On July 14, 1862, President Lincoln, “with practically no opposition from either house,”[i] signed into law an act known as the “General Law” that created a disability pension system for U.S. Civil War veterans and their families.[ii] The general law was rather remarkable in that it covered mental as well as physical injuries, and instituted a medical ratings system to rank the nature and severity of an injury and its impact on a veteran’s ability to work—a precursor to today’s disability ratings system. The law set the effective date of a claim for benefits as either the date of discharge, if filed within one year, otherwise from the date of the application. Under the law veterans could retain an attorney or claims agent to help file their claim, but in an attempt to prevent fraud and abuse, Congress capped the fee that veterans could be charged at $5.
SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the fees of agents and attorneys making out and causing to be executed the papers necessary to establish a claim for a pension, bounty, and other allowance, before the Pension Office under this act, shall not exceed the following rates: For making out and causing to be duly executed a declaration by the applicant, with the necessary affidavits, and forwarding the same to the Pension Office, with the requisite correspondence, five dollars.
Several weeks later on August 12, 1862, the New York Times published the text of the act in its entirety with instructions on how to apply.
ARMY PENSIONS.; Instructions and Forms to be Observed in Applying for Them, Under the Act of July 14, 1862. GENERAL PROVISIONS. ARMY PENSIONS.
An Act supplementary to an Act entitled “An Act to grant Pensions,” approved July fourteenth, eighteen hundred and sixty-two. [Sec. 12] (July 4, 1864, ch. 247, 13 Stat. 387, 389) loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/38th-congress/session-1/c38s1ch247.pdf.
[i] Glasson, Henry. “Federal military pensions in the United States.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1918, p. 125, HathiTrust, hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044010562718.
[ii] An act to grant pensions. (July 14, 1862, ch. 166, 12 Stat. 566) loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/37th-congress/session-2/c37s2ch166.pdf
See debate: Cong. Globe, House, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess. 3 May 1862, p. 2101, Lib. of Congress, bit.ly/cg-37-2-2101
As noted by the dissenting justices in in Walters v. Natl. Assoc. of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 359-360 (1985), Congress set a $5 fee for veterans claims in 1862, which was raised to $10 two years later in 1864. The Supreme Court later ruled that the $10 fee restriction was a Constitutional exercise of legislative power. Frisbie v. U.S., 157 U.S. 160, 15 S.Ct. 586, 39 L.Ed. 657 (1895)