RICHMOND, January 12, 1863.
The SENATE AND
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES:
At the date of your
last adjournment the preparations of the enemy for further hostilities had
assumed so menacing an aspect as to excite in some minds apprehension of our
ability to meet them with sufficient promptness to avoid serious reverses.
These preparations were completed shortly after your departure from the seat of
government, and the armies of the United States made simultaneous advance on
our frontiers, on the Western rivers, and on the Atlantic Coast, in masses so
great as to evince their hope of overbearing all resistance by mere weight of
numbers. This hope, however, like those previously entertained by our foes, has
vanished. In Virginia their fourth attempt at invasion by armies whose assured
success was confidently predicted, has met with decisive repulse. Our noble
defenders, under the consummate leadership of their general, have again, at
Fredericksburg, inflicted on the forces under General Burnside the like
disastrous overthrow as had been previously suffered by the successive invading
armies commanded by Generals McDowell, McClellan, and Pope.
In the West
obstinate battles have been fought with varying fortunes, marked by frightful
carnage on both sides; but the enemy's hopes of decisive results have again
been baffled, while at Vicksburg another formidable expedition has been
repulsed with considerable loss on our side and severe damage to the assailing
forces. On the Atlantic Coast the enemy has been unable to gain a footing
beyond the protecting shelter of his fleets, and the city of Galveston has just
been recovered by our forces, which succeeded not only in the capture of the
garrison, but of one of the enemy's vessels of war, which was carried by
boarding parties from merchant river steamers. Our fortified positions have everywhere
been much strengthened and improved, affording assurance of our ability to meet
with success the utmost efforts of our enemies, in spite of the magnitude of
their preparations for attack.
A review of our
history during the two years of our national existence affords ample cause for
congratulation and demands the most fervent expression of our thankfulness to
the Almighty Father, who has blessed our cause. We are justified in asserting,
with a pride surely not unbecoming, that these Confederate States have added
another to the lessons taught by history for the instruction of man; that they
have afforded another example of the impossibility of subjugating a people
determined to be free, and have demonstrated that no superiority of numbers or
available resources can overcome the resistance offered by such valor in
combat, such constancy under suffering, and such cheerful endurance of
privation as have been conspicuously displayed by this people in the defense of
their rights and liberties. The anticipations with which we entered into the
contest have now ripened into a conviction which is not only shared with us by
the common opinion of neutral nations, but is evidently forcing itself upon our
enemies themselves. If we but mark the history of the present year by resolute
perseverance in the path we have hitherto pursued, by vigorous effort in the
development of all our resources for defense, and by the continued exhibition
of the same unfaltering courage in our soldiers and able conduct in their leaders
as have distinguished the past, we have every reason to expect that this will
be the closing year of the war. The war, which in its inception was waged for
forcing us back into the Union, having failed to accomplish that purpose,
passed into a second stage, in which it was attempted to conquer and rule these
States as dependent provinces. Defeated in this second design, our enemies have
evidently entered upon another, which can have no other purpose than revenge
and thirst for blood and plunder of private property. But however implacable
they may be, they can have neither the spirit nor the resources required for a
fourth year of a struggle uncheered by any hope of success, kept alive solely
for the indulgence of mercenary and wicked passions, and demanding so
exhaustive an expenditure of blood and money as has hitherto been imposed on
their people. The advent of peace will be hailed with joy. Our desire for it
has never been concealed. Our efforts to avoid the war, forced on us as it was
by the lust of conquest and the insane passions of our foes, are known to
mankind. But earnest as has been our wish for peace and great as have been our
sacrifices and sufferings during the war, the determination of this people has
with each succeeding month become more unalterably fixed to endure any
sufferings and continue any sacrifices, however prolonged, until their right to
self-government and the sovereignty and independence of these States shall have
been triumphantly vindicated and firmly established.
In this connection
the occasion seems not unsuitable for some reference to the relations between
the Confederacy and the neutral powers of Europe since the separation of these
States from the former Union. Four of the States now members of the Confederacy
were recognized by name as independent sovereignties in a treaty of peace
concluded in the year 1783 with one of the two great maritime powers of Western
Europe, and had been, prior to that period, allies in war of the other. In the
year 1778 they formed a Union with nine other States under Articles of
Confederation. Dissatisfied with that Union, three of them, Virginia, South
Carolina, and Georgia, together with eight of the States now members of the
United States, seceded from it in 1789, and these eleven seceding States formed
a second Union, although by the terms of the Articles of Confederation express
provision was made that the first Union should be perpetual. Their right to
secede, notwithstanding this provision, was neither contested by the States
from which they separated nor made the subject of discussion with any
third-power. When at a later period North Carolina acceded to that second
Union, and when, still later, the other sovereign States, now members of this
Confederacy, became also members of the same Union, it was upon the recognized
footing of equal and independent sovereignties, nor had it then entered into
the minds of men that sovereign States could be compelled by force to remain
members of a confederation into which they had entered of their own free will,
if at a subsequent period the defense of their safety and honor should, in
their judgment, justify withdrawal. The experience of the past had evinced the
futility of any renunciation of such inherent rights, and accordingly the
provision for perpetuity contained in the Articles of Confederation of 1778 was
omitted in the Constitution of 1789. When, therefore, in 1861 eleven of the
States again thought proper, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, to secede
from the second Union and to form a third one under an amended constitution,
they exercised a right which, being inherent, required no justification to
foreign nations, and which international law did not permit them to question.
