"It is also provided that the President may, for settlement in the manner prescribed by section four of the act to which this is an amendment, reserve from sale or settlement, under the homestead or preemption laws, public lands in Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, not to exceed three million acres of good land in all, the rental named in that section to be determined in such manner as the commissioner shall by regulation prescribe. It proposes to confirm and make valid the possessory titles granted in pursuance of Major-General Sherman's special field order, dated at Savannah, January 16, 1865. The commissioner, under the direction of the President, is to be empowered to purchase or rent such tracts of land in the several districts as may be necessary to provide for the indigent refugees and freedmen dependent upon the Government for support; also to purchase sites and buildings for schools and asylums, to be held as United States property until the refugees or freedmen shall purchase the same, or they shall be otherwise disposed of by the commissioner. "Whenever in any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion, and wherein, in consequence of any State or local law, ordinance, police or other regulation, custom, or prejudice, any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons (including the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate), are refused or denied to negroes, mulattoes, freedmen, refugees, or any other persons, on account of race, color, or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or different punishment, pains, or penalties, for the commission of any act or offense, than are prescribed for white persons committing like acts or offenses, it is to be the duty of the President of the United States, through the commissioner, to extend military protection and jurisdiction over all cases affecting such persons so discriminated against.