To Attorney-General Bates.
Executive Mansion, Washington, Jun. 24, 1864

HONORABLE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.

SIR:—By authority of the Constitution, and moved thereto by the fourth section of the act of Congress, entitled "An act making appropriations for the support of the army for the year ending the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, and for other purposes, approved June is, 1864," I require your opinion in writing as to what pay, bounty, and clothing are allowed by law to persons of color who were free on the nineteenth day of April, 1861, and who have been enlisted and mustered into the military service of the United States between the month of December, 1862, and the sixteenth of June, 1864.

Please answer as you would do, on my requirement, if the act of June 15, 1864, had not been passed, and I will so use your opinion as to satisfy that act.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.