The usages of intercourse between nations do, however, require that official
communication be made to friendly powers of all organic changes in the
constitution of States, and there was obvious propriety in giving prompt
assurance of our desire to continue amicable relations with all mankind. It was
under the influence of these considerations that your predecessors, the
Provisional Government, took early measures for sending to Europe commissioners
charged with the duty of visiting the capitals of the different powers and
making arrangements for the opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse.
Prior, however, to the arrival abroad of those commissioners the United States
had commenced hostilities against the Confederacy by dispatching a secret
expedition for the re-enforcement of Fort Sumter, after an express promise to
the contrary, and with a duplicity which has been fully unveiled in a former
message. They had also addressed communications to the different cabinets of
Europe in which they assumed the attitude of being sovereign over this
Confederacy, alleging that these independent States were in rebellion against
the remaining States of the Union, and threatening Europe with manifestations
of their displeasure if it should treat the Confederate States as having an
independent existence. It soon became known that these pretensions were not
considered abroad to be as absurd as they were known to be at home, nor had
Europe yet learned what reliance was to be placed on the official statements of
the Cabinet at Washington.
The delegation of
power granted by these States to the Federal Government to represent them in
foreign intercourse had led Europe into the grave error of supposing that their
separate sovereignty and independence had been merged into one common
sovereignty, and had ceased to have a distinct existence. Under the influence
of this error, which all appeals to reason and historical fact were vainly used
to dispel, our commissioners were met by the declaration that foreign
governments could not assume to judge between the Conflicting representations
of the two parties as to the true nature of their previous mutual relations.
The Governments of Great Britain and Franco accordingly signified their
determination to confine themselves to recognizing the self-evident fact of the
existence of a war, and to maintaining a strict neutrality during its progress.
Some of the other powers of Europe pursued the same course of policy, and it
became apparent that by some understanding, express or tacit, Europe had
decided to leave the initiative in all action touching the contest on this
continent to the two powers just named, who were recognized to have the largest
interests involved, both by reason of proximity and of the extent and intimacy
of their commercial relations with the States engaged in war. It is manifest
that the course of action adopted by Europe, while based on an apparent refusal
to determine the question, or to side with either party, was in point of fact
an actual decision against our rights and in favor of the groundless
pretensions of the United States. It was a refusal to treat us as an
independent government. If we were independent States the refusal to entertain
with us the same international intercourse as was maintained with our enemy was
unjust, and was injurious in its effects, whatever may have been the motive
which prompted it. Neither was it in accordance with the high moral obligations
of that international code whose chief sanction is the conscience of sovereigns
and the public opinion of mankind, that those eminent powers should decline the
performance of a duty peculiarly incumbent on them from any apprehension of the
consequences to themselves. One immediate and necessary result of their
declining the responsibility of a decision which must have been adverse to the
extravagant pretensions of the United States was the prolongation of
hostilities to which our enemies were thereby encouraged, and which have
resulted in nothing but scenes of carnage and devastation on this continent,
and of misery and suffering on the other, such as have scarcely a parallel in
history. Had those powers promptly admitted our right to be treated as all
other independent nations, none can doubt that the moral effect of such action
would have been to dispel the delusion under which the United States have
persisted in their efforts to accomplish our subjugation. To the continued
hesitation of the same powers in rendering this act of simple justice toward
this Confederacy is still due the continuance of the calamities which mankind
suffers from the interruption of its peaceful pursuits, both in the Old and the
New World.
