Though Meade lacked Pope's zealous enthusiasm for reconstruction, yet he held much the same opinion as his predecessor regarding the duties with which he was charged. Like Pope, he forbade the bestowal of public patronage on anti-reconstruction newspapers.[112] Like Pope, he thought it his duty to depose state officers who opposed the execution of the Reconstruction Acts. When he assumed command he found the convention at loggerheads with the governor and the state treasurer. The convention had levied a tax to pay its expenses, and pending the collection of it had directed the treasurer to advance forty thousand dollars.[113] The treasurer (Jones by name) declined to do this except on a warrant from the governor, according to the regular practice. Meade requested Jenkins to issue the warrant. Jenkins refused, on the ground that the act would violate the state constitution under which he held office, and that even if it were authorized by the Reconstruction Acts (which he denied), that was an authorization contrary to the Constitution of the United States, upon which he would not act.[114] Thereupon, on January 13, 1868, Meade issued an order by which the governor (designated as the "provisional governor") and the treasurer (also designated as "provisional") were removed and Brigadier-General Ruger and Captain Rockwell "detailed" to act as governor and treasurer respectively.[115] For this act the convention rewarded Meade with a resolution of gratitude.[116] Before the end of the same month the state comptroller and the secretary of state were also removed for obstructing reconstruction,[117] and later the mayor and the entire board of aldermen of Columbus shared the same fate.[118] Toward the freedmen General Meade assumed the attitude of his predecessor. He made similar rules to protect them, in voting, from coercion by employers.[119] On the other hand, observing that too frequent enticement of negroes to political meetings was disturbing industry, he announced that interference of this sort with the rights of employers by political agitators would meet with the same punishment as interference with the rights of freedmen.[120]