Others beside the Governor of Massachusetts complain. There are two German companies in one of the Massachusetts regiments, who entered into the public service with the positive understanding that they should not be put to any such discreditable and unconstitutional service. They complain, and with them all their own compatriot fellow-citizens, the enlightened, freedom-loving German population throughout the country. The complaint extends to other quarters. Here is a letter from Philadelphia, interesting and to the point. I read a short extract only. “I have but one son, and he fought on Ball’s Bluff in the California regiment, where his bravery brought him into notice. He escaped, wounded, after dark. He protests against being made to return fugitive slaves, and, if ordered to that duty, will refuse obedience and take the consequences. I ask, Sir, shall our sons, who are offering their lives for the preservation of our institutions, be degraded to slave-catchers for any persons, loyal or disloyal? If such is the policy of the Government, I shall urge my son to shed no more blood for its preservation.” With such communications, some official and others private, I feel that I should not do my duty, if I failed to implore the attention of the Senate to this intolerable grievance. It must be arrested. I am glad to know that my friend and colleague, the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs [Mr. WILSON], promises us a bill to stop this outrage. It should be introduced promptly, and passed at once. Our troops must be saved from such shame. The resolution was adopted after remarks by Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, which revealed the tone still prevalent in certain quarters. He said:-- “I agree, that, if all men were Puritans, that, if all men appreciated Liberty as we do, and as our race does, then we might extend it to all men; but to extend it to men who have no appreciation of it, who would trample the boon under foot, when granted them,--to such men it is a mischief rather than a blessing. “Still I have only to say, that I think we have nothing in the world to do with all these questions. I think their discussion here, their being mooted in these assemblies, is mischievous, and only calculated to keep up an angry irritation, which may have exceedingly bad results in the final consummation of the struggle in which we are now engaged.” Mr. Wilson, as chairman of the Committee, reported a bill on the subject, which, after debate, gave way to another from the House of Representatives, containing a new article of war, prohibiting the employment of the national forces in the return of fugitive slaves, which became a law March 13, 1862.[10] * * * * *