USA > Georgia > The Confederate records of the State of Georgia, Vol 2 pt 2 > Part 24
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ARMING THE SLAVES.
The administration, by its unfortunate policy of hav- ing wasted our strength and reduced our armies, and being unable to get freemen into the field as conscripts, and unwilling to accept them in organizations with offi- cers of their own choice, will, it is believed, soon resort to the policy of filling them up by the conscription of slaves.
I am satisfied that we may profitably use slave labor, so far as it can be spared from agriculture, to do menial service in connection with the army, and thereby enable
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more free white men to take up arms; but I am quite sure any attempt to arm the slaves will be a great error. If we expect to continue the war successfully, we are obliged to have the labor of most of them in the produc- tion of provisions.
But if this difficulty were surmounted, we can not rely upon them as soldiers. They are now quietly serving us at home, because they do not wish to go in the army, and they fear, if they leave us, the enemy will put them there. If we compel them to take up arms, their whole feeling and conduct will change, and they will leave us by thousands. A single proclamation by President Lin- coln-that all who desert us after they are forced into service, and go over to him, shall have their freedom, be taken out of the army, and permitted to go into the country in his possession, and receive wages for their labor-would disband them by brigades. Whatever may be our opinion of their normal condition, or their true interest, we cannot expect them, if they remain with ns, to perform deeds of heroic valor, when they are fighting to continue the enslavement of their wives and children. It is not reasonable of us to demand it of them, and we have little cause to expect the blessings of Heaven upon our efforts if we compel them to perform such a task.
If we are right and Providence designed them for slavery, He did not intend that they should be a military people. Whenever we establish the fact that they are a military race, we destroy our whole theory that they are unfit to be free.
But it is said we should give them their freedom in case of their fidelity to our cause in the field; in other
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words, that we should give up slavery, as well as our personal liberty and State sovereignty, for independence, and should set all our slaves free if they will aid us to achieve it. If we are ready to give up slavery, I am satisfied we can make it the consideration for a better trade than to give it for the uncertain aid which they might afford us in the military field. When we arm the slaves we abandon slavery. We can never again govern them as slaves, and make the institution profitable to ourselves or to them, after tens of thousands of them have been taught the use of arms, and spent years in the indolent indulgencies of camp life.
If the General Assembly should adopt my recommen- dation by the call of a Convention, I would suggest that this, too, would be a subject deserving its serious consid- eration and decided action.
It can never be admitted by the State that the Con- federate Government has any power, directly or indi- rectly, to abolish slavery. The provision in the Consti- tution which, by implification, authorizes the Confeder- ate Government to take private property for public use only, authorizes the use of the property during the exist- ing emergency which justifies the taking. To illustrate : In time of war it may be necessary for the Government to take from a citizen a business to hold commissary stores. This it may do (if a suitable one can not be had by contract) on payment to the owner of just compen- sation for the use of the house. But this taking cannot change the title of the land, and vest it in the Government. Whenever the emergency has passed, the Government can no longer legally hold the house, but it is bound to return it to the owner. So the Government may impress
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slaves to do the labor of servants, as to fortify a city, if it cannot obtain them by contract, and it is bound to pay the owner for just hire for the time it uses them, but the impressment can vest no title to the slave in the Government for a longer period than the emergency re- quires the labor. It has not the shadow of right to im- press and pay for a slave to set him free. The moment it ceases to need his labor, the use reverts to the owner who has the title. If we admit the right of the Govern- ment to impress and pay for slaves to free them, we concede its power to abolish slavery, and change our domestic institutions at its pleasure, and to tax us to raise money for that purpose. I am not aware of the advocacy of such a monstrous doctrine in the old Con- gress by any one of the more rational class of Aboli- tionists. It certainly never found an advocate in any Southern statesman.
No slave can be liberated by the Confederate Govern- ment without the consent of the States. No such consent can ever be given by this State without a previous al- teration of her Constitution. And no such alteration can be made without a convention of her people.
OUR PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE CONDITION.
As I feel that I should act the part of an unfaithful sentinel upon the watch tower if I should flatter the country with delusive hopes, candor compels me to say that all is not well. That the people may. be aroused to the necessary effort to avert calamity, it is important that they should know and appreciate their true condi- tion. I tell them, therefore, that the whole body politic
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is diseased, and unless active remedies are administered speedily, that dissolution and death must be the inev- itable result. -
Our Constitution has been violated and trampled un- der foot; and the rights and sovereignty of the States, which had been disregarded by the Government of the United States, which formed with slavery the very foun- dation of the movement that brought into being the Con- federate Government, have been prostrated and almost destroyed by Confederate Congressional encroachment and executive usurpation.
