It authorized the issue of medical supplies, confirmed certain sales of land to Negroes, and provided that the promises which Sherman made in 1865 to the Sea Island Negroes should be carried out as far as possible and that no lands occupied by blacks should be restored to the owners until the crops of 1866 were gathered; it directed the Bureau to cooperate with private charitable and benevolent associations, and it authorized the use or sale for school purposes of all confiscated property; and finally it ordered that the civil equality of the Negro be upheld by the Bureau and its courts when state courts refused to accept the principle.

By later laws the existence of the Bureau was extended to January 1, 1869, in the unreconstructed States, but its educational and financial activities were continued until June 20, 1872.
The chief objections to the Bureau from the conservative Northern point of view were summed up in the President's veto messages.

The laws creating it were based, he asserted, on the theory that a state of war still existed; there was too great a concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals who could not be held responsible; with such a large number of agents ignorant of the country and often working for their own advantage injustice would inevitably result; in spite of the fact that the Negro everywhere had a status in court, arbitrary tribunals were established, without jury, without regular procedure or rules of evidence, and without appeal; the provisions in regard to abandoned lands amounted to confiscation without a hearing; the Negro, who must in the end work out his own salvation, and who was protected by the demand for his labor, would be deluded into thinking his future secure without further effort on his part; although nominally under the War Department, the Bureau was not subject to military control; it was practically a great political machine; and, finally, the states most concerned were not represented in Congress.
The Bureau was soon organized in all the former slaveholding States except Delaware, with general headquarters in Washington and state headquarters at the various capitals.

General O.O.Howard, who was appointed commissioner, was a good officer, softhearted, honest, pious, and frequently referred to as "the Christian soldier." He was fair-minded and not disposed to irritate the Southern whites unnecessarily, but he was rather suspicious of their intentions toward the Negroes, and he was a believer in the righteousness of the Freedmen's Bureau.

He was not a good business man; and he was not beyond the reach of politicians.