That body passed an Act concerning schools for freedmen, in which the governor was authorized to appoint a superintendent of common schools for freedmen, and in each county the county commissioners were authorized to appoint assistant superintendents.

These officers were directed to "establish schools for freedmen when the number of colored children in any county will warrant the same, provided" (and the proviso is one of great significance) "that the sums hereinafter authorized shall be sufficient to meet the expenses thereof." The funds provided for this seemingly philanthropic design were to be derived exclusively from a tax upon the colored man.

The law directed that all colored men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five years should pay annually a dollar each, to be collected at the same time and in the same manner as the three-dollar poll-tax, which should be paid into the treasury of the State for the use of the freedmen, and should constitute a fund to be denominated "the common-school fund for the education of freedmen." It was further provided in this law, that "a tuition-fee shall be collected from each pupil, under such regulations as the superintendents shall prescribe, and paid into the treasury as a portion of the common-school fund for freedmen." The salary of the superintendents of the schools for freedmen was fixed at a thousand dollars, and of the county superintendents at two hundred dollars.

There were, at that time, about twelve thousand negro men subject to the capitation tax of three dollars, already referred to, and under that law they paid thirty-six thousand dollars annually into the State Treasury of Florida; but the school law forbade that the salary of superintendents and assistant superintendents should be paid from the fund derived from the poll-tax.

They provided that it should be chargeable solely to the fund raised for common schools.