Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, was for treating the resolutions of the gentleman from North Carolina with becoming respect. They did not represent his views more than the views of his Congressional District. He thinks they are proper and right, and so think his constit uents. The debate soon began to be somewhat stormy and personal, and, after much wrangling, the resolutions were tabled by 62 ayes to 22 nays. The subject was brought up again at the next session which commenced in November. On Dec. 16th, Mr. Turner, of N. C., under a suspension of the rules, introduced resolutions that the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, be and he is hereby requested to appoint thirteen commissioners, one from each of the States of the Confederate States, to tender propositions for a conference in order to negotiate terms of peace, and failing in this, said commissioners shall use all their influence to secure an exchange of prisoners and to mitigate the horrors of the existing war. Mr. Turner supported his resolutions at some length. He did not believe that the United States Government would listen to any terms which we could offer, but believed the offer or such an effort on our part, would be most salutary in silencing the objections and murmurings of the lukewarm and faint-hearted. He did not favor separate State action. As to his State, the disaffected did not talk against the war, but against the Administration. In North Carolina the two political parties -Whigs and Democrats-had been kept alive by the discussion of the question of secession, the Democrats favoring and the Whigs opposing the measure. These party dissensions had never been quieted there, but were fanned and kept alive by the fact or supposition that those who had been most active in favor of secession, and most violent in the protestation of their determination to shed their blood, if necessary, in maintaining our independence, were now sheltered from serving the country in the field behind petty officers, under the appointment of the Confederate Government. The belief that scarcely any except Democrats had been appointed to fill the offices in the gift of the Government, had so dissatisfied the people that, although before the war the majority of the North Carolina delegation was Democratic, now only a single member of the delegation remains to represent that party, and he holds his position by the tenure of sixteen votes. The people of North Carolina and a part of Georgia had gotten it into their heads that something could be effected by peace negotiations; and if the action proposed by his resolutors had no other effect-and he confessed he did not anticipate any other-it would at least quiet the minds of many thousands of persons on the subject. Mr. Barksdale, of Miss., offered the following resolutions as a substitute for those presented by the gentleman from North Carolina: Whereas, The people of the Confederate States having been compelled, by the acts of the non-slaveholding States, to dissolve their connection with those States, and to form a new compact in order to preserve their liberties; and Whereas, The efforts made by the Government of the Confederate States, immediately upon its organi zation, to establish friendly relations between it and the Government of the United States having proved unavailing by reason of the refusal of the Government of the United States to hold intercourse with the Commissioner appointed by this Government for that purpose; and Whereas, The Government of the United States having since repeatedly refused to listen to proposi tions for an honorable peace, and having declared to foreign powers in advance that it would reject any offer of mediation which they might be prompted to make in the interest of humanity for terminating the war; and thus, having manifested their determination to continue it, with a view to the reduction of to their extermination; therefore be it the people of these States to a degrading bondage, or Resolved, That while we reiterate our readiness to enter upon negotiations for peace whenever the hearts of our enemies are so inclined, we will pursue, without faltering, the course we have deliberately chosen, and for the preservation of our liberties will employ whatever means Providence has placed at our disposal. Resolved, That the mode prescribed in the Constitution of the Confederate States for making treaties that end, whenever the Government of the United of peace afford ample means for the attainment of States abandon their wicked purpose to subjugate them, and evince a willingness to enter upon negotiations for terminating the war. Pending the consideration of which, the morning hour having expired, the subject was postponed. On the next day the question recurring upon the resolutions offered by Mr. Barksdale as a substitute for those offered by Mr. Turner, Mr. McMullen, who was entitled to the floor, offered the following resolution as a substitute for those offered by Mr. Barksdale : pendence of the United States and the Constitution Whereas, According to the Declaration of Indeof the Confederate States, the people of each of said States, in their highest sovereign capacity, have a right to alter, amend, or abolish the Government under which they live, and establish such other as they may deem expedient; and Whereas, The people of the several Confederate States have thought proper to sever their political connection with the people and Government of the United States for reasons which it is not needful here be incompatible with the dignity of the Confederate States, to send commissioners to Washington City for the purpose of securing a cessation of hostilities, yet it would be, in the judgment of this body, eminently proper that the House of Representatives of the Confederate States should despatch, without delay, to some convenient point, a body of