[423]
Chapter 60: opposition to Bureau and reconstruction work became personal; the Congregational Church of Washington
During my Government work in Washington, D. C., from its commencement, May 12, 1865, to its close, July 3, 1874, as was predicted by my friends, I was obliged to meet and overcome many obstacles, and to encounter a constant and determined opposition. Hostility showed itself in hydra-headed forms. The Freedmen's Bureau itself, regarded by its best friends and promoters as abnormal to our system of Government, and as only a temporary necessity, was always a source of bitterness and complaint to all extreme opponents, North and South. President Johnson's course, after he had made up his mind to antagonize the party that elected him, strengthened all Southern hostility to the Bureau work, and brought into disrepute its most faithful officials. Identifying itself with the upholding of the blacks in their industries, it favored them in the possession of land, in the courts of justice, in labor interests, in having hospitals and asylums, and in planting schools from the primary to the university. In fact the Bureau constantly kept stirred up all social life where its operations touched the field. It was bound to put its foot firmly upon every form of slavery. It was obliged to foster individual independence. While it allowed no apathy among its wards, and thus encouraged industry and justice, and a lawful
