Confederate Congress.
Senate.
Monday, December 12, 1864.
By
Mr. Baker: A bill to increase the maximum rates of compensation allowed to railroad companies for the transportation of the mails.
Referred to the
Committee on Finance.
Mr. Brown offered a resolution, which was adopted, that the Finance Committee inquire into the expediency of making a more liberal exemption of the property of soldiers from taxation, and whether property and effects necessary to the support of soldiers' families ought not to be exempted entirely from taxation and the deficiency made up by increasing the taxes of those who stay at home.
The Finance Committee reported a bill, which was placed on the calendar, to provide for the remission of the penalty for non-delivery of tithes of bacon due in 1864.
Senate bill to authorize newspapers to be sent to soldiers through the mails free of postage was passed.
A bill appropriating $88,000 to meet a deficiency in the War Department was passed.
House bill to provide for the
Superintendent of Public Printing having Congressional printing done by contract was considered and passed.
The Military Committee were discharged from the further consideration of
Mr. Orr's resolution relative to
General Order No. 77.
The Senate resumed consideration of, and passed, the Senate bill to provide for the employment of free negroes and slaves to work upon the fortifications and perform other labor connected with the public defence.
[The bill declares all free negroes between eighteen and fifty liable to labor, etc., with the army, and provides for the impressment of 40,000 slaves east of the
Mississippi river, and 10,000 west of it, to labor on fortifications, etc.: Providing, that the quota of a State shall not exceed one in five, and that when a man has but one slave between eighteen and forty-five that one shall not be impressed.]
Mr. Orr's joint resolution to adjourn from the 20th of December to the 10th of January next was rejected.
House bill to punish certain frauds on the
Government, including larceny, was passed.
On motion,
Mr. Sparrow, the Senate resolved into secret session.
[
General Joseph E. Johnston, late of the Army of Tennessee, occupied a seat in the Senate to- day.]
House of Representatives.
The
House was opened with prayer at the usual hour by
Rev. Dr. Jeter.
The
House resumed the consideration of the bill to provide for the sequestration of the property of citizens leaving the
Confederacy who are liable to military duty.
The morning hour having expired, the
House resolved into Committee of the Whole on the bill to provide more effectually for the reduction and redemption of the currency.
Pending the consideration of the bill, the committee rose and the
House adjourned.
