Thaddeus Stevens thought well of the bill but wanted more. If the freedpeople or refugees could not afford to rent or buy their land after the allotted period, they’d be turned away, and this struck Stevens as cruel, so in his updated version of the legislation, he proposed that all forfeited and public lands be reserved for freedmen and refugees. He also wanted the Bureau to provide them with public education. But his amendment was defeated. Conservatives such as Delaware Democrat Willard Saulsbury opposed it, histrionically conjuring an imaginary Senate gallery teeming with hundreds of
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