" In compliance with a request of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the 18th of the ensuing August, asking to be informed as to the action taken by the Department upon his letter of the 20th of July, just noticed, the Secretary of the interior stated that he had laid the whole matter before Congress on the 23d of July, asking that body to take early action for the removal of these freedmen, by designating a place to which they should be removed, and making an appropriation for the expense of their removal, but that as Congress had failed to pass the measures indicated, the Department was powerless in the premises."