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Doc. 109.-the “Confederate” Government.

the Executive.
President,Jefferson Davis, of Miss.
Vice-President,Alex. H. Stephens, of Ga.
the Cabinet.
Secretary of State,Robert Toombs, Ga.
Secretary of Treasury,C. L. Memminger, S. C.
Secretary of War,Leroy P. Walker, Ala.
Secretary of the Navy,Stephen R. Mallory, Fla.
Postmaster-General,John H. Reagan, Texas.
Attorney-General,Judah P. Benjamin, La.

members of Congress.
Virginia.
 James A. Seddon.
 W. Ballard Preston.
1.R. M. T. Hunter.
2.John Tyler.
3.W. H. Macfarland.
4.Roger A. Pryor.
5.Thomas S. Bocock.
6.Wm. S. Rives.
7.Robert E. Scott.
8.James M. Mason.
9.J. Brockenbrough.
10.Chas. W. Russell.
11.Robert Johnston.
12.Walter Staples.
13.Walter Preston.
North Carolina.
 Geo. Davis.
 W. W. Avery.
1.W. N. H. Smith.
2.Thomas Ruffin.
3.T. D. McDowell.
4.A. W. Venable.
5.J. M. Morehead.
6.R. C. Puryer.
7.Burton Craige.
8.E. A. Davidson.
Alabama.
1.R. W. Walker.
2.R. H. Smith.
3.J. L. M. Curry.
4.W. P. Chilton.
5.S. F. Hale.
6.Collin S. McRae.
7.John Gill Shorter.
8.David P. Lewis.
9.Thomas Fearn.
Florida.
1.Jackson Morton.
2.J. P. Anderson.
3.J. B. Owens.
Georgia.
1.Robert Toombs.
2.Howell Cobb.
3.Francis S. Bartow.
4.Martin J. Crawford.
5.Eugenius A. Nisbot.
6.Benjamin H. Hill.
7.A. R. Wright.
8.Thomas R. R. Cobb.
9.Augustus H. Kenan.
10.Alex. H. Stephens.
Louisiana.
1.John Perkins, Jr.
2.A. De Clouet.
3.Charles H. Conrad.
4.D. F. Kenner.
5.Edward Sparrow.
6.Henry Marshall.
Mississippi.
1.Wiley P. Harris.
2.Walter Brooke.
3.W. S. Wilson.
4.A. M. Clayton.
5.W. S. Barry.
6.James T. Harrison.
7.J. A. P. Campbell.
South Carolina.
1.R. B. Rhett, Sr.
2.R. W. Barnwell.
3.L. M. Keitt.
4.James Chesnut, Jr.
5.C. G. Memminger.
6.W. Porcher Miles.
7.Thomas J. Withers.
8.W. W. Boyce.

the standing Committees.

On Foreign Affairs.--Messrs. Rhett, Nisbet, Perkins, Walker, Keitt.

On Finance.--Messrs. Toombs, Barnwell, Kenner, Barry, McRae.

On Commercial Affairs.--Messrs. Memminger, Crawford, De Clouet, Morton, Curry.

On the Judiciary.--Messrs. Clayton, Withers, Hale, Cobb, Harris.

On Naval Affairs.--Messrs. Conrad, Chesnut, Smith, Wright, Owens.

On Military Affairs.--Messrs. Bartow, Miles, Sparrow, Kenan, Anderson.

On Postal Affairs.--Messrs. Chilton, Boyce, Hill, Harrison, Curry.

On Patents.--Messrs. Brooke, Wilson, Lewis, Hill, Kenner.

On Territories.--Messrs. Chesnut, Campbell, Marshall, Nisbet, Fearn.

On Public Lands.--Messrs. Marshall, Harris, Fearn, Anderson, Wright.

On Indian Affairs.--Messrs. Morton, Hale, Lewis, Keitt, Sparrow.

On Printing.--Messrs. T. R. R. Cobb, Harrison, Miles, Chilton, Perkins.

On Accounts.--Messrs. Owens, DeClouet, Campbell, Smith, Crawford.

