assignment of the tax, in fault of which the offender was made liable to pay 50 per cent more than the tax originally assessed.

To carry out the law, the twelfth section prescribed that the Quartermaster's Department should be divided into two branches-one denominated post quartermaster for the collection of articles paid for taxes in kind, the other for the distribution of the articles received to proper points for supplying the Army, and also for delivering the cotton and tobacco to agents of the treasury. It also required the assessors to deliver to the post quartermasters an estimate of all the articles due from each person, taking therefor a receipt which was to be forwarded through the chief collector to the auditor to be charged against the quartermaster on the settlement of his accounts.

The post quartermaster was charged with the collection of the tithes, and when unable to procure them he was required to deliver the esti mate to the district tax collector as a basis for a distress warrant, the receipt of the collector being used as a voucher in the settlement of the former's accounts.

The eighteenth and last section prescribed that the law should be in force from 1863, and two years subsequent."

While the only escape from oppression in time of war is to be found in a wise and efficient military organization, the two foregoing laws show to our statesmen that when a government has bankrupted its credit there still remains a constitutional method of carrying on military operations.

Under the Confederation, Washington was compelled in 1780 to send a general officer to New England to beg food for a famishing army. The Confederate Congress, ignoring all regard for State sovereignty, supplied its armies by laying its hands upon the property of every citizen within the limits of its authority.

April 30, under the authority "to provide and maintain a Navy," the law for impressing supplies was extended to the Navy as well as the Army."

May 1, 1863, regimental commissaries were abolished, their duties. being devolved on the regimental quartermasters."

APPROPRIATIONS.

May 1, 1863, the amount appropriated for the Confederate War Department and the departments of supply for the six months beginning July 1, 1863, and ending December 31, 1863, were as follows:

War Department, embracing compensation of the Secretary of War,

his assistants, clerks, incidental expenses, etc

Quartermaster's Department:

Pay of the Army.

Transportation of troops, etc

Other expenses.

Commissary Department (subsistence)

Ordnance Department (all its branches).

Engineer Department..

Medical Department..

$320,063.00

141, 118, 688.00 56, 447, 475. 00 1,688,020.00 130, 011, 352.00 24, 500, 000. 00 6, 000, 000. 00

4, 700, 000. 00

364, 785, 598.00

a Chap. XXXVIII.

Chap. LIV.

C Chap. LXI.

Besides the above, appropriations were made for deficiencies up to

the 30th of June as follows:

War Department (contingent and incidental expenses)

Engineer Department..

Medical Department

Ordnance Department

Indian Service and civil expenditures b

$140,000.00 2, 000, 000. 00 2, 229, 800.00 5, 000, 000.00 4,075, 692. 27

13, 445, 492. 27

ABSENTEEISM.

Another act, May 1, 1863, tended generally to absenteeism and the reduction of the army. For the purpose of furloughing and discharging "sick, wounded, and disabled soldiers in hospitals," it prescribed that in any place where there were three or more hospitals, three surgeons in charge of hospitals, or divisions in hospitals, should constitute a board of examiners, who were required to visit the hospitals and examine applicants for furloughs and discharges twice every week. In case an applicant was found unfit for duty and likely to remain so for thirty days, the board was authorized to grant a furlough not to exceed sixty days. The board was required to keep a secretary or clerk, whose duty was to issue all furloughs by order of the board,” specifying in each furlough the time, place of residence of the soldier, his company, regiment, and brigade. This furlough was the only passport required of the soldier to or from his home.

The third section read:

That the said board may recommend discharges, stating the grounds thereof, which, when approved by the Surgeon-General or the General Commanding the Army or Department to which the soldier belongs, shall entitle him to a discharge and transportation to the place of his enlistment or residence. c

If there were but two hospitals in the same place, the fourth section prescribed that the two surgeons in charge of the same, or divisions of the same, should constitute the board. If but one hospital, then the senior surgeon and the two assistant surgeons (or an assistant surgeon, in case there was but one) constituted the board, with the same power to furlough or recommend discharges as before. This law was sufficient of

The appropriation for interest on the public debt was $20,000,000.

Included in this amount was the sum of $5,825, due to the State of Louisiana for excess of war tax paid by her into the Confederate Treasury under the war-tax act of August 19, 1861. This act was based on the theory of confederation, the State being permitted to pay the total amount of tax, less 10 per cent assessed by the Confederate agents upon the people of the States, but like every other effort to carry on war through the cooperation of the States, it had to be abandoned.

Chap. LXIX, sec. 4, p. 154.

itself to neutralize much of the military strength given to the Confederacy by the laws of conscription and impressment. A general might see his ranks filled up by recruits or conscripts, but the moment one left the army and succeeded in getting into a hospital all control over him was lost. A corrupt clerk could forge and grant furloughs by the hundred, while under the alternative form of the law every discharge could be granted by the surgeon-general.

With such possibilities for abuse it hardly need be said that laws of this character do more to exhaust and dissipate the military recources of a people than repeated blows inflicted by the enemy.

A third act, May 1, 1863, authorized the establishment of a military court in each department, organized in the same manner as those provided for each army corps by the act of October 9, 1862."

CONSCRIPTION.

