The Judiciary Committee of the Senate, on January 12, 1866, reported a bill to continue the existence, to increase the personnel, and to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau. It was discussed in both Houses with great thoroughness and in a temperate spirit, and the necessity of the measure for the protection of the freedmen and the introduction of free labor in the South was so generally acknowledged that the recognized Republican friends of the President in the Senate as well as in the House supported it. It passed by overwhelming majorities in both Houses, and everybody, even those most intimate with the President, confidently expected that he would willingly accept and sign it. But on the 19th of February he returned it with his veto, mainly on the assumed ground that it was unnecessary and unconstitutional, and also because it was passed by a Congress from which eleven States, those lately in rebellion, were excluded--thus throwing out a dark hint that before the admission of the late rebel States to representation this Congress might be considered constitutionally unable to make any valid laws at all. Senator Trumbull, in an uncommonly able, statesmanlike, and calm speech, combated the President's arguments and moved that the bill pass, the President's veto notwithstanding. But the "Administration Republicans," although they had voted for the bill, now voted to sustain the veto, and, there being no two-thirds majority to overcome it, the veto prevailed. Thus President Johnson had won a victory over the Republican majority in Congress. This victory may have made him believe that he would be able to kill with his veto all legislation unpalatable to him, and that, therefore, he was actually master of the situation. He made the grave mistake of underestimating the opposition. _A Humiliating Spectacle_