"I should be glad to go further. I would be glad, if we could, to secure to these people, upon any just principle, the fee of this land; but I do not see with what propriety we could except this particular tract of country out of all the other lands in the South, and appropriate it in fee to these parties. I think, having gone upon the land in good faith under the protection of the Government, we may protect them there for a reasonable time; and the opinion of the committee was that three years would be a reasonable time." On the following day, Mr. Hendricks presented his objections to the bill in a speech of considerable length. He was followed by Mr. Trumbull in reply. As both were members of the Judiciary Committee from which the bill was reported, and both had carefully considered the reasons for and against the measure, their arguments are given at length. [Illustration: Hon. T. A. Hendricks, Senator from Indiana.] Mr. Hendricks said: "At the last session of Congress the original law creating that bureau was passed. We were then in the midst of the war; very considerable territory had been brought within the control of the Union troops and armies, and within the scope of that territory, it was said, there were many freedmen who must be protected by a bill of that sort; and it was mainly upon that argument that the bill was enacted. The Senate was very reluctant to enact the law creating the bureau as it now exists. There was so much hesitancy on the part of the Senate, that by a very large vote it refused to agree to the bill reported by the Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] from a committee of conference, and I believe the honorable Senator from Illinois, [Mr. Trumbull,] who introduced this bill, himself voted against that bill; and why? That bill simply undertook to define the powers and duties of the Freedmen's Bureau and its agents, and the Senate would not agree to confer the powers that that bill upon its face seemed to confer, and it was voted down; and then the law as it now stands was enacted in general terms. There was very little gained, indeed, by the Senate refusing to pass the first bill and enacting the latter, for under the law as it passed, the Freedmen's Bureau assumed very nearly all the jurisdiction and to exercise all the powers contemplated in the bill reported by the Senator from Massachusetts.