On Engrossments.--Messrs. Shorter, Wilson, Kenan, McRae, Bartow


[355]

Message of Jefferson Davis: delivered at Richmond July 20.

Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America:--
my message addressed to you at the commencement of the last session contained such full information of the state of the Confederacy as to render it unnecessary that I should now do more than call your attention to such important facts as have occurred during the recess, and the matters connected with the public defence.

I have again to congratulate you on the accession of new members to our Confederation of free and equally sovereign States. Our loved and honored brethren of North Carolina and Tennessee have consummated the action foreseen and provided for at your last session, and I have had the gratification of announcing, by proclamation, in conformity with law, that these States were admitted into the Confederacy. The people of Virginia, also, by a majority previously unknown in our history, have ratified the action of her Convention uniting her fortunes with ours. The States of Arkansas, North Carolina, and Virginia have likewise adopted the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States, and no doubt is entertained of its adoption by Tennessee, at the election to be held early in next month.

I deemed it advisable to direct the removal of the several executive departments, with their archives, to this city, to which you have removed the seat of Government. Immediately after your adjournment, the aggressive movements of the enemy required prompt, energetic action. The accumulation of his forces on the Potomac sufficiently demonstrated that his efforts were to be directed against Virginia, and from no point could necessary measures for her defence and protection be so effectively decided, as from her own capital. The rapid progress of events, for the last few weeks, has fully sufficed to lift the veil, behind which the true policy and purposes of the Government of the United States had been previously concealed. Their odious features now stand fully revealed. The message of their President, and the action of their Congress during the present month, confess their intention of the subjugation of these States, by a war, by which it is impossible to attain the proposed result, while its dire calamities, not to be avoided by us, will fall with double severity on themselves.

Commencing in March last, with the affectation of ignoring the secession of seven States, which first organized this Government; persevering in April in the idle and absurd assumption of the existence of a riot, which was to be dispersed by a posse comitatus; continuing in successive months the false representation that these States intended an offensive war, in spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, furnished as well by official action as by the very basis on which this Government is constituted, the President of the United States and his advisers succeeded in deceiving the people of these States into the belief that the purpose of this Government was not peace at home, but conquest abroad; not defence of its own liberties, but subversion of those of the people of the United States. The series of manoeuvres by which this impression was created; the art with which they were devised, and the perfidy with which they were executed, were already known to you, but you could scarcely have supposed that they would be openly avowed, and their success made the subject of boast and self-laudation in an executive message. Fortunately for truth and history, however, the President of the United States details, with minuteness, the attempt to reinforce Fort Pickens, in violation of an armistice of which he confessed to have been informed, but only by rumors, too vague and uncertain to fix the attention of the hostile expedition despatched to supply Fort Sumter, admitted to have been undertaken with the knowledge that its success was impossible. The sending of a notice to the Governor of South Carolina of his intention to use force to accomplish his object, and then quoting from his inaugural address the assurance that “there could be no conflict unless these States were the aggressors,” he proceeds to declare his conduct, as just related by himself, was the performance of a promise, so free from the power of ingenious sophistry as that the world should not be able to misunderstand it; and in defiance of his own statement that he gave notice of the approach of a hostile fleet, he charges these States with becoming the assailants of the United States, without a gun in sight, or in expectancy, to return their fire, save only a few in the fort. He is, indeed, fully justified in saying that the case is so free from the power of ingenious sophistry that the world will not be able to misunderstand it. Under cover of this unfounded pretence, that the Confederate States are the assailants, that high functionary, after expressing his concern that some foreign nations had so shaped their action as if they supposed the early destruction of the national Union probable, abandons all further disguise, and proposes to make this contest a short and decisive one, by placing at the control of the Government for the work at least four hundred thousand men, and four hundred millions of dollars. The Congress, concurring in the doubt thus intimated as to the sufficiency of the force demanded, has increased it to half a million of men.