There are other
matters in which less than justice has been rendered to this people by neutral
Europe, and undue advantage conferred on the aggressors in a wicked war. At the
inception of hostilities the inhabitants of the Confederacy were almost
exclusively agriculturists, those of the United States, to a great extent,
mechanics and merchants. We had no commercial marine, while their merchant
vessels covered the ocean. We were without a navy, while they had powerful
fleets. The advantage which they possessed for inflicting injury on our coasts
and harbors was thus counterbalanced in some measure by the exposure of their
commerce to attack by private armed vessels. It was known to Europe that within
a very few years past the United States had peremptorily refused to accede to
proposals for abolishing privateering, on the ground, as alleged by them, that
nations owning powerful fleets would thereby obtain undue advantage over those
possessing inferior naval forces. Yet no sooner was war flagrant between the
Confederacy and the United States than the maritime powers of Europe issued
orders prohibiting either party from bringing prizes into their ports. This prohibition,
directed with apparent impartiality against both belligerents, was in reality
effective against the Confederate States alone, for they alone could find a
hostile commerce on the ocean. Merely nominal against the United States, the
prohibition operated with intense severity on the Confederacy, by depriving it
of the only means of maintaining with some approach to equality its struggle on
the ocean against the crushing superiority of naval force possessed by its
enemies. The value and efficiency of the weapon which was thus wrested from our
grasp by the combined action of neutral European powers in favor of a nation
which professes openly its intention of ravaging their commerce by privateers
in any future war is strikingly illustrated by the terror inspired among the
commercial classes of the United States by a single cruiser of the Confederacy.
One national steamer, commanded by officers and manned by a crew who are
debarred, by the closure of neutral ports, from the opportunity of causing captured
vessels to be condemned in their favor as prizes, has sufficed to double the
rates of marine insurance in Northern ports and consign to forced inaction
numbers of Northern vessels, in addition to the direct damage inflicted by
captures at sea. How difficult, then, to overestimate the effects that must
have been produced by the hundreds of private armed vessels that would have
swept the seas in pursuit of the commerce of our enemy if the means of
disposing of their prizes had not been withheld by the action of neutral
Europe.
But it is
especially in relation to the so-called blockade of our coast that the policy
of European powers has been so shaped as to cause the greatest injury to the
Confederacy and to confer signal advantages on the United States. The
importance of this subject requires some development. Prior to the year 1856
the principles regulating this subject were to be gathered from the writings of
eminent publicists, the decisions of admiralty courts, international treaties,
and the usages of nations. The uncertainty and doubt which prevailed in
reference to the true rules of maritime law in time of war, resulting from the
discordant and often conflicting principles announced from such varied and
independent sources, had become a grievous evil to mankind. Whether a blockade
was allowable against a port not invested by land as well as by sea; whether a
blockade was valid by sea if the investing fleet was merely sufficient to
render ingress to the blockaded port "evidently dangerous," or
whether it was further required for its legality that it should be sufficient
"really to prevent access," and numerous other similar questions had
remained doubtful and undecided.
Animated by the
highly honorable desire to put an end “to differences of opinion between
neutrals and belligerents, which may occasion serious difficulties and even
conflicts” (I quote the official language), the five great powers of Europe,
together with Sardinia and Turkey, adopted in 1856 the following “solemn
declaration” of principles:
1. Privateering is,
and remains, abolished.
2. The neutral flag
covers enemy's goods with the exception of contraband of war.
3. Neutral goods,
with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under
enemy's flag.
4. Blockades, in
order to be binding, must be effective; that is to say, maintained by a force
sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.
Not only did this
solemn declaration announce to the world the principles to which the signing
powers agreed to conform in future wars, but it contained a clause to which
those powers gave immediate effect, and which provided that the states not
parties to the Congress of Paris should be invited to accede to the
declaration. Under this invitation every independent state in Europe yielded
its assent—at least, no instance is known to me of a refusal; and the United
States, while declining to assent to the proposition which prohibited
privateering, declared that the three remaining principles were in entire
accordance with their own views of international law. No instance is known in
history of the adoption of rules of public law under circumstances of like
solemnity, with like unanimity, and pledging the faith of nations with a
sanctity so peculiar.
When, therefore,
this Confederacy was formed, and when neutral powers, while deferring action on
its demand for admission into the family of nations, recognized it as a
belligerent power, Great Britain and France made informal proposals about the same
time that their own rights as neutrals should be guaranteed by our acceding as
belligerents, to the declaration of principles made by the Congress of Paris.
The request was addressed to our sense of justice, and therefore met immediate
favorable response in the resolutions of the Provisional Congress of the 13th
August, 1861, by which all the principles announced by the Congress of Paris
were adopted as the guide of our conduct during the war, with the sole
exception of that relative to privateering. As the right to make use of
privateers was one in which neutral nations had, as to the present war, no
interest; as it was a right which the United States had refused to abandon, and
which they remained at liberty to employ against us; as it was a right of which
we were already in actual enjoyment, and which we could not be expected to
renounce flagrante bello against an adversary possessing an overwhelming
superiority of naval forces, it was reserved with entire confidence that
neutral nations could not fail to perceive that just reason existed for the
reservation. Nor was this confidence misplaced, for the official documents
published by the British Government, usually called “Blue Books,” contained the
expression of the satisfaction of that Government with the conduct of the
officials who conducted successfully the delicate business confided to their
charge.
