In February 1863, Sumner responded to the call of freedpeople for land ownership by proposing what was probably the first bill in Congress to redistribute land to Black Americans. The bill would impose a draft on three hundred thousand able-bodied men of age who were formerly enslaved. (At the time, Congress was debating a bill, which eventually passed, to conscript all eligible whites.) As a reward for their involuntary service, after the war, Black privates would receive ten acres of land and officers would get twenty-five acres.
