er, who
volunteered under the same pledge of full pay from the War Department,
and who do not see how the question of their _status_ at some antecedent
period can affect an express contract If, in 1862, they were free enough
to make a bargain with, they were certainly free enough to claim its
fulfilment.

The unfortunate decision of Mr. Solicitor Whiting, under which all
our troubles arose, is indeed superseded by the reasoning of the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 appropriations for the army
and approved July 4, 1864, as makes a distinction, in respect to pay
due, between those colored soldiers who were free on or before April 19,
1861, and those who were not free until a later date;

"Or at least that there may be such legislation as to secure the
fulfillment of pledges of full pay fro