Whereas it is due to justice, as an example to future times, that some future
   punishment should be inflicted on the people who constituted the "confederate
   States of America." both because they, declaring on unjust war against the
   United States for the purpose of destroying republican liberty and permanently
   establishing slavery, as well as, for the cruel and barbarous manner in which
   they conducted said war, in violation of all the laws of civilized warfare,
   and also to compel them to make some compensation for the damages and expenditures
   caused by the said war:  Therefore,
   
       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
   of America in Congress assembled. That all the public lands belonging to the ten
   States that formed the government of the so-called ..confederate States of America
   shall be forfeited by said States and become forthwith vested in the United States. 
    
       SEC. 2. And be it further enacted.  That the President shall forthwith proceed
   to cause the seizure of such of the property belonging to the belligerent enemy as
   is deemed forfeited by the act of July 17, A. D. 1862, and hold and appropriate the
   same as enemy's property, and to proceed to condemnation with that already seized.
   
       SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in lieu of the proceeding to condemn the
   property thus seized enemy's property. as is provided by the act of July A. D. 1862,
   two commissions or more, as by him may be deemed necessary. shall be appointed by the
   President for each of the said "confederate States," to consist of three persons each,
   one of whom shall be an officer of the late or present Army, and two shall be civilians,
   neither of whom shall be citizens of the State for which he shall be appointed; that
   the said commissions shall proceed adjudicate and Condemn the property foresaid, under
   such forms and proceedings is shall be prescribed by the Attorney General of the
   United States, whereupon the title to said property shall become vested in the
   United States.

       SEC. 4. And be it further enacted.  That out of the lands thus seized and
   confiscated the slaves who have been liberated by the operations of the war and
   the amendment to the constitution or otherwise, who resided in said "confederate
   States" on the 4th day of March, A. D. 1861, or since, shall have distributed to
   them as follows, namely: to each male person who is the head of a family, forty acres;
   to each adult male, whether the head of a family or not, forty acres, to each widow
   who is the head of a family, forty acres-to be held by them in fee-simple, but to be
   inalienable for the next ten years after they become seized thereof.  For the purpose
   of distributing and allotting said land the Secretary of War shall appoint as many
   commissions in each State as he shall deem necessary, to consist of three members each,
   two of whom at least shall not be citizens of the State for which he is appointed. 
   Each of said commissioners shall receive a salary of $3,000 annually and all his
   necessary expenses.  Each commission shall be allowed one clerk, whose salary shall
   be $2,000 per annum.  The title to the homestead aforesaid shall be vested in trustees
   for the use of the liberated persons aforesaid.  Trustees shall be appointed by the
   Secretary of War, and shall receive such salary as he shall direct, not exceeding
   $3,000 per annum.  At the end of ten years the, absolute title to said homesteads
   shall be conveyed to said owners or to the heirs of such as are then dead.

       SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That out of the balance of the property thus
   seized and confiscated there shall be raised, in the manner hereinafter provided,
   a sum equal to fifty dollars, for each homestead, to be applied by the trustees
   hereinafter mentioned toward the erection of buildings on the said homesteads for
   the use of said slaves; and the further sum of $500,000,000, which shall be
   appropriated as follows, to wit: $200,000,000 shall be invested in United States
   six per cent, securities; and the interest thereof shall be semi-annually added
   to the pensions allowed by law to pensioners who have become so by reason of the
   late war; $300,000,000, or so much thereof as may Be need, shall be appropriated
   to pay damages done to loyal citizens by the civil or military Operations of the
   government lately called the "confederate States of America."
 

                            Thaddeus Stevens

                 Quoted speaking to the U.S. House of Representatives
                               On Section 4 of H.R. 29
                           The 1867 Slave Reparation Bill

    "The fourth section provides first that out of the lands thus confiscated each
    liberated slave who is a male adult, or the head of a family, shall have assigned
    to him a homestead of forty acres of land, (with $100 to build a dwelling), which
    shall be held for them by trustees during their pupilage.

    Let us consider whether this is a just and politic provision.

    Whatever may be the fate of the rest of the bill I must earnestly pray that this
    may not be defeated.  On its success, in my judgment, depends not only the
    happiness and respectability of the colored race, but their very existence. 
    Homesteads to them are far more valuable than the immediate right of suffrage,
    though both are their due.

