1861. |
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civil and military, vast in the extent of its area of operations, strong in the number of its willing and unwilling supporters, and marvelous in its manifestations of energy hitherto unsuspected.
It had all the visible forms of regular government, modeled after that against which the conspirators had revolted; and through it they were wielding a power equal to that of many empires of the globe.
They had been accorded belligerent rights, as a nation struggling for its independence, by leading governments of Europe, and under the sanction of that recognition they had commissioned embassadors to foreign courts, and sent out upon the ocean armed ships, bearing their chosen ensign, to commit piracy, as legalized by the law of nations.
They had created great armies, and were successfully defying the power of their Government to suppress their revolt.
Henceforth, in this chronicle, the conflict will be treated as a civil war, and the opposing parties be designated respectively by the titles of Nationals and Confederates.
We have already noticed the meeting of the Confederate Congress, so-called, in second session, at Montgomery, on the 29th of April,
and the authorization thereby of the issuing of commissions for privateering; also for making thorough preparations for war on the land.1 That “Congress” worked diligently for the accomplishment of its purposes.
It passed an unlimited Enlistment Act, it being estimated that arms for one hundred and fifty thousand men could be furnished by the Confederacy.
That Act authorized Jefferson Davis to “accept the services of volunteers who may offer their services, without regard to the place of enlistment, either as cavalry, mounted riflemen, artillery, or infantry, in such proportion of their several arms as he may deem expedient, to serve for and during the existing war, unless sooner discharged.”
2 Acts were passed for the regulation of telegraphs, postal affairs, and the mints;3 and on the 16th of May an Act was approved authorizing the issuing of bonds for fifty millions of dollars, at an annual interest not to exceed eight per cent., and payable in twenty years. Made wiser by their failure to find a market for their bonds authorized in February,4 and offered in April, the conspirators now devised schemes to insure the sale of this new issue, or to secure money by other means.
The Act gave the Secretary of the Treasury, so-called, discretionary power to issue in lieu of such bonds twenty millions of dollars in treasury notes, not bearing interest, in denominations of not less than five dollars, and “to be receivable in payment of all debts or taxes due to the Confederate States, except the export duty on cotton, or in exchange for the bonds herein authorized to be issued.
The said notes,” said the Act, “shall be payable at the end of two years from the date of their issue, in specie.”
5
1 See page 372.
2 Approved May 8, 1861. See Acts and Resolutions of the three Sessions of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States: Second Session, page 5.
3 The Act directed that the operations of the mints at New Orleans, in Louisiana, and Dahlonega, in Georgia, should be suspended. They had no other dies for coin than those of the United States, and the conspirators sat, in the scheme for issuing an irredeemable paper currency, without limit, no use for coin.
4 See page 263.
5 Act approved May 16, 1861. See Acts and Resolutions of the Confederate Congress: Second Session, pages 82 to 84. A fac-simile of one of these treasury notes, issued at Richmond after that city became the seat of the Confederate Government. is given on page 545. After this issue, the terms of redemption were changed. A note before me, dated “Richmond, September 2d, 1861,” reads as follows:--“Six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the Confederate States and the United States, the Confederate States of America will pay to the bearer Five Dollars. Richmond, September 2d, 1861. Fundable in eight per cent. Stock or Bonds of the Confederate States of America. Receivable in payment of all dues except export duties.” Hundreds of millions of dollars in these notes were issued during the war. The bonds issued by the conspirators, from time to time, in different denominations, also to the amount of hundreds of millions of dollars, were in the usual form of such evidences of debt, and contained various devices, most of them of a warlike character, and several of them with a portrait of Memminger, the so-called Secretary of the Treasury. These bonds and notes, and the checks of the Confederate Government, are all much inferior in execution to those issued by our Government. On the notes, green and blue inks were used to prevent counterfeits.
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