The petitioners know well that Congress is the depository of those supreme powers by which rebellion, alike in its root and distant offshoots, may be surely crushed, while unity and peace are permanently assured. They know well that the action of Congress may be with the coöperation of the Slave-Masters, or even without their coöperation, under the overruling law of military necessity, or the commanding precept of the Constitution to guaranty a republican form of government. Above all, they know well that to save the country from peril, especially to save the national life, there is no power in the ample arsenal of self-defence which Congress may not grasp; for to Congress, under the Constitution, belongs the prerogative of the Roman Dictator, to see that the Republic receives no detriment. Therefore to Congress these petitioners appeal.
I ask the reference of the petition to the Select Committee on Slavery and Freedmen.
An earnest debate ensued, which ended in the reference of the petition.
EQUAL PAY OF COLORED SOLDIERS.
Remarks in the Senate, on different Propositions, February 10, 29, and June 11, 1864.
February 3d, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, reported a joint resolution to equalize the pay of soldiers in the United States army, which provided that all persons of color, who have been or may be mustered into the military service of the United States, shall receive the same uniform, clothing, arms, equipments, camp equipage, rations, medical and hospital attendance, pay and emoluments, other than bounty, as other soldiers of the regular or volunteer forces of the United States of like arm of service, during the whole term in which they shall be or shall have been in such service, and every person of color who shall hereafter be mustered into the service shall receive such sums in bounty as the President shall order in the different States and parts of the United States, not exceeding one hundred dollars.
February 4th, the Senate considered the joint resolution. Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, “wished to inquire what propriety there is in our going back and paying them this increase for services already rendered.” Mr. Wilson thought, “as an act of justice, the bill should be retrospective,”—that “the gross injustice done by the country toward these men ought to be corrected.” Mr. Fessenden was in favor, and had ever been in favor, of putting colored soldiers on a level with white, but he was opposed to paying men for services already rendered, unless the men were promised full pay by orders emanating from the War Department. Mr. Sumner, after stating that there were two classes of enlistments, first, under the statute of 1861, and, secondly, under the statute of 1862, insisted that under the former statute any person of African descent might be enlisted and entitled to the same pay as a white soldier. “There was no limitation in the statute. There was no color there. There was nothing against the enlistment of colored men under that statute, except a blind prejudice which we ought to forget.” He concluded: “I wish to see our colored troops treated like white troops in every respect. But I would not press this first principle by any retroactive proposition, unless where the faith of the Government is committed, and there I would not hesitate. The Treasury can bear any additional burden better than the country can bear to do an injustice.”