The resolutions of the General Assembly of this State protesting against these usurpations and abuses have been unheeded and laid aside without even the courtesy of a reply.
Direct taxes of an enormous burden have been levied by Congress, without the census or enumeration impera- tively required by the Constitution, which operates upon the people of this State and other States, but have no operation upon the people of Missouri or Kentucky, who are represented especially with Georgia in the Congress by which they are imposed.
Much of our most objectionable legislation is fastened upon us by the votes of representatives who, however patriotic and true to our cause, act without responsi- bility to any constituency, out of the army, who can be affected thereby, and who can neither visit with safety nor show themselves publicly among the people whom they profess to represent, a majority of whom have given the strongest evidences of sympathy and support to the
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Government of the United States, and have been con- stantly represented in the Congress of those States.
Impressments of private property for public use, which are often necessary and proper, have been carried to an extent which is tyrannical and oppressive in the extreme. Instead of purchase, as the rule, and impress- ment, the exception, the whole property of our people is placed under the control of impressment agents, who refuse to pay "just compensation," as required by the Constitution, or even half the market value, and who pay in certificates which the Government refuses to re- ceive in payment of public dues.
By a pretended conscription, not authorized by the Constitution, the Government has placed our agricultur- alists under heavy bonds to sell to it at the impressment prices fixed by its agents, and denies to them the privi- lege to sell the fruits of their labor in open market, or to exchange them for other commodities which are neces- sary to the support of themselves and their families.
The Government disregards that provision of the Constitution which prohibits Congress from making any appropriation of money for a longer term than two years to support the armies of the Confederacy, and as a means of perpetuating the war beyond the period of the existence of the present Congress, without the assent of the people in the next elections, it proposes to pledge the tithe of the more valuable annual production of the agricultural class of our people, who are selected for the burden, for years to come for that purpose, and to con- tinue the pledge of the incomes of this particular class after the termination of the war, for the payment of
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the Treasury notes issued for the support of the armies during its existence. Few of this class make more than a tithe as net profits. In the estimate of the Secretary of the Treasury, in which he sets down the incomes of this elass at about fifty per cent., he fails to allow any credit for the vast expense of production. He estimates gross and not net incomes, and in this way shows the incomes of the planter to be much greater than those of the banker or money-holder, whose interest and divi- dends cost none of the labor and expense of production incurred by the planter.
Citizens who belong neither to the land nor naval forces of the Government, or to the militia in actual ser- vice, are arrested by provost guards and Government de- tectives, under charges of treason or other indictable of- fences, or disloyalty, without warrant or other processes from the courts, and imprisoned at the pleasure of the Government in open disregard of the Constitution, which declares that no such person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a pre- sentment or indictment of a grand jury, nor to be de- prived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, and that no warrants shall issue but upon prob- able cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the persons or things to be seized.
Good and loyal citizens, who travel on railroads, steamboats, or through towns and cities, upon lawful business, are arrested if they fail to carry passes, while Federal spies procure or forge passes, and travel over our thoroughfares at their pleasure.
In many parts of the Confederacy not in possession of the enemy, the Government has ceased to protect either
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life or property, and its own soldiers, who have left the front without discipline or control, often, united with others professing to be in service and wearing the dress of the soldier, are passing over the country in numerous bands, robbing our citizens and destroying their prop- erty.
While the old men and boys of this State, leaving im- portant home interests to suffer, have been obliged to take up arms to resist the enemy, thousands of young, able-bodied men of this and other States, between eigh- teen and forty-five years of age, are protected by Con- federate authority, on account of the wealth or other in- fluence, from service in the field, and under the pretext of some nominal employment for the Government, are allowed to remain out of reach of danger, and devote most of their time to their speculations or other individ- ual pursuits.
Our financial affairs have been so unfortunately ad- ministered that our currency is worth very little in the market; and our public faith has been so frequently and wilfully violated that it will be with great difficulty that we can re-inspire our people with confidence in the pledges of the Government. It is announced as the fu- ture policy of the financial department to issue no more Treasury notes, and to receive nothing else in payment of public dues till the quantity is reduced to healthy circu- lation. This would be beneficial to the holders of the notes. As the armies are to be supported, however, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars per annum, the announcement leaves no doubt that it is to be done in a great measure by seizing property and paying for it in certificates or bonds which will not pass as currency or
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in payment of taxes. This would be little better than legalized robbery, and if practiced long by any Govern- ment will drive the people to revolution as the only means left for throwing off intolerable burdens.
