New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-05-09

military and naval service persons of African
descent, and made free such persons, their
mothers, wives, and children, if they were
the slaves of persons giving aid to the rebel
lion.
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, a 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 MIR. Wilson moved
that the slaves drafted into the service should
be made free BY the authority of the Govern
ment the moment they entered it. His mo-
ton 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 1t.
Mr.. Wilson introduced a bill, which became
the law, making the wives and children of
colored soldiers free, and General Palmer,
then commanding the United States forces in
Kentucky, in an official report, made six
months after the passage OF that act, estimated
that seventy-fve thousand women and chill
dren were made free by it. Tens of thou
sands of the wives and children of such sol
diers in the States of Delaware, Maryland,
West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
sons four measures.
The act abolishng slavery in the District
of Columbia; the act making colored persons
received into the military service, their
mothers, wives, and children, if owned by
rebels, free; the making all slaves free when
mustered into the military service; and the
act making their wives and children free,
emancipated not less than quarter of mil
lion of slaves in the border States.
Mr.. Wilson introduced into the appropria-
ton 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, clothing, arms,
equipments, ratiOns, medical attendance, and
pay as white soldiers.
He reported from the committee of confer
ence, to which had been referred the bill in
relation to the Freedman's Bureau, an en-
tirely new bill, to establish in the War De-
partment bureau for the relief of freedmen
and refugees, which became a law, under
which that beneticent instrumentaity the |
Freedman'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 of forty |
acres each and sold at low rates !; under which |
act many freedmen obtained homesteads.
MIR. Wilson introduced the bill that abol- |
ished peonage in New Mexico, the provision |
striking the word "white" from the militia |
laws, and also the measure that prohibited |
the punishment by whipping in the unrecon-
structed States.
Mr.. Wilson introduced in 1868 bill, which
became law, incorporating ian institution
for the education of colored youth in the Dis
trict of Columbia" the act " Incorporating
the Howard University" and also the act
. to incorporate the National Freedman's
Savings Bank" Mr.. Wilson also introduced |
many other measures in relation to slavery
and the rights of persons of color, either as
Independent measures or as amendments to
measures introduced by others.