Mr. VANWINKLE. I will explain further than I have done. I thought that the proviso as it originally stood, that is, that if such parties resided (not saying at what time) in any State in which their marria e could have been legally solemnized the usua evidence should be required would cutout many proper cases. I presume that if an application is made even now for a pension by one of these parties the Commissioner would feel himself bound to inquire whether the man had at any time previous to the application resided in a State where the marriage might have been legally solcinnized, and in such case would require record roof. In reflecting on the circumstance which mentioned a little while ago that some of these people were driven from their homes undoubt edly and driven into the free States, or into States where their marriages might have been solemnized, and were there as soldiers with perhaps their wives attending them in the camp, it seemed to me that it was almost an impossi bility that a marriage could have been solemnized between them in such cases, and it is very unlikely that under such circumstances they would have thought of it. Since the end of the war the freedmens Bureau has been doing what it could, and no doubt has been successful to a very great extent, in inducing these persons who liaif theretofore lived together as man and wife to have a legal ceremony performed between them. Now, if the old proviso prevails and I think that if the Senate does not accept the one I offer that oughtto be stricken out those of this class who were driven into a free State, or into a State inwhichn marriage might have been soleinnized, will find themselves under the necessity of producing record evidence of the marriage, when the fact is that they never had any legal cere mony of marriage. My impression is I leave it to the better judgment of the Senate that the modification I have proposed in this proviso is only justice to these people whose thoughts had not been called to tie subject, and perhaps whose knowledge in regard to it did not lead them to know that the marriages under which they were living were, in fact, not sanctioned by law. As I stated the other day, there was nothing on the statute book of Virginia which forbade a marriage between colored persons. The difficulty there arose simply under the common law as they had interpreted it in that State, that persons in the condition of slavery, being subject to their masters, could make no contract, not even the contract of marriage; nor, as my colleague mentioned on that occasion, was a contract made by them with respect to their own freedom regarded as binding in any way. I presume this was the case through most of the southern States, although I believe that in Delaware, and perhaps also in SCarolina; very recently before the war, marria s were out orized under certain circumstances between colored persons. I think that throughout all the rest of the southern States a ceremony of marriage between colored persons was never legalized, althowh in most cases a ceremony of some kind was performed. Generally a colored man read the service of some of the churches, and the parties stood up and assented to it as formally, perhaps, as they would have done if the person had been a legal officer. My own impression is that this proviso should remain as I have modified it.