hannah rosen has written an excellent piece on reconstruction. amy drew stanley has written extraordinary pieces on lawmakers discussing marriage, the contextualizing marriage. and catherine frank, who has a new book out on marriage, sort of rethinking this notion of equal access to marriage, or marriage as an expression of the quality. they are the ones doing the heavy lifting. i am just doing the easy work, reading their stuff in telling you about it. let me tell you about these three moments. the first occurred in february 1865 in the lead up to the passage of a bill called sr-82, to protect the military efficiency of the united states. it was tied to recruitment of u.s. colored troops. this debate occurred while the 13th amendment went to the states for ratification. this lesser-known measure extended the immediate reach of emancipation by freeing soldier wives and children owned by masters in border states exempt from the emancipation proclamation. as historian amy drew stanley has shown, the measure imposed freeing of slaved wives as compen