By its effort to grasp absolute power, the Confederate administration has greatly weakened our armies, and re- sults have shown its utter inability, with all the power placed in its hands, to recruit and fill them up to a num- ber sufficient to meet the emergency.
So fatal have been the results of our wretched con- scription policy, which, however well adapted to control European serfs, or those raised to be slaves of power, is so repugnant to the feelings and spirit of a free peo- ple, that it has driven our men in despair to delinquency and desertion, till the President has informed the coun- try in his Macon speech, as reported, that two-thirds of those who compose our armies are absent, most of them without leave. If this be true, it shows a lamentable want of patriotism and courage on the part of the people or an unwise and injudicious policy on the part of the administration, which imperils the very existence of the Confederacy, and calls for prompt and energetic action on the part of the people to compel a change of policy, which, if longer persisted in, must result in utter ruin.
If a planter who has one hundred faithful, trust- worthy hands upon his farm should employ an overseer to manage it, and should visit at a critical period of the crop, and find that two-thirds of his hands are, and for a considerable time have been absent, and that the crop is being lost on that account, he would doubtless decide that the policy of the overseer was ruinous to his inter-
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est and dismiss him without hesitation. The people of this Confederacy have employed an agent to conduct for them a war for the dearest rights of freemen, and have placed at his command, subject to the restraints thrown around him by the Constitutional charter, and the great principles of personal liberty which lie at the foundation of free Government, hundreds of thousands of as gal- Jant self-sacrificing citizen soldiers as ever took up arms in a righteous cause. He has adopted a policy which has ignored personal liberty and the right of citizen soldiers to go to the fields in organizations and under officers of their own choice, who have their respect and confidence. The result has been, as our agent tells us, that two-thirds of these soldiers are absent, the largest portion without leave, at a time when their absence endangers our exis- tence as a people. What then is the duty of the people of these States. The answer is plain. They should com- pel their agent to change his policy which treats free citi- zen soldiers fighting for liberty, as serfs, and to observe the great principle for which we took up arms, or they should resume the military powers with which they have clothed him, and place them in other hands where they will be used as well for the protection of the rights and liberties of the citizen as for the achievement of the independence of the Confederacy. Without this change of policy the armies cannot be recruited to the necessary number, and both liberty and independence are iost to- gether.
This ruinous policy of the administration finds no jus- tification in the Constitution of the country. From the organization of the Government of the United States to the disruption of the Union, the uniform practice was to call upon the States, when more troops than the regu-
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lar army were needed, to furnish them organized ready for service. This they could readily do, as all the ma- chinery of the State Government could be brought to bear to bring them out. Instead of enrolling officers of the Central Government imported among them, whom they knew not and who were not in sympathy with them, all the militia officers and civil officers of the counties, who are their neighbors and friends, and whom they are ac- customed to respect and obey, could be charged with the duty of aiding in the organization. Not only so, but they were permitted to go under officers of their own neigh- borhoods usually elected by them, to go with their own neighbors and relatives as their associates and companions in arms. This was not only the practical and successful mode, but it was the Constitutional one. That instru- ment declares that Congress shall have power to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the Confederate States; reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.
Pending the consideration of this paragraph in the Convention which formed the Constitution of the United States, Mr. Madison moved to amend it by inserting after the words, "reserving to the States respectfully the ap- pointment of the officers" the words "under the rank of General officers." This amendment if adopted would have left the State to appoint all officers under the rank of General, and the Federal Government to appoint the Generals. But so jealous were the States of the power and patronage which this would have given to the Federal
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executive, that they rejected it by the vote of all the States except two; and reserved to the States the appoint- ment of all the officers to command the militia, when employed in the service of the United States. And lest there should be a question about who is meant by the militia to be commanded by officers appointed by the States, when employed in the service of the Confederate States, the Constitution has solved that doubt. It says:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the se- curity of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Hence it is plain that the word militia and the word people mean the same, apply to the same persons, and are used as synonomous terms. It is clear, therefore, that the States have care- fully reserved the appointment of the officers to com- mand their arms-bearing people, when employed in the service of the Confederate States.
If the President had adhered to this mode of raising troops, as Mr. Madison, who was a prominent member of the Convention which framed the Constitution, did in the war of 1812, his patronage in the army would have been small. If on the other hand, the Constitu- tional mode were laid aside and conscription adopted in lieu of it, giving him the appointment of all officers, his patronage was immense.
