Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment

[291]

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.

Petition.

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 of 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 fulfilment of pledges of full pay from date of enlistment, made by direct authority of the War Department to the