[Peerpress-licensing] Neral Saxton spoke, in his own simple, manly way, and

[Riehm Giangregorio]

Seded by the reasoning of the Attorney-General. But unhappily that does
not remedy the evil, which is already embodied in an Act of Congress,
making the distinction between those who were and those who were not
free on April 19, 1861. The question is, whether those who were not free
at the breaking out of the war are still to be defrauded, after the
Attorney-General has shown that there is no excuse for defrauding them?
I call it defrauding, because it is not a question of abstract justice,
but of the fulfilment of an express contract I have never met with a
man, whatever might be his opinions as to the enlistment of colored
soldiers, who did not admit that if they had volunteered under the
direct pledge of full pay from the War Department, they were entitled to
every cent of it. That these South Carolina regiments had such direct
pledge is undoubted, for it still exists in writing, signed by the
Secretary of War, and has never been disputed. It is therefore the plain
duty of Congress to repeal the law which discriminates between different
classes of colored soldiers, or at least so to modify it as to secure
the fulfilment of actual contracts. Until this is done the nation is
still disgraced. The few thousand dollars in question are nothing
compared with the absolute wrong done and the discredit it has brought,
both here and in Europe, upon the national name. T. W. HIGGINSON, Late
Col. 1st S. C. Vols. (now 33d U. S. C. T.) NEWPORT, R. I, December 8,
1864. PETITION "To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States in Congress assembled: "The undersigned respectfully
petitions for the repeal of so much of Section IV. of the Act of
Congress making approp
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