These enormous preparations in men and money, for the conduct of the war, on a scale more grand than any which the new world ever witnessed, is a distinct avowal, in the eyes of civilized man, that the United States are engaged in a conflict with a great and powerful nation. They are at last compelled to abandon the pretence of being engaged in dispersing rioters and suppressing insurrections, and are driven to the acknowledgment that the ancient [356] Union has been dissolved. They recognize the separate existence of these Confederate States, by an interdictive embargo and blockade of all commerce between them and the United States, not only by sea, but by land; not only in ships, but in cars; not only with those who bear arms, but with the entire population of the Confederate States. Finally, they have repudiated the foolish conceit that the inhabitants of this Confederacy are still citizens of the United States; for they are waging an indiscriminate war upon them all, with savage ferocity, unknown in modern civilization.

In this war, rapine is the rule; private houses, in beautiful rural retreats, are bombarded and burnt; grain crops in the field are consumed by the torch, and, when the torch is not convenient, careful labor is bestowed to render complete the destruction of every article of use or ornament remaining in private dwellings after their inhabitants have fled from the outrages of brute soldiery. In 1781 Great Britain, when invading the revolted colonies, took possession of every district and county near Fortress Monroe, now occupied by the troops of the United States. The houses then inhabited by the people, after being respected and protected by avowed invaders, are now pillaged and destroyed by men who pretend that Virginians are their fellow-citizens. Mankind will shudder at the tales of the outrages committed on defenseless families by soldiers of the United States, now invading our homes; yet these outrages are prompted by inflamed passions and the madness of intoxication. But who shall depict the horror they entertain for the cool and deliberate malignancy which, under the pretext of suppressing insurrection, (said by themselves to be upheld by a minority only of our people,) makes special war on the sick, including children and women, by carefully-devised measures to prevent them from obtaining the medicines necessary for their cure. The sacred claims of humanity, respected even during the fury of actual battle, by careful diversion of attack from hospitals containing wounded enemies, are outraged in cold blood by a Government and people that pretend to desire a continuance of fraternal connections. All these outrages must remain unavenged by the universal reprehension of mankind. In all cases where the actual perpetrators of the wrongs escape capture, they admit of no retaliation. The humanity of our people would shrink instinctively from the bare idea of urging a like war upon the sick, the women, and the children of an enemy. But there are other savage practices which have been resorted to by the Government of the United States, which do admit of repression by retaliation, and I have been driven to the necessity of enforcing the repression. The prisoners of war taken by the enemy on board the armed schooner Savannah, sailing under our commission, were, as I was credibly advised, treated like common felons, put in irons, confined in a jail usually appropriated to criminals of the worst dye, and threatened with punishment as such. I had made application for the exchange of these prisoners to the commanding officer of the enemy's squadron off Charleston, but that officer had already sent the prisoners to New York when application was made. I therefore deemed it my duty to renew the proposal for the exchange to the constitutional commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, the only officer having control of the prisoners. To this end, I despatched an officer to him under a flag of truce, and, in making the proposal, I informed President Lincoln of my resolute purpose to check all barbarities on prisoners of war by such severity of retaliation on prisoners held by us as should secure the abandonment of the practice. This communication was received and read by an officer in command of the United States forces, and a message was brought from him by the bearer of my communication, that a reply would be returned by President Lincoln as soon as possible. I earnestly hope this promised reply (which has not yet been received) will convey the assurance that prisoners of war will be treated, in this unhappy contest, with that regard for humanity, which has made such conspicuous progress in the conduct of modern warfare. As measures of precaution, however, and until this promised reply is received, I still retain in close custody some officers captured from the enemy, whom it had been my pleasure previously to set at large on parole, and whose fate must necessarily depend on that of prisoners held by the enemy. I append a copy of my communication to the President and commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the report of the officer charged to deliver my communication. There are some other passages in the remarkable paper to which I have directed your attention, having reference to the peculiar relations which exist between this Government and the States usually termed Border Slave States, which cannot properly be withheld from notice. The hearts of our people are animated by sentiments toward the inhabitants of these States, which found expression in your enactment refusing to consider them enemies, or authorize hostilities against them. That a very large portion of the people of these States regard us as brethren; that, if unrestrained by the actual presence of large armies, subversion of civil authority, and declaration of martial law, some of them, at least, would joyfully unite with us; that they are, with almost entire unanimity, opposed to the prosecution of the war waged against us, are facts of which daily-recurring events fully warrant the assertion that the President of the United States refuses to recognize in these, our late sister States, the right of refraining from attack upon us, and justifies his refusal by the assertion that the States have no other power than that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution. Now, one of them having ever [357] been a State of the Union, this view of the constitutional relations between the States and the General Government is a fitting introduction to another assertion of the message, that the executive possesses power of suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and of delegating that power to military commanders at their discretion. And both these propositions claim a respect equal to that which is felt for the additional statement of opinion in the same paper, that it is proper, in order to execute the laws, that some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of citizens' liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated. We may well rejoice that we have forever severed our connection with a Government that thus trampled on all principles of constitutional liberty, and with a people in whose presence such avowals could be hazarded. The operations in the field will be greatly extended by reason of the policy which heretofore has been secretly entertained, and is now avowed and acted on by us. The forces hitherto raised provide amply for the defence of seven States which originally organized in the Confederacy, as is evidently the fact, since, with the exception of three fortified islands, whose defence is efficiently aided by a preponderating naval force, the enemy has been driven completely out of these stations; and now, at the expiration of five months from the formation of the Government, not a single hostile foot presses their soil. These forces, however, must necessarily prove inadequate to repel invasion by the half million of men now proposed by the enemy, and a corresponding increase of our forces will become necessary. The recommendations for the raising of this additional force will be contained in the communication of the Secretary of War, to which I need scarcely invite your earnest attention.

