Mr. WILSON. Before the question is taken on the motion of reference, I desire very briefly to explain the bill and the reason for its introduction. The bill is based upon the proclamation of the President of July 1, 1862, which declared certain States to be in insurrection and rebellion. The proclamation of the president of the 22d of Septcmber 1862, declaring emancipation, ledger the fait of the Government of the U.S. that the executive government, including the Army and Navy, would maintain the freedom of the persons declared to be free; and this ledge was repeated in the proclamation of t ic lst of January, 1863. he Government of the U.S., therefore, stands pledged to 3 and a half millions of persons to maintain their freedom. whatever differences of opinion may exist in regard to the right of suffrage, I am sure there can be no difference of opinion among honest and just men in regard to maintaining the civil rights and immunities of these freedmen they should stand at any rate like the non-v0ing white population of those States. It has cen said that the slave codes and the laws of these States in regard to persons of color fell with slavery, but in fact those laws are being executed, and in some of them in the most merciless manner. In several of these States new laws are being framed containing previsions wholly inconsistent with the freedom of the freedmen. A bill is pending before the Legislature of SCarolina making these freedmen servants, providing that the persons for whom they labor shall be their masters, that the relation between them shall be the relation of master and servant. The bill, as originally reported, provided that the freedmen might be educated; but that provision has already been stricken out, and the bill now lies over waiting for events here. That bill makes the colored people of SCarolina serfs, a deaded class, the slaves of society. The Senate of Georgia, the telegraph tells us this morning, has, passed a bill containing degrading and arbitrary provisions. It reto: contracts between master and servant. It provides that if over one month, the contract must be made in writing. Work hours, from sunrise to sunset. The servant is responsible for damaging the masters property. wages are forfeited by leaving. The employer may discharge servants for disobedience, drunkenness, immorality, or want of respect. Leaving services or enticing servants away is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of $500 or imprisonment for 4 months. In Mississippi the Legislature passed a bill in which it is provided “That if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before expiration of his term of service. without just cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting. "That every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his term of service without good cause and said officer or person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of 5 dollars and ten cents permile from the flaw of arrest to the place of delivery and the same 5 all be held by the employer and held as a setoff for so much against the wages of said deserting employee, provided that said arrested party after being so returned may appeal to a justice of the peace or member of the board of police of the county. who, on notice to the alleged employer shall try summarily whether said appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer, and has good cause to quit said employer; cit or party shall have the right of appeal to the county court, pending which the alleged deserter shall be remanded to the alleged employer or otherwise disposed of as shall be right and just and the decision of the county court shall be firm. “That upon the affidavit made by the employer of any freedman. free negro, or mulatto or any other credible person before any Justice of the peace, or member of the board of police, that any freedman. free negro, or mulatto legally employed by said employer as legally deserted said employment, such Justice of the peace or member of the board of police shall issue his warrant or warrapts, returnable beforo himself or other such o the cr. directed to any sheriff. constable, or special deputy. commanding him to arrest said descrter and return him to said employer and the like proceedings shall be as IllOYlLlldin the previous section; and it nelf be lawful for any o the er to whom such warrant shal be directed to execute said warrant in any county in this State, and that said warrant may be transmitted Without indorsoment to any liko oificer of another county, to be executed and returned as aforesaid, and the said employer shall pay the costs of said warrants and arrest and return and which shall be set off tor so much against the wages of said deserter. That if any person shall, or shall attempt to. persuade, entice, or cause any freedman free negro, or mulatto to desert from the legal employment of any person before the expiration of his term of service or sh employ an such deserting freedman, free negro, mnlatto, or shall give or sell to any such deserting freedman free negro, or mulatto any food, raiment, or other thing, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction. he