254 



CONFEDERATE STATES. 



acres. I am, of course, unable to report as accurately 

 respecting the crops of other States, but the best in- 

 formation at my command strongly induces the belief 

 that the entire crop gathered this year did not exceed 

 1,000,000 bales, proving the correctness of the approxi- 

 mate estimate transmitted to your lordship in my de- 

 spatch, No. 16, of the 10th of May last. 



The crop of 1861 was estimated at 4,500,000 bales. 

 Deducting from the crops of 1861 and 1862 the quantity 

 of cotton which has run the blockade, the amount 

 destroyed to prevent capture by the Federalists, and 

 the quantity used for home consumption, which, since 

 the commencement of the war, has enormously in- 

 creased, being now fully 500,000 bales per annum, it 

 will leave in the South not more than 3,500,000 bales. 

 The urgent necessity for the cultivation of breadstuffs 

 since the Federal occupation of Kentucky and the best 



frain growing regions of Virginia, Tennessee and 

 orth Carolina, and the consequent strong popular 

 opposition to the planting of cotton, together with 

 other causes of hardly less importance, such as the 

 entire want of bagging and rope necessary to put the 

 cotton into merchantable condition, will tend here- 

 after to prevent any increase in the stock, possibly to 

 diminish it ; while, should the Federals succeed in mak- 

 ing farther advances into the interior of the cotton 

 growing States, the cultivation of that plant will be 

 entirely abandoned, and the negroes removed to the 

 mountainous districts, where breadstuffs alone can be 

 raised. E. MOLYNEUX. 



The manufacturing industry of these States 

 became more extensive than ever before, and in 

 some branches more highly developed. The 

 necessities of the Government and people, and 

 the advancing prices, furnished a most power- 

 ful stimulant. Munitions of war and manufac- 

 tures of cotton constituted the most impor- 

 tant branches of this industry. 



The high postage imposed by the Govern- 

 ment greatly reduced the correspondence of 

 the people, who were forbidden to transmit 

 letters in any other manner than through the 

 mails. The advance in the rates was made in 

 order to enable the department to defray its 

 expenses with its receipts. The effect, how- 

 ever, was to reduce the receipts and increase 

 the demands of the department. The Govern- 

 ment now had the choice either to reduce the 

 amount of mail service exacted of the depart- 

 ment, or to contribute to its expenses from 

 the treasury. The President doubted the 

 constitutionality of the latter measure and re- 

 ferred the subject to Congress. The Constitu- 

 tion says : 



Congress shall have power to " establish post offices 

 and post routes ; but the expenses of the Post Office 

 Department, after the 1st day of March, in the year of 

 our Lord eighteenth hundred and sixty-three, shall 

 be paid out of its own revenues." 



Congress took into consideration the mean- 

 ing of the word " expenses," and thus avoiding 

 the constitutional question, recommended a loan 

 to the department, for payment of the interest 

 and principal of which its revenues should be 

 pledged. The postage stamps were imported 

 from England ; so stringent was the blockade 

 that some of the colors required in their manu- 

 facture could not be obtained within the Con- 

 federacy. 



Martial law was proclaimed at Richmond, 

 Norfolk, and other places during the year. 



This was done by proclamations of the Presi- 

 dent, of which the following is the form stating 

 that it is done by the authority of Congress : 



By virtue of the power vested in me by law to de- 

 clare the suspension of the privilege of the writ of 

 habeas corpus in cities threatened with invasion, I, Jef- 

 ferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of 

 America, do proclaim that martial law is hereby ex- 

 tended over the City of Richmond and the adjoining and 

 surrounding country to the distance of ten miles, and 

 I do proclaim the suspension of all civil jurisdiction, 

 with the exception of that of the Mayor of the City, 

 and the suspension of the privilege of the writ of 

 habeas corpus within the said city and surrounding 

 country to the distance aforesaid. 



The subject of conciliating the northwestern 

 States by the free navigation of the Mississippi 

 river and the opening of the markets of the 

 South to the inhabitants of those States upon 

 certain terms and conditions, was the first 

 proposition suggested toward a settlement of 

 the difficulties. This was considered in Con- 

 gress. (See CONGRESS, CONFEDERATE.) 



The relations of the Confederate States to 

 foreign nations during the year are seen from 

 the speeches and letters of their agents. Mr. 

 Yancey, on his arrival at New Orleans on the 

 17th of March, made an address to the citizens, 

 which is thus stated : 



He remarked, on rising, that it was within ten days 

 of a year since he left the country as the representa- 

 tive of the Confederate States to endeavor to procure 

 the recognition of that independence for which his 

 countrymen were gallantly contending. 'He should 

 undoubtedly surprise his auditors when he told them 

 that they had no friends in Europe ; that they must 

 depend for the accomplishment of the end for which 

 they are striving upon themselves alone. And what 

 he said of European feeling with regard to this Con- 

 federacy was equally true of its feeling toward the 

 North, whose people, whose Government, and whose 

 press, the statements and writings of whose public 

 men and literary writers they believed to be altogether 

 mendacious. The sentiment of Europe was anti-sla- 

 very, and that portion of public opinion which formed 

 and was represented by the Government of England 

 was abolition. 



At the same time it is very well understood and be- 

 lieved that the pretexts upon which this war was 

 inaugurated and is carried on against us were utterly 

 false. They would never recognize our independence 

 until our conquering swords hung dripping over the 

 prostrate heads of the North. Their opinion of the 

 character of the people of these States, and of the 

 cause in which we are engaged, was derived altogether 

 from Northern sources. They never see the journals 

 and the periodicals of the South, and all the accounts 

 with regard to us come to them filtered through those 

 of the North. They believed that we are a brave and 

 determined people, and that we are resolved upon ob- 

 taining our independence by the most unyielding 

 devotion to the cause in which we are contending. 

 But they would like to see the two Confederacies crip- 

 pled by the war, and so would give aid to neither. He 

 alluded to the erroneous and hostile opinions entertain- 

 ed in England with regard to the people of these 

 States, which had been sedulously inculcated by the 

 North, by whom we were habitually represented as 

 cruel, lawless, and oppressive; that the owner had 

 the liberty to treat his slaves without reference to the 

 laws of society or nature, and that the slaves were 

 bred as the English breed their Durham cattle, &c. 



As to the blockade, he said that the nations of Eu- 

 rope would never raise it until it suited their interest. 

 In his own private opinion, he believed that that 

 necessity would occur by a very early day. He said 