These solemn
declarations of principle—this implied agreement between the Confederacy and
the two powers just named—have been suffered to remain inoperative against the
menaces and outrages on neutral rights committed by the United States with
unceasing and progressive arrogance during the whole period of the war. Neutral
Europe remained passive when the United States, with a naval force insufficient
to blockade effectively the coast of a single State, proclaimed a paper
blockade of thousands of miles of coast, extending from the capes of the
Chesapeake to those of Florida, and encircling the Gulf of Mexico from Key West
to the mouth of the Rio Grande. Compared with this monstrous pretension of the
United States, the blockades known in history under the names of the Berlin and
Milan decrees and the British orders in council, in the years 1806 and 1807,
sink into insignificance. Yet those blockades were justified by the powers that
declared them on the sole ground that they were retaliatory; yet those
blockades have since been condemned by the publicists of those very powers as
violations of international law; yet those blockades evoked angry remonstrances
from neutral powers, among which the United States were the most conspicuous;
yet those blockades became the chief cause of the war between Great Britain and
the United States in 1812; yet those blockades were one of the principal
motives that led to the declaration of the Congress of Paris, in 1856, in the
fond hope of imposing an enduring check on the very abuse of maritime power
which is now renewed by the United States in 1861 and 1862, under circumstances
and with features of aggravated wrong without precedent in history.
The records of our
State Department contain the evidence of the repeated and formal remonstrances
made by this Government to neutral powers against the recognition of this
blockade. It has been shown by evidence not capable of contradiction, and which
has been furnished in part by the officials of neutral nations, that the few
ports of this Confederacy, before which any naval forces at all have been
stationed, have been invested so inefficiently that hundreds of entries have
been effected into them since the declaration of the blockade; that our enemies
have themselves admitted the inefficiency of their blockade in the most
forcible manner by repeated official complaints of the sale to us of goods
contraband of war, a sale which could not possibly affect their interests if
their pretended blockade was sufficient "really to prevent access to our
coast;" that they have gone farther and have alleged their inability to
render their paper blockade effective as the excuse for the odious barbarity of
destroying the entrance to one of our harbors by sinking vessels loaded with
stone in the channel; that our commerce with foreign nations has been
intercepted, not by effective investment of our ports, nor by the seizure of
ships in the attempt to enter them, but by the capture on the high seas of
neutral vessels by the cruisers of our enemies whenever supposed to be bound to
any point on our extensive coast, without inquiry whether a single blockading
vessel was to be found at such point; that blockading vessels have left the
ports at which they were stationed for distant expeditions, have been absent
for many days, and have returned without notice either of the cessation or
renewal of the blockade; in a word, that every prescription of maritime law and
every right of neutral nations to trade with a belligerent, under the sanction
of principles heretofore universally respected, have been systematically and
persistently violated by the United States. Neutral Europe has received our
remonstrances and has submitted in almost unbroken silence to all the wrongs
that the United States have chosen to inflict on its commerce. The Cabinet of
Great Britain, however, has not confined itself to such implied acquiescence in
these breaches of international law as results from simple inaction, but has,
in a published dispatch of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, assumed
to make a change in the principle enunciated by the Congress of Paris, to which
the faith of the British Government was considered to be pledged; a change too
important and too prejudicial to the interests of the Confederacy to be
overlooked, and against which I have directed solemn protest to be made, after
a vain attempt to obtain satisfactory explanations from the British Government.
In a published dispatch from Her Majesty's Foreign Office to her minister at
Washington under the date of 11th February, 1862, occurs the following passage:
Her
Majesty's Government, however, are of opinion that, assuming that the blockade
was duly notified, and also that a number of ships are stationed and remain at
the entrance of a port sufficient really to prevent access to it, or to
create an evident danger of entering it or leaving it, and that these ships
do not voluntarily permit ingress or egress, the fact that various ships may
have successfully escaped through it (as in the particular instance here
referred to) will not of itself prevent the blockade from being an effectual
one by international law.
The words which I
have italicized are an addition made by the British Government of its own
authority to a principle the exact terms of which were settled with
deliberation by the common consent of civilized nations and by implied
convention with this Government, as already explained, and their effect is
clearly to reopen to the prejudice of the Confederacy one of the very disputed
questions on the law of blockade which the Congress of Paris professed to
settle. The importance of this change is readily illustrated by taking one of
our ports as an example. There is "evident danger" in entering the
port of Wilmington from the presence of a blockading force, and by this test
the blockade is effective. "Access is not really prevented" by the
blockading fleet to the same port, for steamers are continually arriving and
departing, so that tried by this test the blockade is ineffective and invalid.
The justice of our complaint on this point is so manifest as to leave little
room for doubt that further reflection will induce the British Government to
give us such assurances as will efface the painful impressions that would
result from its language if left unexplained.
From the foregoing
remarks you will perceive that during nearly two years of struggle, in which
every energy of our country has been evoked for maintaining its very existence,
the neutral nations of Europe have pursued a policy which, nominally impartial,
has been practically most favorable to our enemies and most detrimental to us.