A fourth act increased the rigors of conscription. Setting aside State authority, it repealed so much of the law of October 11, 1862, as exempted from military service

one person either as agent, owner, or overseer of each plantation, on which one white person is required to be kept by the laws or ordinances of any State, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to military service;

the exemption of one person for each plantation of twenty or more negroes in States having no laws requiring the same was also repealed. The second section, for the police and management of slaves," permitted under certain conditions, the exemption of one person for each plantation of twenty or more slaves, provided it was found impossible to procure an overseer not liable to military duty, but for every person thus exempted the owner of such slaves was required to pay annually into the public treasuary the sum of $500.

The fourth was as follows:

In addition to the State officers exempted by the act of October 11, 1862, there shall also be exempted all State officers whom the governor of any State may claim to have exempted for the due administration of the government and the laws thereof; but this exemption shall not continue in any State after the adjournment of the next regular session of its legislature unless such legislature shall by law exempt them from military duty in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States.

Those who hold to the theory of State sovereignty will observe that the exemption of State officers was a concession granted by the Confederate Congress, and that had the public safety demanded it every officer essential to the operations of State government could have been held to military service.

April 4, 1863, a joint resolution expressing —

the deliberate judgment of Congress that the people of these States, while hoping for peace, should look to prolonged war as the only condition proffered by the enemy short of subjugation,

earnestly recommended that the people instead of planting cotton and tobacco should direct their agricultural labor mainly to the production of such crops as would insure a sufficiency of food for all classes and for every emergency.

@Chap. LXXVII.

b Chap. LXXX, sec. 4, p. 159.

FOURTH SESSION, FIRST CONFEDERATE CONGRESS.

The fourth session of the First Confederate Congress began at Richmond, December 7, 1863, and ended February 18, 1864.

December 28, 1863, the first act authorized the producers of sweet potatoes for the year 1863 to pay commutation in money in lieu of the tax in kind, amounting to 10 per cent, the commutation value to be fixed by the commissioners under the impressment act."

A second act authorized assistant quartermasters and agents engaged in the collection of taxes in kind to accept salt pork in lieu of bacon."

A third act the same day abolished substitution. It prescribed:

That no person liable to military service shall hereafter 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 Confederate States.

January 5, 1864, the merciless demands of a weak and extravagant military system were again illustrated in an act—

to put an end to the exemption from military service of those who have heretofore furnished substitutes.

Whereas in the present circumstances of the country it requires the aid of all who are able to bear arms: Therefore,

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That no person shall be exempted from military service by reason of having furnished a substitute; but this act shall not be so construed as to affect persons who, though not liable to render military service, have nevertheless furnished substitutes.d

January 22, 1864, any person not subject to the rules and articles of war, who should be convicted before a district court of the Confederate States of having enticed soldiers to desert, harbored deserters, or purchased from any soldier his army equipments or clothing, was made liable to a fine not exceeding $1,000 and imprisonment not exceeding

two years."

February 3, 1864, the Confederate President was authorized at any time to assign judges from one military court to another as in his judg ment the service might require.

February 6, another act relating to military courts prescribed:

That commanders of corps and departments be, and they are hereby, authorized to detail field officers as members of military courts whenever any of the judges of said courts shall be disqualified by consanguinity or affinity, or unable from sickness or other unavoidable cause to attend said courts.f

February 15, 1864, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in all cases arising out of the war, the suspension to be continued till ninety days after the next meeting of Congress.

February 16, 1864, the authority to appoint military courts was further increased. The law prescribed:

That in addition to the military courts now authorized by law, the president be, and he is hereby, authorized to appoint a military court to attend any division of cavalry in the field, and also one for each State within a military department, whenever in his judgment such courts would promote the public interest; which courts shall be organized and have the same powers and duties and the members thereof appointed as provided by law.

February 17, the proceedings of military courts, as in the case of general courts-martial, were made subject to the review of army commanders whenever the armies consisted of two or more corps. The jurisdiction of the courts without reference to the corps to which it was attached was extended to all offenders below the grade of lieutenant-general.

A second act February 17, authorized the Confederate President to appoint one general in the Provisional Army for the command of the trans-Mississippi Military Department; also as many lieutenant-generals as he might deem necessary to command any one or more of the military departments.

These officers were to hold the increased grade so long as they should "efficiently discharge the duties in command of said several departments," in default of which they were to resume their former rank."

A third act as to army commanders in time of war to approve and execute all sentences of general courts-martial, whether of life or death, except those relating to a general officer; the latter were to be forwarded for the approval and orders of the Confederate President."

IMPRESSMENTS.

A fourth act increased the power of impressment. Its first and second sections read:

That whenever the President shall declare that the public exigencies render it necessary, impressments of meat for the use of the Army may be made from any supplies that may exist in the country, under the express condition that just compensation shall be afforded to the owner of the meat taken or impressed, and subject to the following restrictions and limitations:

SEC. 2. The power to direct such impressment shall be conferred upon the secretary of war, but he shall not reduce the supplies of any person below one-half of the quantity usually allowed for the support of himself, his family, and dependents for the year. He shall exercise the said power by orders directed to the officers or agents he may employ, who shall have explicit instructions as to the mode of its execution, and injunctions that the same shall not be abused. ©

When the owner and the impressing officer could not agree upon the amount of meat liable to impressment and the just compensation for the same, the difference was to be settled by the arbitration of two or three persons who were to perform their duty under oath. For the meat seized, vouchers were to be given to the owner, to be— promptly paid by the disbursing officer of the command for which the meat was taken, or by the chief of the bureau having charge of disbursements for similar objects, d

APPROPRIATIONS.

The appropriations for the second six months of the fiscal year ending the 13th of June, 1864, showed no reduction in the War Department.