Commissioners, thirteen in number, composed of one Representative from each of said States, to meet and confer with such individuals as may be appointed by the Government of the United States, in regard to all outstanding questions of difference between the two Governments, and to agree, if possible, upon the terms of a lasting and honorable peace, subject to the ratification of the respective Governments and of the sovereign States respectively represented therein. Mr. McMullen proceeded to address the House at considerable length, urging the policy and the propriety of the Government proposing some terms of peace to the United States Government. He believed this to be an unholy, uncivilized, barbarous war, and thought that the Government should exhaust all means Consistent with its honor for the attainment of a speedy peace. Mr. Atkins, of Tennessee, said he would like to know of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McMullen) if he or any other member of the House had one iota of information or intimation that propositions for peace would be entertained or even received by the United States Government. Mr. McMullen said that he had information of a very important character. He had information from Bishop Lay that Gen. Grant had signified to him that any Commissioners appointed by the Confederate Government would be received by the United States authorities at any point they might designate. And that an equal number of Commissioners or persons would be appointed on the part of the North to meet them, to have a free and full interchange of views upon the subject of peace. Mr. McMullen proceeded to urge that our Government should take some initial steps looking to bringing the war to a termination. Governor Brown and Vice-President Stephens had said that we were unwilling to open negotiations with the enemy for securing a peace. Let the Government open negotiations for peace. Let Congress despatch its Commissioners into the enemy's lines; let us show to the world that we are willing to accept an honorable peace, and the mouths of Governor Brown and his friends will be stopped. Without Mr. McMullen concluding his remarks, the morning hour expired, and the consideration of the subject was postponed. States of America), That the people of the Confederate States are endowed by their Creator with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these high rights governments were instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and whenever any Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness; that in these principles, embodied in the Declaration of American Independence, the United Colonies, in 1776, dissolved the connection that bound them to the Government of Great Britain, and on them the Confederate States have severed the bonds of that ple and the Government of the United States of political union which connected them with the peoAmerica, rather than submit to the repeated injuries inflicted upon them by that people, and to the usurpations of that Government, all of which had the direct object to deprive them of their rights, rob them of property secured to them by constitutional guarantees, and to establish an absolute tyranny over these States. Resolved, That the Confederate States appealed to arms in defence of these rights, and to establish these principles, only after they had in vain conjured the people and the Government of the United States, by all the ties of a common kindred, to discountenance and discontinue these injuries and usurpations, and after they had petitioned for redress in the most appropriate terms, and received in answer only a repeusurpations still more dangerous to liberty. tition of insults and injuries, which foreshadowed Resolved, That after nearly four years of cruel, desolating and unnatural war, in which the people of the Confederate States have unquestionably estheir ability to resist the attempts of the enemy to tablished their capacity for self-government, and subjugate them, this Congress does not hesitate to aver its sincere desire for peace, and to that end proclaims to the world the readiness of the Govern ment of the Confederate States to open negotiations tween the Confederate States and the United States, to establish a permanent and honorable peace beupon the basis of the separate independence of the former. Resolved, That the time has come when the Confederate Congress, in the name of the people of the Confederate States, deem it proper again to proclaim to the world their unalterable determination to be free, and that they do not abate one jot of their high resolve to die freemen rather than live slaves; and further, if the people of the United States, by reëlecting Abraham Lincoln, mean to tender to them four years more of war, or reunion with them on any terms, deeply deprecating the dire necessity so wantonly thrust upon them, and relying upon the justice of their cause and the gal lantry of their soldiers, they accept the gage of battle, and leave the result to the righteous arbitrament of Heaven. Resolved, That in view of the determination of the enemy to prosecute this horrid war still further, against which the Confederate States have at all times protested, and which the enemy have waged marked by acts of extraordinary atrocity, in viowith extraordinary vigor, and which has been lation of the usages of civilized warfare, the Congress of the Confederate States will, from this hour, dedicate themselves anew to the great cause of selfdefence against the combined tyranny of the enemy. That it shall no longer be the momentous occupation of the Congress and the people of the Confederate States, but the business of their lives, to gather together the entire strength of the country in men and material of war, and put it forth, as Resolved (by the Congress of the Confederate with the will of one man, and with an unconquer. In the Senate, on Nov. 