The exercise of the neutral right of refusing entry into their ports to prizes
taken by both belligerents was eminently hurtful to the Confederacy. It was
sternly asserted and maintained. The exercise of the neutral right of commerce
with a belligerent whose ports are not blockaded by fleets sufficient really to
prevent access to them would have been eminently hurtful to the United States.
It was complacently abandoned. The duty of neutral states to receive with
cordiality and recognize with respect any new confederation that independent
states may think proper to form was too clear to admit of denial, but its
postponement was eminently beneficial to the United States and detrimental to
the Confederacy. It was postponed.
In this review of
our relations with the neutral nations of Europe it has been my purpose to
point out distinctly that this Government has no complaint to make that those
nations declared their neutrality. It could neither expect nor desire more. The
complaint is that the neutrality has been rather nominal than real, and that
recognized neutral rights have been alternately asserted and waived in such
manner as to bear with great severity on us, and to confer signal advantages on
our enemy.
I have hitherto
refrained from calling to your attention this condition of our relations with
foreign powers for various reasons. The chief of these was the fear that a
statement of our just grounds of complaint against a course of policy so
injurious to our interests might be misconstrued into an appeal for aid.
Unequal as we were in mere numbers and available resources to our enemies, we
were conscious of powers of resistance, in relation to which Europe was
incredulous, and our remonstrances were therefore peculiarly liable to be
misunderstood. Proudly self-reliant, the Confederacy knowing full well the character
of the contest into which it was forced, with full trust in the superior
qualities of its population, the superior valor of its soldiers, the superior
skill of its generals, and above all in the justice of its cause, felt no need
to appeal for the maintenance of its rights to other earthly aids, and it began
and has continued this struggle with the calm confidence ever inspired in those
who, with consciousness of right, can invoke the Divine blessing on their
cause. This confidence has been so assured that we have never yielded to
despondency under defeat, nor do we feel undue elation at the present brighter
prospect of successful issue to our contest. It is, therefore, because our just
grounds of complaint can no longer be misinterpreted that I lay them clearly
before you. It seems to me now proper to give you the information, and,
although no immediate results may be attained, it is well that truth should be
preserved and recorded. It is well that those who are to follow us should
understand the full nature and character of the tremendous conflict in which
the blood of our people has been poured out like water, and in which they have
resisted, unaided, the shock of hosts which would have sufficed to overthrow
many of the powers which, by their hesitation in according our rights as an
independent nation, imply doubt of our ability to maintain our national
existence. It may be, too, that if in future times unfriendly discussions not
now anticipated shall unfortunately arise between this Confederacy and some
European power, the recollection of our forbearance under the grievances which
I have enumerated may be evoked with happy influence in preventing any serious
disturbance of peaceful relations.
It would not be
proper to close my remarks on the subject of our foreign relations without
adverting to the fact that the correspondence between the Cabinets of France,
Great Britain, and Russia, recently published, indicate a gratifying advance in
the appreciation by those Governments of the true interests of mankind as
involved in the war on this continent. It is to the enlightened ruler of the
French nation that the public feeling of Europe is indebted for the first
official exhibition of its sympathy for the sufferings endured by this people
with so much heroism, of its horror at the awful carnage with which the
progress of the war has been marked, and of its desire for a speedy peace. The
clear and direct intimation contained in the language of the French note, that
our ability to maintain our independence has been fully established, was not
controverted by the answer of either of the Cabinets to which it was addressed.
It is indeed difficult to conceive a just ground for a longer delay on this
subject after reading the following statement of facts contained in the letter
emanating from the minister of His Imperial Majesty:
There
has been established, from the very beginning of this war, an equilibrium of
forces between the belligerents, which has since been almost constantly
maintained, and after the spilling of so much blood they are to-day in this
respect in a situation which has not sensibly changed. Nothing authorizes the
prevision that more decisive military operations will shortly occur. According
to the last advices received in Europe, the two armies were, on the contrary,
in a condition which permitted neither to hope within a short delay advantages
sufficiently marked to turn the balance definitely and to accelerate the
conclusion of peace.
As this Government
has never professed the intention of conquering the United States, but has
simply asserted its ability to defend itself against being conquered by that
power, we may safely conclude that the claims of this Confederacy to its just
place in the family of nations cannot long be withheld, after so frank and
formal an admission of its capacity to cope on equal terms with its aggressive
foes, and to maintain itself against their attempts to obtain decisive results
by arms.
It is my painful
duty again to inform you of the renewed examples of every conceivable atrocity
committed by the armed forces of the United States at different points within
the Confederacy, and which must stamp indelible infamy not only on the
perpetrators but on their superiors, who, having the power to check these outrages
on humanity, numerous and well authenticated as they have been, have not yet in
a single instance of which I am aware inflicted punishment on the wrong-doers.