In my message delivered in April last, I referred to the promise of the abundant crops with which we were cheered. The grain crops, generally, have since been harvested, and the yield has proven to be the most abundant ever known in our history. Many believe the supply adequate to two years consumption of our population. Cotton, sugar, tobacco, forming a surplus of the production of our agriculture, and furnishing the basis of our commercial interchange, present the most cheering promises ever known. Providence has smiled on the labor which extracts the teeming wealth of our soil in all parts of our Confederacy.

It is the more gratifying to be able to give you this, because, in need of large and increased expenditure, in support of our army, elevated and purified by a sacred cause, they maintain that our fellow-citizens, of every condition of life, exhibit most self-sacrificing devotion. They manifest a laudable pride of upholding their independence, unaided by any resources other than their own, and the immense wealth which a fertilized and genial climate has accumulated in this Confederacy of agriculturists, could not be more strongly displayed than in the large revenues which, with eagerness, they have contributed at the call of their country. In the single article of cotton, the subscriptions to the loan proposed by the Government, cannot fall short of fifty millions of dollars, and will probably exceed that sum; and scarcely an article required for the consumption of our army is provided otherwise than by subscription to the produce loan, so happily devised by your wisdom. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report submitted to you, will give you the amplest details connected with that branch of the public service; but it is not alone in their prompt pecuniary contributions that the noble race of freemen who inhabit these States evidence how worthy they are of those liberties which they so well know how to defend. In numbers far exceeding those authorized by your laws, they have pressed the tender of their services against the enemy. Their attitude of calm and sublime devotion to their country, the cool and confidant courage with which they are already preparing to meet the invasion, in whatever proportions it may assume; the assurance that their sacrifices and their services will be renewed from year to year with unfailing purpose, until they have made good to the uttermost their rights to self-government; the generous and almost unequivocal confidence which they display in their Government during the pending struggle, all combine to present a spectacle, such as the world has rarely, if ever, seen. To speak of subjugating such a people, so united and determined, is to speak in a language incomprehensible to them; to resist attack on their rights or their liberties is with them an instinct. Whether this war shall last one, or three, or five years, is a problem they leave to be solved by the enemy alone. It will last till the enemy shall have withdrawn from their borders; till their political rights, their altars, and their homes are freed from invasion. Then, and then only, will they rest from this struggle, to enjoy, in peace, the blessings which, with the favor of Providence, they have secured by the aid of their own strong hearts and steady arms.


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