On the 18th of December the adoption of the anti-slavery amendment was officially announced. On the same day the President sent to the Senate two reports on the condition of affairs, and the state of opinion, in the South,--a very brief one from Lieutenant-General Grant and a much longer one from Major-General Carl Schurz. The former was an incidental result of a three weeks' tour of inspection for military purposes. General Grant had spent one day in Raleigh, North Carolina, two days in Charleston, South Carolina, and one day each in Savannah and Augusta, Georgia. The substance of his report was that he did not think it practicable to withdraw the military at present; that the citizens of the Southern States were anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as possible; that they were in earnest in wishing to do what they supposed was required of them by the Government and not humiliating to them as citizens. I am satisfied [he said] that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sections--slavery and state rights, or the right of a state to secede from the Union--they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal--arms--that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met that they not only accepted the decision arrived at as final, but, now that the smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been given for reflection, that this decision has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field and in council. He alluded to a belief widely spread among the freedmen that the lands of their former owners were to be divided, in part at least, among them and that this belief was seriously interfering with their willingness to make labor contracts for the ensuing year. Then he added: In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman's mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in the division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities. In such cases, I think, it will be found that vice and disease will tend to the extermination or great reduction of the colored race. It cannot be expected that the opinions held by men at the South for years can be changed in a day; and, therefore, the freedmen require for a few years not only laws to protect them, but the fostering care of those who will give them good counsel and on whom they can rely.