Since my last communication to you one General McNeil murdered seven prisoners
of war in cold blood, and the demand for his punishment has remained
unsatisfied. The Government of the United States, after promising examination
and explanation in relation to the charges made against General Benjamin F.
Butler, has by its subsequent silence, after repeated efforts on my part to
obtain some answer on the subject, not only admitted his guilt but sanctioned
it by acquiescence, and I have accordingly branded this criminal as an outlaw,
and directed his execution in expiation of his crimes if he should fall into
the hands of any of our forces. Recently I have received apparently authentic
intelligence of another general by the name of Milroy, who has issued orders in
Western Virginia for the payment of money to him by the inhabitants,
accompanied by the most savage threats of shooting every recusant, besides
burning his house, and threatening similar atrocities against any of our
citizens who shall fail to betray their country by giving him prompt notice of
the approach of any of our forces, and this subject has also been submitted to
the superior military authorities of the United States with but faint hope that
they will evince any disapprobation of the act. Humanity shudders at the
appalling atrocities which are being daily multiplied under the sanction of
those who have obtained temporary possession of power in the United States, and
who are fast making its once fair name a byword of reproach among civilized
men. Not even the natural indignation inspired by this conduct should make us,
however, so unjust as to attribute to the whole mass of the people who are
subjected to the despotism that now reigns with unbridled license in the city
of Washington a willing acquiescence in its conduct of the war. There must
necessarily exist among our enemies very many, perhaps a majority, whose
humanity recoils from all participation in such atrocities, but who cannot be
held wholly guiltless while permitting their continuance without an effort at
repression.
The public journals
of the North have been received, containing a proclamation, dated on the 1st
day of the present month, signed by the President of the United States, in
which he orders and declares all slaves within ten of the States of the
Confederacy to be free, except such as are found within certain districts now
occupied in part by the armed forces of the enemy. We may well leave it to the
instincts of that common humanity which a beneficent Creator has implanted in
the breasts of our fellow men of all countries to pass judgment on a measure by
which several millions of human beings of an inferior race, peaceful and
contented laborers in their sphere, are doomed to extermination, while at the
same time they are encouraged to a general assassination of their masters by
the insidious recommendation “to abstain from violence unless in necessary self-defense.”
Our own detestation of those who have attempted the most execrable measure
recorded in the history of guilty man is tempered by profound contempt for the
impotent rage which it discloses. So far as regards the action of this
Government on such criminals as may attempt its execution, I confine myself to
informing you that I shall, unless in your wisdom you deem some other course
more expedient, deliver to the several State authorities all commissioned officers
of the United States that may hereafter be captured by our forces in any of the
States embraced in the proclamation, that they may be dealt with in accordance
with the laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged
in exciting servile insurrection. The enlisted soldiers I shall continue to
treat as unwilling instruments in the commission of these crimes, and shall
direct their discharge and return to their homes on the proper and usual
parole.
In its political
aspect this measure possesses great significance, and to it in this light I
invite your attention. It affords to our whole people the complete and crowning
proof of the true nature of the designs of the party which elevated to power
the present occupant of the Presidential chair at Washington and which sought
to conceal its purposes by every variety of artful device and by the perfidious
use of the most solemn and repeated pledges on every possible occasion. I
extract in this connection as a single example the following declaration, made
by President Lincoln under the solemnity of his oath as Chief Magistrate of the
United States, on the 4th of March, 1861:
Apprehension
seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of
a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal
security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for
such apprehensions. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the
while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the
published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of
those speeches when I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly,
to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I
believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so.
Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made
this and many similar declarations and have never recanted them. And more than
this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance and as a law to themselves
and to me the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
"Resolved,
That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the
right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions
according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of
powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend;
and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or
Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest crimes."
Nor was this
declaration of the want of power or disposition to interfere with our social
system confined to a state of peace. Both before and after the actual
commencement of hostilities the President of the United States repeated in
formal official communication to the Cabinets of Great Britain and France that
he was utterly without constitutional power to do the act which he has just
committed, and that in no possible event, whether the secession of these States
resulted in the establishment of a separate Confederacy or in the restoration
of the Union, was there any authority by virtue of which he could either
restore a disaffected State to the Union by force of arms or make any change in
any of its institutions. I refer especially for verification of this assertion
to the dispatches addressed by the Secretary of State of the United States,
under direction of the President, to the ministers of the United States at
London and Paris, under date of 10th and 22d of April, 1861.
The people of this
Confederacy, then, cannot fail to receive this proclamation as the fullest
vindication of their own sagacity in foreseeing the uses to which the dominant
party in the United States intended from the beginning to apply their power,
nor can they cease to remember with devout thankfulness that it is to their own
vigilance in resisting the first stealthy progress of approaching despotism
that they owe their escape from consequences now apparent to the most
skeptical. This proclamation will have another salutary effect in calming the
fears of those who have constantly evinced the apprehension that this war might
end by some reconstruction of the old Union or some renewal of close political
relations with the United States. These fears have never been shared by me, nor
have I ever been able to perceive on what basis they could rest. But the
proclamation affords the fullest guarantee of the impossibility of such a
result; it has established a state of things which can lead to but one of three
possible consequences—the extermination of the slaves, the exile of the whole
white population from the Confederacy, or absolute and total separation of
these States from the United States.
