26 THE FREEDMEN S SAVINGS BANK 
been inserted. The House then added an amend- 
ment slightly different from the Senate amend- 
ment, though believed by Eliot to be identical. 
Objection was made that the District of Colum- 
bia was not represented on the board of trustees 
named in the bill, and Eliot met this objection 
by inserting the name of Chief Justice Salmon 
P. Chase. Thus amended the bill passed the 
House.X 
Since the bills as passed by the Senate and the 
House were not exactly alike, the action of a 
conference committee would, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, be necessary in order to harmonize 
them; but it seems that no one noticed the 
slight differences. The record states that the bill 
was signed by President Lincoln on the same 
day, March 3. It is said that when Lincoln 
signed it he remarked: “This bank is just what 
the freedmen need.” He signed at the same time 
the act creating the Freedmen’s Bureau." 
The bill which was presented to President 
Lincoln for his approval was neither the bill 
passed by the Senate nor the one passed by the 
House but was the original bill introduced into 
the Senate by Senator Wilson with the words 
“in the City of Washington, in the District of 
Columbia” inserted by some one in the body of 
the bill. The name of Salmon P. Chase as a 
member of the Board of Trustees was omitted. 
This was the bill that was published as law. In 
1 Cong, Globe, 38 Cong., 2 Sess., pt. I, p. 776, and pt. II, pp. 885, 1311; 
Senate Misc. Doc., No. 88, 43 Cong., 2 Sess. 
1 Cong. Globe, 38 Cong., 2 Sess., pt. II, p. 1403; Booklet, Freedmen’s 
Savings and Trust Company, 1872; Fleming, Documentary History of 
Reconstruction, 1, 319.