Mr. WILSON. This case is a very singular one, and yet one that I suppose must be met and honestly dealt with. e passed an act in 1804 which provided that, slaves enlisting into the service of the U.S. should be, when mustered into that service, free by the act of the Federal Government, and that the Owners or claimants to the services of such persons should receive a sum not exceeding $300. That sum was to be fixed in each State by commissioners appointed for that purpose. The provision was originally put in the bill in the HoRep as an amendment to the Senate bil. The provision as originally prepared was that colored persons, free or slave, should be enrolled and might be drafted, being liable to military duty; that when they were drafted the 0 nor of each slave should receive the bountyo $100 on making this person free. It also provided that if a colored man who was held as a slave should enlist. into the service of the U.S. his master should receive the sum of $300 when he made him free. That was the action of the HoRep. The bill went to a committee of conference. I was upon that committee on the part of the Senate, and it struck me that it would be a dishonor to our country to have a slave in the service of the U.S. We all wanted colored men to fight for the count, but we did not want them to be slaves witht 1c uniform upon them and fihting under the flag of the U.S.; and in that committee of conference I moved that the slave, on being mustered into the service of the U.S., should be free, be free by the fiat of the federal Government, and that left the law in this form: that instead of the slave who was drafted or the slave who enlisted becoming free at the will of the master, he became free by the law, by the will of the nation, and the master was allowed $100 if the slave was drafted and a sum not exceeding $300 if he enlisted into the Service, and the amount in the latter case was to be fixed by a commission apointed by the SecyWar. That is the history 0 this law of the 24th of February, 1864. We wanted these colored men, free and slave, to enlist into our armies, to augment our military forces to put down the robe ion, and we wanted also to emoralize and break u and destroy slavery in the border States. Triiat was the motive of the action of Congress. It was the motive that governed me in the matter. I wanted to strengthen the Army I wanted to weaken and destroy slavery; and under the provisions of thatvact, in the State of Kentucky alone, about 24 or 25,000 men on tered the service of the U.S. as volunteers, perhaps 20,000 of them were slaves, and the moment they were mustered into the service the became forever free; and this was followed y a bill that freed nearly 100,000 of their wives and their children. We abolished slavery since that day. When we passed this not we thought it was an act to strengthen the Army and an act to weaken slavery that was the enemy of the country. We provided thata sum not exceeding $300. to be fixed by a commission, should be paid to the persons claiming the services of these slaves. e haveabolished slavery since, and I do not believe any commission could award or ought to award to any of the persons who claime to hold the service and labor of these enlisted men the sum of $300, for less than 2 'cars from the time they entered the service of the U.S. the constitutional amendment was adopted, and they would have been freed by the adoption of that amendment. Now, sir, I do not think that.this provision, that the claimants of these persons should be loyal persons, should have been actively loyal, shoal have been against the confederate government, is an unreasonable one. 'We all know that many slave owners were disloyal; and the greater portion of the claimants to these slaves in the States of Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, WestVirginia, and Missouri, were disloyal. We in this District had a sample of this matter. We provided in this district for the payment of $300 for the emancipated slaves, and I do not known single owner of a slave in the District who was not loyal when the Government would pay $300 for his slave; and they made their claims; and on examining that record we shall come to the conclusion that many of the slnvcholders in the DistCol, who never drewa loyal breath in their lives, did not before the war nor since the war, and do not. now, took the money of the U.S., and professed to be loyal persons. I think he proviso n in this amendment is reasonable, an if the amendment is adopted, I think it should go with it. Nothing can be paid under this amendment until the SecyWar has appointed the commissioners who are to examine these casesand report on them, and I do notthink any commission would report an average of $300 for these persons, consid cring that slavery has been abolished by the Constitution of the U.S. But, sir we intended to pay when we passed the act; Iain sure I did. I wanted the men, and I equally wanted to destroy the institution of slavery, especially in the State of Kentucky, where slavery was strong and defiant. I wanted to demoralize it, to break it down, to destroy it; and no not of this Government ever did so much to demoralize and to destroy slavery, except the constitutional amendment, as the sssage of this section of this bill on the 24th day of February, 1864, and that other not making the wives and children of these persons free. I say that when the'uct was passed I expected to vote for proper compensation, such compensation as should be reported by honest and fair minded commissioners who should examine the subject and report upon it, and the fact that we have abolished slavery since by constitutional amendment, I do not. think releases me from paying (not so much as I expected then) the really loyal claimants some consideration for declaring that their slaves when they entered the service of the U.S. should forever more be free men.