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The
Secretary of War has stated that before the
Government moved from
Montgomery 366,000 men, the flower of the
South, had tendered their services in the army.
Only a small fraction of the number were received.
The
Secretary was worn out with personal applications of ardent officers, and himself stated that in May, 1861, he was constantly waylaid, in walking the back way from his office to the
Exchange Hotel, by men offering their lives in the
Confederate cause.
Another instance of narrowness may be named in the case of William Cutting
Heyward.
He was a wealthy rice-planter and an eminently practical and efficient man, a graduate at
West Point in the class with
Mr. Davis.
He went to
Montgomery to tender a regiment.
He sent in his card to the
President and waited for days in the lobby without obtaining an interview, and then returned home.
He finally died from exposure, performing the duties of a private in the Home Guard at
Charleston.
The reason alleged for not accepting more men was the want of arms, and
Mr. Davis's book is an apology for not procuring them.
Insisting that a great war was probable, and
inaugurated on the 18th of February,--there was no declaration of war before the middle of April and no efficient blockade of the ports for many months,yet it was in May that he started
Major Huse over to
England with instructions to purchase 10,000
Enfield rifles!
By these facts may be gauged his estimate of the emergency or of the purchasing ability of the
Confederate States.
The provisional constitution provided that “Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury unless it be asked and estimated for by the
President or some one of the heads of departments, except for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies.”
The Congress could, therefore, do nothing about the purchase of arms without a call from the executive.
But for the
Treaty of
Paris in 1778, made by
Benjamin Franklin,
Silas Dean, and
Arthur Lee, with
France, the independence of the thirteen original States would not have been established.
It was deemed important in the Provisional Congress of the
Confederate States to send commissioners abroad to negotiate for a recognition of their independence, and, in case of war with the States of the
North, perhaps for assistance.
The chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Mr. Rhett, reported such a resolution, which was unanimously adopted.
As the treaty-making power of the
Government belonged to the
President, Congress could not dictate to him the limit of authority that should be conferred upon the commissioners, in the negotiations desired.
But
