The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-05-02
what Senator Wilson has Done for the Colored

what Senator WILSON mas zone Tor the COIofeu
Race
Mr.. Wilson introduced the bill abolish
ing slavery in the District of Columbia, by
which more than three thousand slaves
were made free and slavery forever pro-
hibited.
He introduced provision which became
law on the 2lst of May, 1862, providing
that persons of color in the District Of
Columbia should be subject to the same
laws to which white persons were subject
that they should be tried for offenses
against the laws in the same manner in
which white persons are tried, and, if con-
victed, to be liable to the same penalty,
and no other, to which white persons would
be liable for the same offense. This act
nullified the brutalizing, degrading, and in
human black code of the District.
On tie 18th of July, 1862, he introduced
the bill which became the law on the 18th,
to amend the act of 1896 to call out the
militia to execute the laws. This act made
colored men part of the military forces,
authorized the President to receive into the
military and naval service persons of Af-
rican descent, and made free such persons,
their mothers, wives and children, if they
were the slaves of persons giving aid to the
rebellion.
When the amendment to the enrolment
act was pending in the House, it was SO
amended as to make colored men, whether
free or slave, part of the national forces,
and their masters were to receive bounty
when they should give freedom to slaves
who might be drafted into the service. In
the Committee of Conference Mr.. Wilson
moved that the slaves drafted into the SER
vice should be made free by the authority
of the government the moment they entered
it. His motion was agreed to; it became
the law of the land, and General Palmer
reported that in Kentucky alone more than
twenty thousand slaves were made free
by it.
Mr.. Wilson introduced bill which be-
came the law, making the wives and chill
dren of colored soldiers free, and General
Palmer, then commanding the United
States forces in Kentucky, in an official re-
port, made six months after the passage Of
that act, estimated that seventy-iive thou
sand women and children were made free
by it. Tens of thousands of the wives and
children of such soldiers in the States of
Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Ken
tucky, Tennessee, and Missouri were thus
made free under Mr.. Wilson'S four mea-
sures.
The act abolishing slavery in the District
of Columbia the act making colored per-
sons received into the military service, their
mothers, wives, and children, if owned by
rebels, free the act making all slaves free
when mustered into the military service !;
and the act making their wives and children
tree, emancpated not less than quarter
of million of slaves in the border States.
Mr.. Wilson introduced into therappro-
priation bill of 1864 section providing
that all persons of color who had been, or
who might be, mustered into the military
service, should receive the same uniform,
clsthing, arms, equipments, rations, medi-
cal attendance, and pay as white soldiers.
lie reported from the committee of con-
ference, to which had been referred the bill
in relation to the Freedman's Bureau, an
entirely new bill, to establish in the war
department bureau for the relief of freed
men and refugees, which became law,
under which that beneficent instrumentality
the Freedman's s Bureau was organized,
On Mr.. Wilson'S motion the provision
was adopted that the lands sold for taxes in
South Carolina should be divided into lots
VI ioAtJ Go CtCu tllt oOlQ at lOW IdLeS /,
under which act many freedmen obtained
homesteads.
Mr.. Wilson introduced the bill that
abolished peonage in New Mexico, the pro-
vision striking the word "white" from the
militia laws, and also the measure that pro-
hibited the punishment of whipping in the
unreconstructed states.
Mr.. Wilson introduced in 1863 bill.
which became law, Incorporating 6 an in
stitution for the education of colored youth
in the District of Columbia;" the act in
cooperating the Howard University !" and
also the act to incorporate the National
Freedman's Savings Bank.o Mr.. Wilson
also introduced many other measures in re-
lation to slavery and the rights of persons
OF color, either as independent measures or
as amendments to measures introduced by
others.