upon the value thereof, it shall be the duty of such impressing officer, upon an affidavit in writing of the owner of such property, or his agent, that such property was grown, raised, or produced by said owner, or is held or has been purchased by him, not for sale or speculation, but for his own use or consumption, to cause the same to be ascertained and determined by the judgment of two loyal and disinterested citizens of the city, county, or parish in which such impressments may be made; one to be selected by the owner, one by the impressing officer, and in the event of their disagreement, these two shall choose an umpire of like qualifications, whose decision shall be final. The person thus selected, after an oath to appraise the property impressed fairly and impartially (which oath, as well as the affidavit provided for in this section, the impressing officer is hereby authorized to administer and certify), shall proceed to assess just compensation for the property so impressed, whether the absolute ownership or the temporary use thereof only is required. On seizing the property, the officer was required to pay for it at the price appraised, or in lieu, give vouchers payable by the proper disbursing officer of the Department. If impracticable to appraise the property at the time of impressment, its value was subsequently to be appraised under oath, by two or three arbitrators selected as before. The fifth section prescribed that the Confederate President should appoint a commissioner for each State and request the governor to appoint another, the two commissioners to receive a compensation of $8 per day and mileage at 10 cents per mile, to be paid by the Confederate Government. The commissioners were to constitute a board, whose duty it was-to fix upon the prices to be paid by the Government for all property impressed or taken for the public use as aforesaid, so as to afford just compensation to the owners thereof. The commissioners were also required to "agree upon and publish a schedule of prices every two months," and in case they could not. agree, they were empowered to appoint an umpire to decide the matter in dispute, whose decision shall be the decision of the board, the umpire to receive while so employed the same compensation as the commissioners. The closing part of the section shows with what care the Confederate Congress provided against the possible lukewarmness or opposition of any of the States. It read: That said commissioners shall be residents of the State for which they shall be appointed; and if the governor of any State shall refuse or neglect to appoint said commissioner within ten days after a request to do so by the President, then the President shall appoint both commissioners, by and with the advice and consei† of the Senate." The seventh section regulated the quantity of supplies and propertv to be exempted from seizure. It read: That the property necessary for the support of the owner and his family, and to carry on his ordinary agricultural and mechanical business, to be ascertained by the appraisers, to be appointed as provided in the first section of this act, under oath, shall not be taken or impressed for the public use; and when the impressing officer and the owner can not agree as to the quantity of property necessary, as aforesaid, then the decision of the said appraisers shall be binding on the officer and all other ⚫ persons.c The ninth section permitted the impressment of slaves, "to labor on fortifications or other public works," but no impressment was to be a Third session First Congress, Chap. X, first section, p. 102. b Ibid, fifth section, p. 103. Ibid, section 7, pp. 103, 104. made when they could be hired or procured by the consent of the owner or agent. To guard against an abuse of power, the eleventh and last section read: That any commissioned or noncommissioned officer or private who shall violate the provisions of this act shall be tried before the military court of the corps to which he is attached, on complaint made by the owner or other person; and on conviction of an officer he shall be cashiered and put into the ranks as a private, and if a noncommissioned officer or private, he shall suffer such punishment not inconsistent with military law as the court may direct. a April 13, 1863, the punishment of any soldier "by whipping or the infliction of stripes upon his person" was prohibited. TAXATION. April 24, an act was approved to levy taxes for the common defense and carry on the government of the Confederate States. The fifth section prescribes that for the year ending December 31, 1863, and for each subsequent year, a tax either of money or moneys, and a percentage on the gross amount of sales should be levied on each trade, business, or occupation as follows: Bankers, $500; auctioneers, $50 and 24 per cent; wholesale dealers in liquors and wines of all kinds, $200 and 5 per cent; retail dealers, $100 and 10 per cent; retail dealers of groceries or merchandise, $50 and 24 per cent; wholesale dealers of groceries or merchandise, $200 and 24 per cent; pawnbrokers, $200; distillers, $200 and 20 per cent; brewers, $100 and 24 per cent; hotels, first class, $500; hotels, second class, $300; hotels, third class, $200; hotels, fourth class, $100; hotels, fifth class, $30; brokers, $200; commercial brokers and commission merchants, $200 and 24 per cent; tobacconists, $50 and 24 per cent; circuses, $100 and $10 for each exhibition; jugglers, $50; bowling alleys and billiard rooms, $40; livery stables, $50; cattle brokers, $50 and 24 per cent; butchers, $50 and 1 per cent; peddlers, $50 to $100 and 2 per cent; jewelers, apothecaries, photographers, and confectioners, $50 and 24 per cent each; lawyers and physicians, $50 each. The seventh section imposed an income tax of 1 per cent on the salaries of all persons not in the military or naval service, when the gross amount did not exceed $1,500 per annum, and 2 per cent for salaries above that amount. The eighth section imposed a tax on all incomes derived from business as follows: Over $500 and not exceeding $1,500, 5 per cent; over $1,500 and less than $3,000, 5 per cent on the first $1,500 and 10 per cent on the excess; over $3,000 and less than $5,000, 10 per cent; over $5,000 and less than $10,000, 124 per cent; over $10,000, 15 per cent. All farmers and planters after deducting for their families 100 bushels of corn, 50 bushels of sweet potatoes, 50 bushels of Irish potatoes, 50 of wheat, and 20 bushels of pease or beans, were required to deliver to the agents of the government a tithe of all wheat, corn, tobacco, sugar, cotton, and all other articles of consumption produced by them. The tithes imposed by the eleventh section were to be delivered at depots not more than 8 miles distant within two months after the 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 estimate 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, 688.00 364, 785, 598. 00 a Chap. XXXVIII. Chap. LIV. 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 ↳. $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, 1361. 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. Chap. LXXX, sec. 4, p. 159. |