18th, Mr. Henry, of Tennessee, introduced the following joint resolutions, declaring the determination of the Congress and the people to prosecute the war until their independence is acknowledged, which were read, ordered to be printed, and subsequently referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: On December 13th the Committee reported favorably on the resolutions, with a verbal amendment, when the resolutions were passed. In the House on Nov. 10th the subject of the employment of slaves in the armies was discussed. The views in opposition to the measure are expressed in the following remarks of Mr. Chambers, of Mississippi. The measure was debated chiefly in secret session: On motion of Mr. Chambers, of Mississippi, the special order was called up, which was the consideration of his resolution and those by Messrs. Schaun and Foote, all relating to the employment of negroes in the army. Mr. Chambers' resolution is as follows: Resolved, That the valor, constancy, and endurance of our citizen soldiers, assisted by the steady cooperation of all classes of our population not in the field, will continue a sufficient guaranty of the rights of the States, and of the independence of the Confederate States. The following is Mr. Schaun's resolution: Resolved, That in the judgment of this House no exigency now exists, nor is likely to occur in the military affairs in the Confederate States, to justify the placing of negro slaves in the army as soldiers in the field. The resolutions offered by Mr. Foote embrace a series of propositions. The propositions assert that a general levy of the slaves for soldiers is unwise; that their withdrawal from labor would be inexpedient so long as we can otherwise obtain as large an army as we can maintain; that if the alternative be presented of subjugation or their employment in the ranks, the latter should be preferred; that for the uses to which they are now applied, their ownership by the Government, with prospective emancipation by the consent of the States, as the reward of faithful service, would be expedient; that the number so employed should be increased to forty thousand; concluding with a resolution affirming that it was necessary to have the antecedent consent and sanction of the States to any attempt at conferring emancipation by the Confederate authorities. The Speaker explained that the House had decided to take up and consider all these resolutions at the same time, as they referred to the same subject. Yet the House could only vote upon one at a time. The first one in order was that of Mr. Chambers. When that was considered and disposed of, that of Mr. Schaun would come up, and so on, each taking their turn. So the resolution of Mr. Chambers coming up for consideration, that gentleman proceeded to express his views in its support. He said that the resolution offered by him only declared an abiding confidence in our citizen soldiery to maintain our cause, and that they needed no other assistance than they were receiving from all other classes cf our population. In other words, his resolution declared that they did not need the assistance of negro troops. When the President proposed to put forty thousand negroes in the field-when the member from Tennessee favored it-when the member from South Carolina said he had not made up his mind about it-the question could no longer be evaded. It must be met. The question had been raised at the end of a campaign the most successful that had ever been vouchsafed to the Confederate arms. If our army was prostrated and our people threatened with subjugation-but he did not until then-he could understand how such a proposition could be made. But why is the country agitated by it now, when the military horizon is bright and encouraging to us? [Mr. Chambers here read from that portion of the President's Message reviewing the operations of the armies east and west of the Mississippi, to show that the President himself had presented a most hopeful view of the military prospects of the South.] Continuing, Mr. Chambers said the whole matter hinged upon the simple question, “Are we approximating exhaustion?" He would lay it down as an undeniable fact, that our army was as large to-day, compared with that of the enemy, as at any time during the war. Taking both sides of the Mississippi, he believed the two armies held the same ratio as they did at the beginning of the campaign. It was said by some that our army was diminished by death, by disease, and by desertions, but it had not suffered as much from these causes as the Yankee army. He confessed that desertions in our army were great, but not half so great as in the Yankee army. There were thousands of men at home, from the non-execution of the laws, who should be in the army. The President had said in his Macon speech, that two-thirds of the army were absent. This was the subject that should demand the attention of Congress, rather than to be made the plea for employing negroes as soldiers in our armies. The authorities must be made to know, that when laws are passed by Congress they must be enforced and obeyed. Unless Congress correct the system of furlough and enforce the laws we will not be able to drive back the enemy. There are 250,000 men at home subject to military duty under the present law, and he could prove it by the papers upon his desk, if it did not consume too much time. Yet gentlemen say we are sinking, and appeal to African troops to save us! They appeal to them to come and help us to secure our independence. The President appeals to the sympathy of the negro. He held out to him the promise of a home. But the Yankee said he would give him a home and the right of property. The President can offer him no motive which the enemy cannot easily counteract by offering him a higher one. To our offer of freedom they would offer freedom and a home in the South after our subju gation, as