December 20, 1864, in the House of Representatives, the bill being under consideration, according to the postponement from the last session, Mr. Eliot, of Massachusetts, Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Noble, of Ohio, were appointed a Committee of Conference. The Senate agreed to the Conference, and Mr. Sumner, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, and Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, were appointed on the part of the Senate. A new bill was reported. Instead of attaching the bureau to the War Department or to the Treasury Department, an independent department was created, called a Department of Freedmen and Abandoned Lands; but in other respects it was substantially the Senate bill. February 9, 1865, after debate, the report of the Committee was adopted by the House,--Yeas 64, Nays 62. February 10th, Mr. Sumner, on the part of the Committee, reported the new bill to the Senate, and on the 13th, in answer to inquiry, explained it as follows. Mr. PRESIDENT,--I trust that there will be no opposition to this most important, and, as I solemnly believe, most beneficent measure. But I shall be happy to make any explanation with regard to it. Senators have not forgotten the bill to create a Bureau of Freedmen, which, after careful debate for several days, was passed by the Senate at the close of the last session as a substitute for a House bill. For some time the difference between the two Houses has been under the consideration of a Conference Committee, whose report is now before you. This report embodies substantially the Senate bill, including various propositions moved by different Senators,--among others, that relating to the forfeiture of estates, moved by the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. TRUMBULL],--that relating to the care of freedmen unemployed on the lands, moved by the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. WILLEY],--and that relating to trials by courts-martial, moved by the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DOOLITTLE]. All of the Senate bill, in substance, and generally in language, is preserved, with one single exception. By the Senate bill a bureau was created in the Treasury. The Committee of the two Houses unite in recommending a separate department, holding directly under the President, and therefore free from the control of either the Treasury or the War.