These would substitute serfdom for chattelism.
On the other hand the Freedman's Bureau acted as his guardian and
friend, looked after his interests in contracts, prohibited the
law's barbarity, and insisted stubbornly that the freedman was
a man, and must be treated as such. It needed only the robe of
citizenship, it was thought, to enable him safely to dispense with
the one of these agencies and defy the other. So the negro was
transformed into a citizen, a voter, a political factor, by act of
Congress, with the aid and assistance of the military power.
A great crowd had gathered at the little town of Melton, which was
one of the chief places of the county of Horsford, for the people
had been duly notified by official advertisement that on this day
the board of registration appointed by the commander of the military
district in which Horsford County was situated would convene there,
to take and record the names, and pass upon the qualifications,
of all who desired to become voters of the new body politic which
was to be erected therein, or of the old one which was to be
reconstructed and rehabilitated out of the ruins which war had
left.
The first provision of the law was that every member of such board
of registration should be able to take what was known in those
days as the "iron-clad oath," that is, an oath that he had never
engaged in, aided, or abetted any rebellion against the Government
of the United States.
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