well as exemption from military service meanwhile. How did gentlemen propose to fight negro troops? He hoped they did not propose to commingle them with our brave white soldiers. How would they fight them? Not by regiments; not by brigades; not by corps; but by companies. Place the negroes in the front; put a company here and a company there, and all mutual rivalry is lost by the interposition of this timid material, our line wavers and is swept away. Mr. Chambers said he was ashamed to debate the question. All nature cries out against it. The negro was ordained to slavery by the Almighty. Emancipation would be the destruction of our social and political system. God forbid that this Trojan horse should be introduced among us. It is not denied that the negro will fight, but will he fight well enough to resist the Yankee armies? The negro cannot be made a good soldier. The law of his race is against it. Of great simplicity, of disposition tractable, prone to obedience, and highly imitative, he may be easily drilled; but timid, averse to effort, without ambition, he has no soldierly quality. Being adapted by nature to slavery, as he makes the best of slaves, he must needs make the worst of soldiers. He could recollect no instance in the war of "76 where negro troops were used in regular organization and regular battle, except the battalion of slaves which Lord Dunmore brought into the fight near Norfolk against the Virginia militia, and in that affair, we are told by the historian Botts, they "acted shabbily, and saved themselves by flight." When, in 1793, the English landed on the island of Saint Domingo they found it defended by over twenty thousand troops, chiefly mulattoes and negroes, but with less than one thousand men captured several important strongholds, and with less than two thousand finally seized upon Port au Prince, the capital of the island. The French authorities, in their extremity, offered freedom to the slaves-over four hundred thousand in number-on condition of military service for the occasion, in defence of their homes, as we would say, yet only six thousand availed themselves of the offer, although these slaves were still bloody from the insurrection of 1790. They preferred slavery to military service. So, in the beginning of this war, the negro escaped at every opportunity to our enemies, to avoid work; but since the system of negro conscription has been adopted by the United States Government he now remains with us, true to the instincts of his race. It is not slavery he desires to avoid; it is work in any form, but especially work in the form of dangerous service. This Government possessed the war power originally possessed by all the people of the several States. With wise design they have delegated the whole, with little or no reservation. It is not too much to say that not the Czar of Russia-not even Peter the Great, whose despotism was restrained by no traditions and alarmed by no fears-could have brought into the field so promptly and thoroughly the entire war power of that despotism as this Government has elicited the war power of the several States in defence of the rights of the States. For this purpose the first gun at Fort Sumter moved them to arms; they will again fly to arms in the same sacred cause, whenever and by whomsoever menaced. When the last man shall have sunk in his tracks, when the last steed shall have fallen beneath his rider, and the last morsel of food shall have vanished from the land, then, and not till then, will the war power of this Government be exhausted. Mr. Goode, of Virginia, said he was opposed to the employment of negroes as soldiers under any circumstances. He was opposed to it because it was a confession of weakness to the enemy. He was opposed to it because he thought it would end in abolition. He was opposed to it because it was degrading to our men. He believed that the right place for Cuffee was in the corn field. At quarter-past two o'clock, on motion of Mr. Russell, of Virginia, the House went into secret session to consider a bill reported from the Judiciary Committee. A bill to arm the slaves subsequently passed the House, but was lost in the Senate by one vote. The Legislature of Virginia instructed her Senators to vote for it. Whereupon it was reconsidered in the Senate in the following form: A Bill to Increase the Military Forces of the Confeder ate States. The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession dence, and preserve their institutions, the Presi of the Confederate States, secure their independent be and he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves the services of such number of able-bodied negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct. SECTION 2. That the General-in-Chief be authorized to organize the said slaves into companies, battalions, regiments, and brigades, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of War may prescribe, and to be commanded by such officers as the President may appoint. SEC. 3. That while employed in the service the said troops shall receive the same rations, clothing, and compensation as are allowed to other troops in the same branch of the service. act, the President shall not be able to raise a suffiSEC. 