    Four million persons have just been freed from a condition of dependence, wholly
    unacquainted with business transactions, kept systematically in ignorance of all
    their rights and of the common elements of education, without which none of any
    race are competent to earn an honest living, to guard against the frauds which
    will always he practiced on the ignorant, or to judge of the most judicious
    manner of applying their labor.  But few of them are mechanics, and none of them
    skilled manufacturers.  They must necessarily, therefore, be the servants and the
    victims of others unless they are made in some measure independent of their wiser
    neighbors.  The guardianship of the Freedmen's Bureau, that benevolent inatitation,
    cannot be expected long to protect them.  It encounters the hostility of the old
    slaveholders, whether in official or private station, because it deprives these
    dethroned tyrants of the luxury of despotism.  In its nature it is not calculated
    for a permanent institution.  Withdraw that protection and leave them a prey to the
    legislation and treatment of their former masters, and the evidence already furnished
    shows that they will soon become extinct, or be driven to defend themselves by civil war.
    Withhold from them all their rights, and leave them destitute of the means of earning
    a livelihood, the victims of the hatred or cupidity of the rebels whom they helped
    to conquer, and it seems probable that the war of races might ensue which the
    President feared would arise from kind treatment and the restoration of their rights.
    I doubt not that hundreds of thousands would annually be deposited in secret,
    unknown graves.  Such is already the course of their rebel murderers; and it is
    done with impunity.  The clearest evidence of that fact has already been shown
    by the testimony taken by the "Central Directory."  Make them independent of their
    old masters, so that they may not be compelled to work for them upon unfair terms,
    which can only be done by giving them a small tract of land to cultivate for themselves,
    and you remove all this danger.  You also, elevate the character of the freedman. 
    Nothing is so likely to make a man a good citizen as to make him a freeholder.
    Nothing will so multiply the productions of the South as to divide it into small farms.
    Nothing will make men so industrious and moral  as to let them feel that they are
    above want and are the owners of the soil which they till.  It will also be of
    service to the white inhabitants.  They will have constantly among them industrious
    laborers, anxious to work for fair wages.  How is it possible for them to cultivate
    their lands if these people were expelled?  If Moses should lead or drive them into
    exile, or carry out the absurd idea of colonizing them, the South would become a
    barren waste.

    When that wisest of monarchs, the Czar of Russia. compelled the liberation of
    twenty-five million serfs, he did not for a moment entertain the foolish idea of
    depriving his empire of their labor or of robbing them of their rights.  He
    ordered their former owners to make some compensation for their unrequited toil
    by conveying to them the very houses in which they lived and a portion of the
    land which they had tilled as serfs.  The experiment has been a perfect success.
    It has brought the prosperity which God gives to wisdom and justice.  Have they
    not a right to it?  I do not Speak of their fidelity and services in this bloody war.
    I put it on the mere score of lawful earnings.  They and their ancestors have toiled,
    not for years, but for ages, without one farthing of recompense.  They have earned
    for their masters this very land and much more.  Will not he who denies them
    compensation now be accursed, for he is an unjust man?  Have we not upon this
    subject the recorded decision of a Judge who never erred?  Four million Jews were
    held in bondage in Egypt.  Their slavery was mild compared with the slavery
    inflicted by Christians.  For of all recorded slavery-Pagan, heathen, or 
    Mohammedan-Christian slavery has been the most cruel and heartless; and of
    all Christian slavery American slavery has been the worst.  God, through no
    pretended, but a true Moses, led them out of bondage, as in our cage, through
    a Red sea, at the cost, as in our case, of the first born of every household of
    the oppressor.  Did He advise them to take no remuneration for their years of
    labor?  No!!  He understood too well what was due to justice.  He commanded the
    men and the women to borrow from their confiding neighbors "jewels of silver and
    jewels of gold and raiment." They obeyed him amply, and spoiled the Egyptians,
    and went forth full handed.  There was no blasphemer then to question God's a
    decree of confiscation.  This doctrine then was not "satanic" He who questions
    it now will be a blasphemer, whom god will bring to judgment.  If we refuse to
    this downtrodden and oppressed race the rights which Heaven decreed them, and
    the remuneration which they have earned through long years of hopeless oppression,
    how can we hope to escape still further punishment if God is just and omnipotent? 
    It may come in the shape of plagues or of intestine wars-race against race, the
    oppressed against the oppressor.  But come it will. Seek not to divert our
    attention from justice by a puerile cry about fatted calves ! "