a plan for rebuilding the south after the Civil War was called what

Insisting that the well-being of freedmen depended on their connection to the land, these senators noted that Congress had placed control of confiscated lands in the Treasury Department and argued that freedmen and lands should be handled by one authority. Some senators objected to placing the Freedmen’s Bureau in the Department of War, favoring the Department of the Treasury instead. Senate debate on the bill focused on which executive department should run the bureau. The bill was then referred to the Senate’s Select Committee on Slavery and Freedom, chaired by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. The House spent two months debating the bill and finally passed it by a vote of 69 to 67 on March 1, 1864. Freedmen aid societies had been advocating for such an agency through memorials, petitions, and direct lobbying. Eliot of Massachusetts proposed a bill establishing a bureau of emancipation within the Department of War to provide protection and support to newly freed African Americans.

The battle to establish the Freedmen’s Bureau, and then to extend the legislation one year later, was a major factor in the struggle between President Andrew Johnson and Radical Republicans in Congress over Reconstruction and the role of the federal government in integrating four million newly emancipated African Americans into the political life of the nation. The Freedmen’s Bureau was to operate “during the present war of rebellion, and for one year thereafter,” and also established schools, supervised contracts between freedmen and employers, and managed confiscated or abandoned lands.

On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “ An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans.

A plan for rebuilding the south after the Civil War was called what