This proclamation
is also an authentic statement by the Government of the United States of its
inability to subjugate the South by force of arms, and as such must be accepted
by neutral nations, which can no longer find any justification in withholding
our just claims to formal recognition. It is also in effect an intimation to
the people of the North that they must prepare to submit to a separation, now
become inevitable, for that people are too acute not to understand that a
restoration of the Union has been rendered forever impossible by the adoption
of a measure which from its very nature neither admits of retraction nor can
coexist with union.
Among the subjects
to which your attention will be specially devoted during the present session
you will no doubt deem the adoption of some comprehensive system of finance as
being of paramount importance. The increasing public debt, the great
augmentation in the volume of the currency, with its necessary concomitant of
extravagant prices for all articles of consumption, the want of revenue from a
taxation adequate to support the public credit, all unite in admonishing us
that energetic and wise legislation alone can prevent serious embarrassment in
our monetary affairs. It is my conviction that the people of the Confederacy
will freely meet taxation on a scale adequate to the maintenance of the public
credit and the support of their Government. When each family is sending forth
its most precious ones to meet exposure in camp and death in battle, what
ground can there be to doubt the disposition to devote a tithe of its income,
and more, if more be necessary, to provide the Government with means for
insuring the comfort of its defenders? If our enemies submit to an excise on
every commodity they produce and to the daily presence of the tax-gatherer,
with no higher motive than the hope of success in their wicked designs against
us, the suggestion of an unwillingness on the part of this people to submit to
the taxation necessary for the success of their defense is an imputation on
their patriotism that few will be disposed to make and that none can justify.
The legislation of
your last session, intended to hasten the funding of outstanding Treasury
notes, has proved beneficial, as shown by the returns annexed to the report of
the Secretary of the Treasury. But it was neither sufficiently prompt nor
far-reaching to meet the full extent of the evil. The passage of some enactment
carrying still further the policy of that law by fixing a limitation not later
than the 1st of July next to the delay allowed for funding the notes issued
prior to the 1st of December, 1862, will, in the opinion of the Secretary, have
the effect to withdraw from circulation nearly the entire sum issued previous
to the last-named date. If to this be added a revenue from adequate taxation,
and a negotiation of bonds guaranteed proportionately by the several States, as
has already been generously proposed by some of them in enactments
spontaneously adopted, there is little doubt that we shall see our finances
restored to a sound and satisfactory condition, our circulation relieved of the
redundancy now productive of so many mischiefs, and our credit placed on such a
basis as to relieve us from further anxiety relative to our resources for the
prosecution of the war.
It is true that at
its close our debt will be large; but it will be due to our own people, and
neither the interest nor the capital will be exported to distant countries,
impoverishing ours for their benefit. On the return of peace the untold wealth
which will spring from our soil will render the burden of taxation far less
onerous than is now supposed, especially if we take into consideration that we
shall then be free from the large and steady drain of our substance to which we
were subjected in the late Union through the instrumentality of sectional
legislation and protective tariffs.
I recommend to your
earnest attention the whole report* of the Secretary of the Treasury on this
important subject, and trust that your legislation on it will be delayed no
longer than may be required to enable your wisdom to devise the proper measures
for insuring the accomplishment of the objects proposed.
The operations of
the War Department have been in the main satisfactory. In the report of the
Secretary, herewith submitted,† will be found a summary of many memorable successes. They are with
justice ascribed in large measure to the reorganization and re-enforcement of
our armies under the operation of the enactments for conscription. The wisdom
and efficacy of these acts have been approved by results, and the like spirit
of unity, endurance, and self-devotion in the people, which has hitherto
sustained their action, must be relied on to assure their enforcement under the
continuing necessities of our situation. The recommendations of the Secretary
to this effect are tempered by suggestions for their amelioration, and the
subject deserves the consideration of Congress. For the perfection of our
military organization no appropriate means should be rejected, and on this
subject the opinions of the Secretary merit early attention. It is gratifying
to perceive that under all the efforts and sacrifices of war the power, means,
and resources of the Confederacy for its successful prosecution are increasing.
Dependence on foreign supplies is to be deplored, and should, as far as
practicable, be obviated by the development and employment of internal
resources. The peculiar circumstances of the country, however, render this
difficult and require extraordinary encouragements and facilities to be granted
by the Government. The embarrassments resulting from the limited capacity of
the railroads to afford transportation and the impossibility of otherwise
commanding and distributing the necessary supplies for the armies render the
control of the roads under some general supervision and resort to the power of
impressment military exigencies. While such powers have to be exercised, they
should be guarded by judicious provisions against perversion or abuse and be,
as recommended by the Secretary, under due regulation of law.