shall be fined not less than 25 dollars and not more than 200 dollars and the costs; and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid. the court shall sent cucc said convict to not OXCOEdlllfi 2 months imprisonment in the county jail and o shall moreover, be liable to the party injured in damages: Provided. If any person shall or shall attempt to, persuade. entice or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto, to desert from the legal employment of any person with the view to employ an freedman, free negro, or mulatto without the limits of the State, such person on conviction, shall be fined not. less than 50 dollars and not more than 500 dollars and the costs, and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding 6 mouths imprisonment in the county jail.” This arbitrary and inhuman act makes the freedmen the slaves of society, and it is far better to be the slave of one man than to be the slave of arbitrary law. This act also forbids the leasing of lands or houses outside of the cities, thus making them landless and homeless. A gentleman of rare intelligence, writing fiOln that State, says: “I great to state that, under the civil power, deemed by all the inhabitants of Mississippi to e paramount. the condition of the freedmen in many portions of the country has become deplorable and painful in the cir treme. I must give it as my deliberate opinion that the freedmen are today. in the vicinity where I am now writing, worse off in most respects than when they were held as slaves. f matters are permitted to continue on as they now seem likely to be. it needs no prophet to predict a rising on the part of the colored population and a terrible scence of bloddshed and desolution. I have heard since my arrival here of numberless atrocities that have been perpetrated upon the freedmen. It is sufficient to state that the oh overseers are in power again. The obect of the southerners appears o be to make good t on often re o. assertions to the offectthat the negroes would if they were freed; to make it so theyseem determined to goad them to desperationin order to have an excuseto turn upon and annihilate them.” A bill is now ending in the Legislature of Louisiana, which provides " “ That any adult freedman or woman shall furnish themselves With a coinfortable home and visible meansof support Within 20 days after the passage of this act. "That any freedman or woman failing to obtain a home and suppor t, as provided in the hint section p f this act. shal o immediately arrested by any about! or constable in any parish, or sheritf. constable or Po ll00ollicer in any city or town in said parish where said freedman may he, and by them delivered over to the recorder of the parish in which theyare ar rested, and by him hired out by public advertisement. to some citizen. being the highest bidder. for the remainder oftho your in which they are hired.” That every freedman or Woman who contracts Will have a book countersigned by the recorder of the parish where he lives. when he or she 1st engaged their services after the passage of this act, in which will be recorded their name. Age and placo whero he or she last lived and a certificate of his or herehiirac tor and habits and the length of time and to whom engaged and the name of the employer. In case of his changing his employer, the consent of his former employer shall be entered on said book, before he shall be employed by any other person. “That in case of the death of the employer. his heirs, or he who acquires his property, is based by the contract with the laborers in the coudition the deccased was, and the laborer on his part is bound to the new proprietor according to the terms of the previous contract. In case of the laborer leavmg his employers service without his consent, when taken wii be assigned to labor ou sonic public worlg without compensation until his employer reclaims him. “General conversation will not be allowed during working hours; for any disobedience a line of one dollar: failing to obey reasonable orders, neglect of duty, and living home without permission. Will be deemed disobedience. No live stock Will be allowed the laborers without the permissmn of the employer; all lost time from work hours (unless in case of sick ness)the laborers will be charged 25 cents perhour; all lost time from home without leave will o chargedat. the rate of 2 dollars perday. All difficulties arising between the employers and laborers will be settled by the former, and if not satisfactory to the laborers an appeal may be had to the nearest justice of the peacc and 2 freeholders, citizens, one of said citizens to be selected by the employer and the other by the laborer. That any laborer contracting by the day, week, month, or year, or for a term of years. who leaves llll employer without his consent, the employer shall have right to obtain a warrant from any judge or justice of the peace, directedto a sheritfor constable. who shall immediately arrest said laborers ndd cliver him to his employer.” Abraham Lincoln, in that proclamation that made his name dear to our common humanity, made the slaves of Louisiana free, forever free. Has that