Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the President be, and is hereby, authorized to further order the voluntary enlistment or enrolment of each and every able-bodied free male person of African descent, of the age of eighteen years and under forty-five years, within the United States, for military service, as provided by this Act, except that the monthly pay of such free persons shall be the same as that of the volunteers: Provided, The whole number called into the service of the United States under the provisions of this section shall not exceed one hundred thousand men.
There was no action of the Committee on this bill, and it fell with the session.
February 10, 1864, more than a year later, the subject was brought forward in the House of Representatives by Mr. Stevens, in an amendment to the Enrolment Bill then pending, and finally prevailed in the following terms:—
“That all able-bodied male colored persons, between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, resident in the United States, shall be enrolled according to the provisions of this Act and of the Act to which this is an amendment, and form part of the national forces; and when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof, and thereupon such slave shall be free.”[139]
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION, AND NOT GRADUAL.
Speech in the Senate, on the Bill providing Aid for Emancipation in Missouri, February 12, 1863.