It is said about six hundred Regiments, or enough of organized troops to make that number, have been re- ceived into Confederate service from all the States. Each Regiment has ten Companies, and each Company four Commissioned Officers, or forty Company Officers to each Regiment, making twenty-four thousand Company Offi-
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cers. Add to this 600 Colonels, and as many Lieut .- Colonels, Majors, Adjutants, Quartermasters and Com- missaries, (as the law then stood) together with all Chaplains, Surgeons, Brigadier-Generals, Major-Gener- als, Lieutenant-Generals; with all the Post Quartermas- ters, Commissaries, Commandants Adjutants, Marshals, etc., and the Conscript Act made about 30,000 officers dependent upon the President's will for promotion. Thus, in violation of the Constitution, the President was substituted for the States, and like the King of England, made the foundation of all honor.
To carry out this new policy of allowing the Presi- dent to appoint the officers, it became necessary to re- fuse longer to receive troops in organized bodies with their officers, but each must be conscribed and sent into service under such officers as the President might ap- point. This separated kindred and friends and neigh- bors, while in service. It destroyed the patriotic ardor of our people, each of whom prior to that time, felt that as a free man he was part of the Government, and that it was his war. But so soon as this policy was adopted . he felt that it was the Government's war, and that he was no longer a free man but the slave of absolute power. This was not the freedom he set out to fight for, and thousands of men, rather than submit to it and remain in service, feeling that they wore the collar of power upon their necks, have left the army without leave. Hence the President's complaint, the cause of which has been the necessary result of his own policy. It has mis- taken the genius and spirit of our people, and the mate- rial of which his armies are composed. The high-toned spirited Southern man will revolt when you attempt to reduce him to an automaton of power.
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Prior to the passage of this fatal Act, men taxed their ingenuity to devise plans to induce the President to receive them into service. So soon, however, as the Act was passed, which denied them the right in future to form their organizations, and enter into service as willing freemen with their neighbors and friends, and gave the President the power to seize them and appoint their officers, the whole feeling was changed, and men have restored to every imaginable shift to keep out of the service.
The excuse that conscription was necessary to keep the twelve months men in service or to fill their places, cannot avail.
The President knew months before when the term of these men would expire, and made no effort to or- ganize troops to take their places. A bill was intro- duced into the Provisional Congress by a distinguished Georgian, but a short time before its expiration in Feb- ruary 1862, authorizing the President to call forth the militia to any extent necessary, by requisition upon the States, and to call them for three years at his discretion. This would have left the appointment of the officers with the States, where the Constitution leaves it. The influ- ence of the President was actively used to defeat this bill, on the ground that he did not need the law, as he had more troops tendered than he could accept and arm. Early in April following, he called for the Conscript Act on the ground of necessity, to fill up the army, and the bill was passed, giving him the patronage and power above mentioned. If conscription had been necessary to keep the twelve months' men in service till their places could be filled, that afforded no reason why the Act
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should have embraced the whole population of the Con- federaey within military age. A special Act applicable only to the twelve months' men for a short period, till troops could have been furnished by the States to take their places, would have met that necessity. This, how- ever, would not have given the President the appoint- ment of the officers for all the troops to be organized. His neglect to call upon the States for troops to fill the places of the twelve months' men was made the occasion of vesting immense power and patronage in him, and fastening conscription with all its evils, upon the country.
The President has been as unfortunate in his gen- eralship, planning military campaigns, as he has in his policy of recruiting his armies. All remember his first appearance on the field as Commander-in-Chief at the close of the battle of First Manassas, when (if reports are reliable) he prevented our Generals from taking ad- vantage of the complete demoralization of the Federal army to march upon Washington City, when it must have fallen into our hands with little resistance. He vis- ited the army in Middle Tennessee and divided it, send- ing part of it to Mississippi too late to accomplish any good result there, and left General Bragg so weak that he was forced to evacuate Tennessee, which, together with Vicksburg, fell into the hands of the enemy. He again appeared upon the field at Missionary Ridge and divided the army when a superior force was being massed in its front. General Longstreet's corps was sent into East Tennessee. General Grant waited till he was out of reach, when he fell upon the remnant of Bragg's army and drove it back into Georgia, opening the way for the advance into this State, and then sent troops and drove
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Longstreet out of East Tennessee, and made himself master of that invaluable stronghold of the Confederacy.
The President's last appearance upon the field was with General Hood's army in this State, which was fol- lowed by the movement of that army into Tennessee. The country knows the result. Hood has been driven out of Tennessee with great calamity, and Georgia, which was left completely uncovered, has been destroyed by Sherman at his pleasure.
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