Legislation Regulating the Labor of Certain Inhabitants of the Confederate States was a Bill proposed by Confederate President Robert E. Lee to eventually eliminate slavery throughout the Confederacy. The bill was modeled after a proposed act of legislation in slave-holding Brazil which failed of passage. It would relax state laws preventing slaves from learning to read and write in order to allow them to learn useful trades in anticipation of becoming freedmen. It would also allow a slave or someone on behalf of a slave to purchase their freedom at the price they had last been sold or at a fair-market price as determined by a competent appraiser with the owner not having the privilege of refusing it. In addition, the slave's freedom could be purchased in one sixth increments with the indi