Mr. WILSON. I desire simply to state the change that amendment will make in the amendment which I offered. It will be recol lceted that some weeks ago the HoRep passed a bill professing to provi e for the equalization of bounties, but takin into account the bounties paid by the loca authorities. It is not necessar for me to say that that bill, as passed by the {l HoRep, is not a billyfor the equalization of bounties. In fact there is no equalization in it. It is a mere arbitrar assumtion. under the provisions of the house bill, which the Senfrom Iowa now proposes to incorpor rate into this amendment, is large portion of the volunteers of the count won d receive nothing whatever. In some of the States early in the war, either by the State, county, city, town, or other authorities, local bounties were paid, while in other sections of the country no bounties of that character were aid. The result would be that in those localities where the people raised the mono and paid bounties to the early volunteers of tlle war, the volunteers will receive nothing, and that portion of the country will be taxed to pay bounties to vol unteers in sections where the peeple did not raise money. The Military Committee of the Senate early reported a bill providing for an absolute ualization of bounties so far as the national ov criiment is concerned. I can state in a few words the idea on which it was based. The largest amount of bounties ever paid by the Fe cral Government during the war was at the rate of $100 a year. We enlisted men for 3 years and agreed to pay them 8100 bounty. [his continued up to the 17th of October, 1803. About a million and a half men volunteered into the service of the U.S. for 3 years on the agreement that they were to receive a bounty of $100 from the Ilederal government. On the 17th of October, 1863, in the pressure for men, the War Dept offered a bounty of $400 to veteran soldiers who had served 2 years and who would re'cnlist, and $300 to other persons who would enlist in the service for 3 years. The veterans were enlisted for 3 cars, and at the end of 2 years if they won (I re enlist they were to receive $400 bounty, and that, with the $100 bounty offered them when they enlisted the 1st time, made a sum of $500, for which they were to serve 5 ears, which was at the rate of $100 a year. 0 continued after the 17th ofOctober, 1863, until near the close of the war to pay at the rate of about 100 dollars a year bounty for persons who would volunteer into the service. A few months before the close of the war we passed an act allowing men $100 bounty who would enlist for one year, $200 bount to those who would enlist for 2 years, out? $300 to those who would enlist for 3 years. In fact we enlisted nearly all the men for the last 16 or 17 months of the war at the rate of $100 a year, or 8 and 1/3rd dollars permonth bounty. Assuming, then, that ourhighest bounty was 8 and 1/3rd dollars a month, the committee reported in favor of paying that rate of bounty to all the men who served in our armies, whether they were 3 months’ men, 100 days’ men, 9 months’ men, or 3 years’ men to allow all of them 8 and 1/3rd dollars permonth, and to deduct from this amount whatever they may have received or are entitled to receive from the general Government as bounty. So far as the Federal Government is concerned, this is a perfect equalization of boun ties. It is true it requires a large sum to pay the amount, something between 150 and 175 or erhaps 180 million dol lhrs. It is a lar sum, but it is based upon a principle of absolute equalization among all the men who have served the country in the field, not taking the local bounties into accountwhich must certainly be a very unequal, and at the same time a very difficult thing to do, because when the Federal Government paid bounties of $300 to volunteers and $400 to veterans, the local authorities at the same time were paying $200, $800, $400, in some cases $500 to the same men. Men came into the old veteran rements the members of which had enlisted car y in the war for $100 bounty with from 500 to 1200 dollars bounty, and served side by side with the men who bore the heat and burden of the da, who served 3 years and received only a ounty of $100. Under these circumstances it cannot be surprising to anybody that there should be a feel in doe down in the hearts of those men who en is duriu the 1st 2 years and a half of the war an bore the brunt of the contest and received only a bounty of $100, when they saw men coming in at a later hour with their ockets filled and receiving at the same time mm the Government a bounty of $300, 3 times as much as they themselves were to have. I suppose they felt very much as we read in Holy ’rit that the men felt who having agreed to serve for a penn, when they had borne the heat and burden o the da, saw men come in at the 11th hour on receive the same amount. They grumbled about it; they were not satisfied With;it and I suppose our soldiers felt in the same way; and I resume the men mentioned in Holy Writ won d have felt much worse on that day if the men who come in at the 11th hour, instead of receiving one penny, had received 3 pennies 3 times as much as the had. Sir, I am in favor of the proposition which I have offered, because it rests upon the basis of perfect equalization. It includes all kinds and classes ofonr troops and gives them all a bounty of 8 and one t ird dollars permonth, or at the rate of $100 a year, so far as the Federal Government is concerned. I believe its pus sage would satisfy the feeling, especially, of the million and a half men, or those who are left of them, who entered the war early, from patriotic motives, and who received only $100 cunt for 3 years’ service. I must confess that I have no great sympathy for any claims made by the 100 days’ men or the 3 months’ men or the 9 months’ men, but I have included them all. These classes will take no very great sum and I prefer to include them so as to make a perfect equaliza‘tion; but I do sympathize with the men who served throughout the war. I believe the (mom try owes this much to those men, and I believe the country will never be poorer for paying it to them. More than a million men entered the service during the last year and a half of the war, enlisting for n long time and receiving enormous bountics, and then , when the war closed, they were discharged having served out only 1/3rd or 1/2 of the time for which they entered, while the old weatherbeaten regi ments, organized in the 1st 2 and a half years of the war, received but a $100 bounty and were shiver ed and shattered and torn. Many of the men who came in at the last hour received the favors of the local authorities, and of the Federal Government too. It is true all this was imposed upon us by the needs of the country, but now we have got through the rebellion and we ought to do justice. I do not believe the country is very poor. We have got a large amount of property in this country, and we can stand this expenditure. It will take the Paymnster General 4 years' time, working all his force, to pay these beauties, so that my amendment will take perhaps 40 or 45 millions a year out of the Treasury for 4 years to come. The work cannot be done any faster than that with the present. force. I do not believe it will affect the credit of this Government, or that it will be deemed an act of folly or of injustice. 0n the contrary, I believe that the tendency will be to make the men who fought the bat tles of the country and saved the country feel that the country has dealt generously by them. No soldiers were ever so largely paid, so well fed, or clothed. as our Army. They were men born among the mass of our people; they were a part of our people no soldiers, but men who voluutnri y entered the service of the country, exposed life and health and all they had for the cause of the country. They served faithfully. They saved the country, and if it takes $175,000,000 to equalize the beauties among them, I do not believe the heart or the conscience of this nation will grudge the sum, and I do not believe. in the long run of years the nation will be the poorer for it. We have sound upon the policy of keoping a small standing Army, relying upon the people to crowd the ranks of our military forces in time of war. We have held it to be the duty of every man liable to military service to give his time, his health, his blood, his life, if need be, for the service of the country in time of war. That has been the theo upon which the Government has acted. rIfe have relied upon the people, and the people responded to our apea as no peop e in history ever res onded fore; and if we do justice now, dea fairly by our neighbors, brothers, and friends scattered by the 100s and 1000s over this country, whenever the country shall again be en d in war, foreign or civil and God for b'd that we should ever be, in our day and generation, at any rate, involved in eitherthese men will again respond to the call of the country, in the consciousness that the nation will deal justl, fairly and equally by them.