CONGEESS, CONFEDERATE. 



229 



wholesome and nutritious character, at any time, and 

 report the result of the inquiry herein, in order that 

 not a moment should be lost in vindicating the honor 

 of our own Government in regard to this solemn and 

 interesting matter, and that no plausible pretext shall 

 remain for the maltreatment of our own valuable sol- 

 diers, now retained in Northern prison houses upon the 

 plea of needful retaliation. 



In explaining and urging this resolution 

 upon the Committee of the Whole, Mr. Foote 

 said that his design was to investigate facts, and 

 he had a few to offer; not to give information 

 to the enemy, but to give information to this 

 House, and to the country, that the honor of 

 the country may be protected. A certain com- 

 missary-general, who was a curse to our coun- 

 try, had been invested with authority to con- 

 trol the matter of subsistence. This man has 

 placed our Government in the attitude charged 

 by the enemy, and has attempted to starve the 

 prisoners in our hands ! Here Mr. Foote read 

 a letter from the quartermaster for the prisons, 

 Capt. J. Warner, addressed to Gen. Winder, 

 and placed on the record at Col. Quid's office, 

 which stated that he (Capt. Warner) had, from 

 the 1st to the 20th of the last month, been able 

 to obtain meat for the prisoners in a very ir- 

 regular and meagre manner from the depart- 

 ment, and that for six days only of the period 

 was he able to obtain a regular supply ; for 

 twelve days the supply was irregular and in- 

 adequate, and for eight days they got none at 

 all. This commissary-general, who, he was 

 told (continued Mr. Foote), was a sort of pep- 

 per doctor down in Charleston, and he must 

 say, looking as like a vegetarian as his practice 

 would indicate, had actually made an elaborates 

 report to the Secretary of War, showing that, 

 for the subsistence of a human Yankee carcass, 

 a vegetable diet was the most proper that could 

 be adopted. He had other facts which he 

 could bring forward, in addition to this, to 

 show that this Northrop should be turned 

 out. For the honor of the country he should 

 be ejected at once. 



The vote was then taken on the resolution, 

 and it was lost. 



In the Senate, on the llth, Mr. Brown, of 

 Mississippi, offered a resolution that the state 

 of the country demanded that the laws should, 

 without delay, be passed declaring every male 

 citizen in the military service ; to repeal the 

 laws authorizing substitutes ; to authorize the 

 President to issue his proclamation command- 

 ing all foreigners to leave the country, in sixty 

 days, or to take up arms ; to regulate details 

 for necessary civil pursuits ; to levy direct tax- 

 es ; to make Confederate notes a legal tender 

 after six months ; to prohibit the trade in 

 gold and silver and bank notes and United 

 States Treasury notes during the war, or to 

 prohibit blockade running, under heavy pen- 

 alties, and to declare these laws war measures, 

 and make those violating them amenable only 

 to military courts. 



Mr. Wigfall, of Texas, offered a resolution 

 instructing the Military Committee to inquire 



into and report upon the treatment by the 

 military authorities of prisoners of war, which 

 was agreed to. 



Mr. Phelan, of Mississippi, introduced a bill 

 which was referred to the Finance Committee 

 and ordered to be printed, providing for the 

 issue of $500,000,000 of coupon bonds in sums 

 not less than five hundred dollars, payable in 

 twenty years, and bearing interest of six per 

 cent., payable semi- annually. The coupons 

 when due to be a legal tender for all debts due 

 in dollars or other money, and a refusal to ac- 

 cept the same when tendered to apt as a dis- 

 charge to the indebtedness in payment of 

 which they are offered. 



Mr. Holcombe offered a resolution that the 

 Special Committee on the Currency consider the 

 expediency of requesting the State Banks of 

 the Confederacy to loan their respective re- 

 serves to the Confederate Government. 



Mr. Sparrow, of Louisiana, from the Military 

 Committee, reported back the following bill, 

 with the recommendation that it pass : 



The Congress of the Confederate States do enact, 

 that no person liable to the military service shall here- 

 after be permitted or allowed to furnish a substitute 

 for such service, nor shall any substitute be received, 

 enlisted, or enrolled in the military service of the Con- 

 federate States ; and that all laws heretofore passed 

 permitting or allowing persons liable to military ser- 

 vice to furnish substitutes for the same, or authoriz- 

 ing the acceptance, enlistment, or enrohnent of any 

 substitute in the military service, be and the same 

 are hereby repealed. 



Mr. Wigfall moved to strike out the last 

 clause of the bill, which being rejected, the bill 

 was passed and sent to the House. 



In the House, Mr. Foote offered several bills, 

 among them one for the repeal of the existing 

 substitute law, and one for the increase of the 

 pay of soldiers. They were referred. He also 

 introduced several resolutions, one requesting 

 the President to withdraw all diplomatic agents 

 from such foreign Governments as have not 

 recognized the Confederacy, before the first 

 day of February next, and to dismiss all for- 

 eign consuls in the country. 



Mr. Foote also introduced a resolution in re- 

 gard to unreasonable searches and seizures. 



Also a resolution that the Judiciary Com- 

 mittee inquire into the expediency of so amend- 

 ing the present law with reference to the ex- 

 change of prisoners of African descent as to 

 distinguish between those who were free when 

 the war commenced, and those who are recog- 

 nized as slaves by the laws of the Confederate 

 States. Agreed to. 



On the 18th, Mr. Goode, of Virginia, offer- 

 ed a resolution instructing the Committee on 

 the Judiciary to inquire into the expediency of 

 so amending the act to regulate impressments, 

 as to relieve sufficient bread and provisions 

 to supply the wants of the non-producers of 

 the country. 



Mr. Goode said that the agents of the com- 

 missary and quartermaster departments have 

 been recently going all over the country, and 



