupy too great a space in this report. Suffice it to say, that it is the source of the greatest confusion and a perpetual collision between the different local authorities, in which not only the emancipated population, but the Government itself, suffers the most serious injuries and losses. … “And this is the purport of all the testimony which the Commission has been able to obtain, not in the department of the Gulf only, but everywhere, in relation to this matter. “The unhesitating judgment of every person, official or other, not interested in the opportunities it affords for peculation, with whom we have consulted, coincides with that of General Banks. All, without exception, declare that no system can avail to effect the great objects contemplated that does not assign to one and the same authority the care and disposal of the abandoned plantations and the care and protection of the emancipated laborers who are to cultivate them. “_And, after the most thorough investigations, I am authorized in saying that this is the deliberate judgment of the Commission._”[351] It was on this ground of reason, and yielding to the influence of such authoritative opinions, that the Committee were led to believe that there was no alternative on this practical question. In the course of their inquiries the Committee sought the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury. With the heavy burdens of his department resting on his shoulders, he does not desire any additional labor; but he does not conceal his conviction that the care of the freedmen must for the present be associated with the care of the lands. He would be glad to be relieved of all the responsibilities connected with the subject, but he hopes that it will not be divided between two different departments. In that event it is feared that there will be little good from either.