4. That if, under the previous section of this cient number of troops to prosecute the war successfully and maintain the sovereignty of the States and the independence of the Confederate States, then he is hereby authorized to call on each State, whenever he thinks it expedient, for her quota of three hundred thousand troops, in addition to those subject to military service under existing laws, or so many thereof as the President may deem necessary, to be raised from such classes of the population, irrespect ive of color, in each State, as the proper authorities thereof may determine. SEC. 5. That nothing in this act shall be construed to authorize a change in the relation of the said slaves. The Senate amended it as follows: Provided, That not more than twenty-five per cent. of the male slaves between the ages of eighteen and forty-five in any State shall be called for under the provisions of this act. It was then passed and sent to the House, where the amendment was approved by the following vote: in declaring that the central Government had no power over the institution of slavery, and that freedom would be no boon to the negro. He now believed, as he had formerly said in discussion on the same subject, that arming and emancipating the slaves was an abandonment of this contest-an abandonment of the grounds upon which it had been undertaken. If this is so who is to answer for the hundreds of thousands of men who had been slain in the war? Who was to answer for them before the bar of Heaven? Not these who had entered into the contest upon principle and adhered to the principle, but those who had abandoned the principle. Not for all the gold in Cali YEAS-Messrs. Anderson, Barksdale, Batson, Baylor, Blandford, Bradley, H. W. Bruce, Carroll, Clark, Clopton, Conrad, Darden, De Jarnette, Dickinson, Dupre, Elliott, Ewing, Funsten, Gaither, Goode, Gray, Hanley, Johnston, Keeble, Lyon, Machen, Marshall, McMullen, Menees, Miller, Moore, Murray, Perkins, Read, Russell, Simpson, Snead, Staples, Triplett, and Villere-40. NAYS-Messrs. Atkins, Baldwin, Chambers, Col-fornia would he have put his name to such a yar, Cruikshank, Fuller, Gholson, Gilmer, Hartridge, Hatcher, Herbert, Holliday, J. M. Leach, J. T. Leach, Logan, McCallum, Ramsay, Rogers, Sexton, J. M. Smith, Smith of North Carolina, Turner, Wickham, Wilkes, Witherspoon, Mr. Speaker-26. When the bill was on its passage in the Senate, after the instructions of the Virginia Legislature, Mr. Hunter of Virginia said: When we left the old Government we had thought we had gotten rid forever of the slavery agitation; that we were entering into a new Confederacy of homogeneous States where the agitation of the slavery question, which had become intolerable under the old Union, was to have no place. But to his surprise he finds that this Government assumes the power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of emancipation. To the agitation of this question, the assumption of this power, he dated the origin of the gloom which now overspreads our people. They knew that if our liberties were to be achieved it was to be done by the hearts and the hands of free men. It also injured us abroad. It was regarded as a confession of despair and an abandonment of the ground upon which we had seceded from the old Union. We had insisted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, and upon the coming into power of the party who, it was known, would assume and exercise that power, we seceded. We had also then contended that whenever the two races were thrown together, one must be master and the other slave, and we vindicated ourselves against the accusations of Abolitionists by asserting that slavery was the best and happiest condition of the negro. Now what does this proposition admit? The right of the central Government to put the slaves into the militia, and to emancipate at least so many as shall be placed in the military service. It is a clear claim of the central Government to emancipate the slaves. If we are right in passing this measure we were wrong in denying to the old Government the right to interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate slaves. Besides, if we offer slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that we were insincere, were hypocritical, in asserting that slavery was the best state for the negroes themselves. He had been sincere measure as this unless obliged to do it by instructions. As long as he was free to vote from his own convictions nothing could have extorted it from him. Mr. Hunter then argued the necessity of freeing the negroes if they were made soldiers. There was something in the human heart and head that tells us it must be so; when they come out scarred from this conflict they must be free. If we could make them soldiers, the condition of the soldier being socially equal to any other in society, we could make them officers, perhaps, to command white men. Some future ambitious President might use the slaves to seize the liberties of the country, and put the white men under his feet. The Government had no power under the Constitution to arm and emancipate the slaves, and the Constitution granted no such great powers by implication. Mr. Hunter then showed from statistics that no considerable body of negro troops could be raised in the States over which the Government had control without stripping the country of the labor absolutely necessary to produce food. He thought there was a much better chance of getting the large number of deserters back to the army than of getting the slaves into it. The negro abhorred the profession of a soldier. The commandant of conscripts, with authority to impress twenty thousand slaves, had, between last September and the present time, been able to get but four thousand; and of these, thirty-five hundred had been obtained in Virginia and North Carolina, and five hundred from Alabama. If he, armed with all the powers of impressment, could not get them as laborers, how will we be able to get them as soldiers? Unless they volunteer they will go to the Yankees; if we depend upon their volunteering we can't get them, and those we do get will desert to the enemy, who can offer them a better price than we can. The enemy can offer them liberty, clothing, and even farms at our expense. Negroes now were deterred from going to the enemy only by the fear of being put into the army. If we put them in they would all go over. In conclusion, he considered that the measure, when reviewed as to its expediency, was worse than as a question of principle. |