I specially
recommend in this connection some revision of the exemption law of last
session. Serious complaints have reached me of the inequality of its operation
from eminent and patriotic citizens, whose opinions merit great consideration,
and I trust that some means will be devised for leaving at home a sufficient
local police without making discriminations, always to be deprecated, between
different classes of our citizens.
Our relations with
the Indians generally continue to be friendly. A portion of the Cherokee people
have assumed an attitude hostile to the Confederate Government, but it is
gratifying to be able to state that the mass of intelligence and worth in that
nation have remained true and loyal to their treaty engagements. With this
exception there have been no important instances of disaffection among any of
the friendly nations and tribes. Dissatisfaction recently manifested itself
among certain portions of them, but this resulted from a misapprehension of the
intentions of the Government in their behalf. This has been removed and no
further difficulty is anticipated.
The report of the
Secretary of the Navy, herewith transmitted, exhibits the progress made in this
branch of the public service since your adjournment as well as its present
condition. The details embraced in it are of such a nature as to render it, in
my opinion, incompatible with the public interests that they should be
published with this message. I therefore confine myself to inviting your
attention to the information therein contained.
The report of the
Postmaster-General shows that during the first postal year under our
Government, terminating on the 30th of June last, our revenues were in excess
of those received by the former Government in its last postal year, while the
expenses were greatly decreased. There is still, however, a considerable
deficit in the revenues of the Department as compared with its expenses, and
although the grants already made from the general Treasury will suffice to
cover all liabilities to the close of the fiscal year ending on the 30th of
June next, I recommend some legislation, if any can be constitutionally
devised, for aiding the revenues of that Department during the ensuing fiscal
year, in order to avoid too great a reduction of postal facilities. Your attention
is also invited to numerous other improvements in the service recommended in
the report, and for which legislation is required.
I recommend to the
Congress to devise a proper mode of relief to those of our citizens whose
property has been destroyed by order of the Government, in pursuance of a
policy adopted as a means of national defense. It is true that full indemnity
cannot now be made, but some measure of relief is due to those patriotic
citizens who have borne private loss for the public good, whose property in
effect has been taken for public use, though not directly appropriated.
Our Government,
born of the spirit of freedom and of the equality and independence of the
States, could not have survived a selfish or jealous disposition, making each
only careful of its own interest or safety. The fate of the Confederacy, under
the blessing of Divine Providence, depends upon the harmony, energy, and unity
of the States. It especially devolves on you, their representatives, as far as
practicable, to reform abuses, to correct errors, to cultivate fraternity, and
to sustain in the people a just confidence in the Government of their choice.
To that confidence and to the unity and self-sacrificing patriotism hitherto
displayed is due the success which has marked the unequal contest, and has
brought our country into a condition at the present time such as the most
sanguine would not have ventured to predict at the commencement of our
struggle. Our armies are larger, better disciplined, and more thoroughly armed
and equipped than at any previous period of the war. The energies of a whole
nation devoted to the single object of success in this war have accomplished
marvels, and many of our trials have, by a beneficent Providence, been
converted into blessings. The magnitude of the perils which we encountered have
developed the true qualities and illustrated the heroic character of our
people, thus gaining for the Confederacy from its birth a just appreciation
from the other nations of the earth. The injuries resulting from the
interruption of foreign commerce have received compensation by the development
of our internal resources. Cannon crown our fortresses that were cast from the
products of mines opened and furnaces built during the war. Our mountain caves
yield much of the niter for the manufacture of powder, and promise increase of
product. From our own foundries and laboratories, from our own armories and
workshops, we derive in a great measure the warlike material, the ordnance and
ordnance stores which are expended so profusely in the numerous and desperate
engagements that rapidly succeed each other. Cotton and woolen fabrics, shoes
and harness, wagons and gun carriages are produced in daily increasing
quantities by the factories springing into existence. Our fields, no longer
whitened by cotton that cannot be exported, are devoted to the production of
cereals and the growth of stock formerly purchased with the proceeds of cotton.
In the homes of our noble and devoted women, without whose sublime sacrifices
our success would have been impossible, the noise of the loom and of the
spinning wheel may be heard throughout the land. With hearts swelling with
gratitude let us, then, join in returning thanks to God, and in beseeching the
continuance of His protecting care over our cause and the restoration of peace
with its manifold blessings to our beloved country.
JEFFERSON DAVIS.
_______________
* See January 10, p. 309
†
See January 3, p. 279
SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series IV, Volume
2 (Serial No. 129), p. 336-50
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Please order that the Bienville must leave in two weeks,
without fail. Oh that Flag! She left the 9th of March!