sentences:  Established as a temporary institution, the Freedmen's Bureau was designed to provide food and other supplies to free blacks in the South, and was also authorized to grant confiscated land to former slaves.Lincoln did not take a definitive stand on black suffrage, stating only that "very intelligent blacks" and those that had served in the military should be granted the right to vote.Historian Eric Foner notes that no one knows what Lincoln would have done about Reconstruction had he served out his second term, but writes,
  In December 1863, a proposed constitutional amendment that would outlaw slavery was introduced in Congress; though the Senate voted for the amendment with the necessary two-thirds majority, the amendment did not receive sufficient support in the House.