210 



CONGRESS, CONFEDERATE. 



subsistence or fuel. There was, however, a 

 clause in the bill which authorized the Presi- 

 dent to exempt such free negroes as the inter- 

 ests of the country might require ; and lie was 

 wiRing to trust to the justice of the Executive 

 in this respect, and should vote for the bill. 

 He was quite as willing to trust free negroes 

 in the army as slaves, however much we might 

 be attached to the latter class. He hoped the 

 section would not be stricken out. It was his 

 intention to vote for every measure to increase 

 the anny, and he invoked the House to stand 

 Doldly up to its responsibility. If our cause 

 failed, this Congress would be handed down 

 to posterity with contempt, because it refused 

 to make use of the measures within its reach. 



Mr. Smith's amendment was lost. 



Various other amendments were proposed, 

 some of which were adopted and others re- 

 jected, and the bill finally passed. 



This measure was distinct from the proposi- 

 tion brought before the Congress, at its session 

 in November, to arm the slaves, and put them 

 in the ranks as soldiers. 



At this session the following resolutions and 

 address, introduced into the Senate by Mr. 

 Hill, of Georgia, were adopted by both Houses : 



Joint resolutions declaring the disposition, princi- 

 ples, and purposes of the Confederate States ^n rela- 

 tion to the existing war with the United States. 

 Whereas, It is due to the great cause of humanity 

 and civilization, and especially to the heroic sacri- 

 fices of their gallant army in the field, that no means 

 consistent with a proper self-respect, and the ap- 

 proved usages of nations, should be omitted by the 

 Confederate States to enlighten the public opinion 

 of the world with regard to the true character of the 

 struggle in which they are engaged, and the disposi- 

 tion, principles, and purposes by which they are ac- 

 tuated ; therefore, 



Resolved by the Congress of the Confederate States of 

 America, That the following manifesto be issued in 

 their name, and by their authority, and that the 

 President be requested to cause copies thereof to be 

 transmitted to our commissioners abroad, to the end 

 that the same may be laid before foreign Govern- 

 ments. 



Manifesto of the Congress of the Confederate States of 

 America relative* to the existing war witli the Uni- 

 ted, States. 



The Congress of the Confederate States of Amer- 

 ica, acknowledging their responsibility to the opin- 

 ion of the civilized world, to the great law of Chris- 

 tian philanthropy, and to the Supreme Ruler of the 

 Universe, for the part they have been compelled to 

 bear in the sad spectacle of war and carnage which 

 this continent has, for the last three years, exhibited 

 to the eyes of afflicted humanity, deem the present a 

 fitting occasion to declare the principles, the senti- 

 ments, and the purposes by which they have been, 

 and are still, actuated. 



They have ever deeply deplored the necessity 

 which constrained them to take up arms in defence 

 of their rights, and of the free institutions derived 

 from their ancestors ; and there is nothing they more 

 ardently desire than peace, whensoever their enemy, 

 by ceasing from the unhallowed war waged upon 

 them, shall permit them to enjoy in peace the shel- 

 tering protection of those hereditary rights, and 

 those cherished institutions. The series of successes 

 with which it has pleased Almighty God in so signal 

 a manner to bless our arms on almost every point of 

 our invaded border since the opening of the present 



campaign, enables us to profess this desire of peace 

 in the interest of civilization and humanity, without 

 danger of having our motives misinterpreted, of the 

 declaration being ascribed to any unmanly senti- 

 ment, or any mistrust of our ability fully to maintain 

 our cause. The repeated and disastrous checks, 

 foreshadowing ultimate discomfiture, which their 

 gigantic army, erected against the capital of the 

 Confederacy, has already met with, are but a con- 

 tinuation of the same providential successes for us. 

 We do not recur to the successes in any spirit of 

 vain boasting, but in humble acknowledgment of 

 that Almighty protection which has vouchsafed and 

 granted them. 



The world must now see that eight millions of peo- 

 ple, inhabiting so extensive a territory, with such 

 varied resources, and such numerous facilities for 

 defence as the benignant bounty of nature has be- 

 stowed upon us, and animated with one spirit to en- 

 counter every sacrifice of ease, of health, of prop- 

 erty, of life itself, rather than be degraded from the 

 condition of free and independent States, into which 

 they were born, can never be conquered. "Will not 

 our adversaries themselves begin to feel that human- 

 ity has bled long enough ; that tears, and blood, and 

 treasure enough have been expended in a bootless 

 undertaking, covering their own land, no less than 

 ours, with a pall of .mourning, and exposing them 

 far more than ourselves, to the catastrophe of finan- 

 cial exhaustion and bankruptcy, not to speak of the 

 loss of their liberties by the despotism engendered 

 in an aggressive warfare upon the liberties of an- 

 other and kindred people ? Will they be willing by 

 a longer perseverance in a wanton and hopeless con- 

 test, to make this continent, which they so long 

 boasted to be the chosen abode of liberty and self- 

 government, of peace and a higher civilization, the 

 theatre of the most causeless and prodigal effusion 

 of blood which the world has ever seen, of a virtual 

 relapse into the barbarism of the ruder ages, and of 

 the destruction of constitutional freedom by the law- 

 lessness of usurped power? 



These are questions which our adversaries will de- 

 cide for themselves. We desire to stand acquitted 

 before the tribunal of the world, as well as in the 

 eyes of omniscient Justice, of any responsibility for 

 the origin or prolongation of a war as contrary to 

 the spirit of the age as to the traditions and ac- 

 knowledged principles of the political system of 

 America. 



On this continent, whatever opinions may have 

 prevailed elsewhere, it has ever been held and ac- 

 knowledged by all parties that government, to be 

 lawful, must be founded on the consent of the gov- 

 erned. We were forced to dissolve our Federal con- 

 nection with our former associates by their aggres- 

 sions on the fundamental principles of our compact 

 of union with them ; and in doing so we exercised a 

 right consecrated in the great charter of American 

 liberty the right of a free people, when a Govern- 

 ment proves destructive of the ends for which it 

 was established, to recur to the original principles, 

 and to institute new guards for their security. The 

 separate independence of the States, as the sover- 

 eign and co-equal members of the Federal Union, 

 had never been surrendered, and the pretensions of 

 applying to independent communities, so constituted 

 and 'organized, the ordinary rules for coercing and 

 reducing rebellious subjects to obedience was a sole- 

 cism in terms, as well as an outrage on the principles 

 of public law. 



The war made upon the Confederate States was, 

 therefore, wholly one of aggression. On our side it 

 has been strictly defensive. Born freemen, and the 

 descendants of a gallant ancestry, we had no opinion 

 but to stand up in defence of our invaded firesides, 

 of our desecrated altars, of our violated liberties 

 and birthright, and of the prescriptive institutions 

 which guard and protect them. We have not inter- 

 fered, nor do we wish in any manner whatever, k 



