a more select number of vindictive, pro-slavery, rebellious legislators cannot be found than a majority of the Kentucky legislature." There was a disposition to lecture the whites about their sins in regard to slavery and to point out to them how far in their general ignorance and backwardness they fell short of enlightened people.
The Bureau courts were frequently conducted in an "illegal and oppressive manner," with "decided partiality for the colored people, without regard to justice." For this reason they were suspended for a time in Louisiana and Georgia by General Steedman and General Fullerton, and cases were then sent before military courts.

Men of the highest character were dragged before the Bureau tribunals upon frivolous complaints, were lectured, abused, ridiculed, and arbitrarily fined or otherwise punished.

The jurisdiction of the Bureau courts weakened the civil courts and their frequent interference in trivial matters was not conducive to a return to normal conditions.
The inferior agents, not sufficiently under the control of their superiors, were responsible for a great deal of this bad feeling.

Many of them held radical opinions as to the relations of the races, and inculcated these views in their courts, in the schools, and in the new Negro churches.

Some were charged with even causing strikes and other difficulties in order to be bought off by the whites.