State a right to enact a measure to demean, degrade, enslave the men Abraham Lincoln made free?. I have prepared this bill to declare these laws in the States in insurrection and rebellion null and void and if the bill should pass, the Army and the freedmens Bureau can arrest the execution of these arbitra laws. The execution of these laws is arrests now in some places, but they are executed in the large portions of the States in insurrection and rebellion in a most oppressive and arbitrary manner. Our right to annul those laws I do not think anybody can question. Our right to declare void laws that practically make slaves of men we have declared to be free in those rebel States cannot be questioned. This bill is not based on the constitutional amendment, but on the fact that these States are in insurrection and rebellion. They have been so declared; they mre legally so now. We have a richt to declare these laws null and void, and I think, as a matter of humanity, we ought at once to do it. The crimes, the wrongs, the outrages that are perpetrated upon these ha less freedmen are shockin to our common hurnanity. I have letters from many of our officers, men of the highest character, setting forth the condition of a airs in many of those States. There are other Senators who have received letters and communications from men of character, describing outrages and cruelties that are perpetrated ups it these freedmen. This bill has been drawn with great care. I have submitted it, severally, to 6 eminent lawyers two of them are hardl surpassed by any lawyers in the country. They renounce it clearly constitutional. Our rightto pass this bill I cannot doubt; I never met a man who doubted it. The right is as clear as any right we have to legislate for anything. As a matter of humanity, to protect these people, we ouflht promptly to pass this bill, amIannul these laws now. Let us pass it at once as an act of humanity and justice, and then we can calmly procce in our legislation to reorganize, reconstruct, and bring into the Union these States; but while these cruclties and wrongs are being perpetrated, I feel that congress and all branches of the Government are Jncurrina the indignation of men and the judgments ofAlmighty God. In Mississippi rebel State forces, men who were in the rebel armies, are traversin the State, visiting the freedmen, disarming them, perpetrating murders and outrages upon them; and the same thin are done in other sections of the country. Hi“: power to abrogate such laws is ours; we have the right to do it; and as a matter of humanity; an we ought not to adjourn over Christmas until we have declared such laws to be null and void. I am told by eminent gentlemen connected with the Fre mens Bureau that where the have the wer they arrest the execution of these laws, at as the laws exist they are enforced in the cater portions of those States. If we now cclare those laws to be null and void, I have no idea that any atte m t whatever will be made to enforce them, m“ the freedmen will be relieved from this intolerable oppression. Sir, these. outrages are carried so tar in some portions of the rebel States as to lead judicious men upon the spot to believe and to write that there is eat. danger that at Christmas there will be gloody outbreaks. Those people are being driven to desperation. There is no doubt of the fact that in a great portion of those States the high hopes, the confidence, and the joy expressed last spring by the freedmen, have passed away; that. silence and sorrow pervade that section of the coun; and that they are be coming distrustful an discontented. God rant that the high raised expectations of these loyal hand deserted people run not be blasted. God I firlilid that we shoal violate our plighted it. 1 Now, sir, I should be willing to have this bill referred but for the loss of time that will be occasioned thereby. I think a measure of this e character we ought to pass, and pass instantly, as a matter of justice and humanity. I have mno desire whatever to say any harsh things of that portion of our country, nor of the men who have been engaged in the rebellion. I do not ask their property or their blood; I do not; wish to disgrace or degrade them; but I do not wish that they shall be permitted to disJgrace, degrade, or oppress anybody else. I otfer this bill as a matter of humanity, as a "measure that the needs of that section of the "country imperatively demand at our hands. I f believe that if it should pass, it will receive the sanction of 19 20ths of the loyal people of the country. Men may differ about the power or expediency of giving them the right of suffrage; but how any humane, just, and Christian man can fora moment permit the laws that are on the statute books of the States in insurrection and rebellion, and the laws that are now pending before their Legislatures to be executed upon men whom e have declared to be free, I cannot comprehend.; Therefore, sir, I have introduced this bill, and;;I should be glad to have it put upon its passage at once. I have consulted with eminent gentlemen connected with the Freedmens Bureau, and they believe that it will be an immense relief.