My Dear Sir:—Your very kind and complimentary letter of the 19th May last, was received in New Orleans, together with the commission to which you therein referred.
To be esteemed by you as one whose services entitled him to promotion, is to me a source of the highest gratification; which will remain to me undiminished, though my opinions compel me to decline the proffered honor.
I will this day address to the Adjutant-General of the U. S. Army, an official note informing him, that the commission has been received, and is declined. To you I wish to give an explanation, being too sensibly affected by your expression of honorable estimation and friendly regard, willingly to run any hazard of a misapprehension of the motives which have decided my course. You inform me that my command will consist of volunteers. I still entertain the opinion expressed by me, as a member of Congress, in May and June, 1846, that the "volunteers" are militia. As such they have a constitutional right to be under the immediate command of officers appointed by State authority; and this I think is violated by any permanent organization made after they have passed into the service of the United States; by which they lose their distinctive character of State troops, become part of a new formation, disciplined by, corresponding and only recognised through the head, which the federal government has set over them.
Such I consider the organization of Volunteer regiments into Brigades, under Brigadiers appointed by the President, as provided for in the law of June, 1846; and entertaining this opinion, my decision, as stated to you was the necessary result.
For the gratifying notice you have taken of myself and the regiment I had the honor to command; for the distinction you have been pleased to confer upon me by this unsolicited appointment; and for the kind solicitude you express for my welfare, receive, Sir, my sincerest thanks.
SOURCE: Dunbar Rowland, Editor, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 86-7
No comments:
Post a Comment