Message of Hfs Sxcell; 
 
 Joseph E. Brown 
 

 
 
 
 PERKINS LIBRARY 
 
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MESSAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 TO THE 
 
 
 HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN, ; 
 
 
 . 
 
 EXTRA SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE* 
 
 CONVENED MARCH 10TH, 1864, 
 
 Upon the Guerengt Act; Secret sessions of C 
 gress; The late Conscription Act ; The Un- 
 constitutionality of the Act suspending 
 hie privilege of the writ of nabeas 
 corpus, in cases of illegal ar- 
 rests made by the president j 
 tlie causes of the war and manner of conduct- 
 ING it ; And the terms upon which peace. 
 
 SHOULD BE SOUGHT, &C. 
 
 $»«&i^iv«r' 
 
 BOUGHTON, NISBET, BARNES & MOORE, State Printer 
 
 MILLXDOEVILLE, Gk., 
 
 I 36 1 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 i 
 
V*J clif J*»«| 
 

 MESSAGE 
 
 EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, } 
 Milled ge vi lLe, Ga*., March 10th 1804. I 
 
 7o the Senate, and House of Ileprescntaf/r, s : 
 
 The patriotic zeal exhibited by you at your late session, 
 for the promotion of the interest and protection of the liberties 
 of the country, and the personal kindness and official cour- 
 tesy which I received at your hands, and for which I renew 
 ipy thanks, have satisfied me that laying aside all past par- 
 ty names, issues, and strifes, your object, as legislators is to 
 discharge faithfully your official duties, and to sacrifice all 
 private interests and personal preferences, to the public 
 good. In view of these considerations, I feel that I can re- 
 ly upon your counsels as a tower of strength in time of 
 darkness and gloom. I have therefore convened you that I 
 may have Jhe benefit of your advice and assistance, at this 
 critical juncture in our State and Confederate affairs. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION OF COIIN TO INDIGENT SOLDIERS FAMILIES. 
 
 Since your adjournment experience has shown that it is 
 not possible without assistance from the State, which will 
 require further .legislation, for the agents of the counties 
 where there is great scarcity of provisions, to secure trans- 
 portation for the corn purchased in South Western and Mid- 
 ale Georgia, to the places where it is needed. To meet 
 this difficulty, I respectfully recommend t^ie passage of a 
 law, authorizing the Quarter-Master General of this State; 
 or such other officer as the Governor may from time to 
 time designate, under the order of the Governor, to take pos- 
 session of and control any cf the Rail Roads in the State, 
 with their rolling stock, or any other available conveyance, 
 and require that corn or other provisions, for the needy or 
 for the county agents for soldiers families, be transported in 
 preference to all other articles or things ; except the troops, 
 And the supplies necessary for the support of the armies of 
 the Confederate Stales, and that the act provide for the 
 payment of just compensation, for the use of such means of 
 transportation, while in possession of the authorized offi- 
 •cers of this State — the compensation to be paid out of the 
 i.money already appropriated as a relief fund, by the agents 
 
 nn a i\ il 
 
or persons at whose request the transportation may be fur- 
 nished. 
 
 Experience has also proved that the counties of North Eas- 
 tern Georgia most remote from the Railroad cannot obtain 
 sufficient means of transportation to carry the corn from the 
 Rail Road to the place of consumption. The scarcity of 
 teams -is owing to the fact that their horses have been 
 taken for cavalry service, and their oxen have been im- 
 pressed for beef for the army. Finding that there was- 
 likely to be much suffering in that section for bread for 
 soldiers' families, I ordered the energetic Quartet Master 
 General of the State, to .purchase teams and wagons by 
 drafts upon themilitary fund, and aid those most destitute, 
 and most remote from the Rail Road in the transportation 
 of the corn. If this action is approved by the Legislature, 
 as I trust it will be, the teams now about ready for use, 
 can be employed in this service for a portion of the year. 
 If not approved they will at any time command more in 
 the market than they cost the State, if not needed for mili- 
 tary uses. 
 
 KELIEF FUND FOR SOLDIERS' FAMILIES. 
 
 I am satisfied 'that the'indigent families of soldiers, in 
 many of the counties of this State, are not receiving the 
 benefits to which they are entitled, on account of the neg- 
 lect or mismanagement of the Inferior Courts. Six millions 
 of dollars have been appropriated for this purpose, for the 
 present year, which if properly applied, is sufficient to pre- 
 vent any actual suffering. Complaints come up constantly 
 that adequate provisions are not made for the needy. In 
 many cases, I have no doubt, these complaints ar j welt 
 founded. As evidence of the neglect of part of the Courts, 
 it may be proper to state, that great as the destitution is 
 among those entitled to the iund, the amount due for the 
 last quarter of last year, has not in some cases been appli- 
 ed for. Some courts have not yet sent in their reports of 
 the number entitled for the present year; so as to enable- 
 me to have the calculation made; and the amount due each 
 county ascertained; while many of the counties have made- 
 no application for any part of the fund appropriated for this 
 year. 
 
 While the Governor has power, to require the courts to 
 make reports, of the disposition made of f the fund, in cases- 
 where he suspects it is being improperly applied; and to- 
 withhold payments to the courts in such cases; he has no 
 power to compel the courts to do their duty, nor can he 
 take the fund from them and appoint any other person or 
 agent to distribute it among those for whom if is intended. 
 If the courts fail to act, the law makes no other provision 
 for the distribution of the fund. Unless some better plan 
 is adopted, I am satisfied the objects of the Legislature, will 
 
be very imperfectly carried out, in many of the counties; 
 and the needy will not receive the benefits of the liberal 
 provision made for them, by the appropriation. As it may 
 be necessary to provide for the appointment of active reli- 
 able agents in the counties, to assist the courts, or to take 
 charge of the fund in case of neglect, or mismanagement 
 by them; I respectfully suggest that provision should be 
 made for commissioning all such, as oflicersof this State, so 
 as to protect them against conscription. It will be im- 
 possible to relieve the needy, if our most valuable county 
 agents, are taken from the discharge of their important du- 
 ties by the enrolling officers of the Confederacy. 
 
 Provision should also be made for the removal from of- 
 fice, of all Justices of the Inferior Courts, who neglect or 
 refuse to discharge their duties promptly and faithfully. 
 
 COTTON PLANTING. 
 
 Having on former occasions, brought the question of far- 
 ther restriction of Cotton planting to the attention of the 
 General Assembly, I feel a delicacy in again recurring to 
 that subject. The present prices 6f provisions, and the 
 great importance of securing a continued supply of the ne- 
 cessaries of life, are my excuse for again earnestly recom- 
 mending, that the law be so changed, as to make it highly 
 penal, lor any person to plant or cultivate in Cotton, more 
 than one quarter ot an acre to the hand, till the end of the 
 war. 
 
 This additional restraint h not necessary, to control the 
 conduct of the more liberal and patriotic portion of our peo- 
 ple; but there are those, who for the purpose of making a 
 little more money, will plant the last seed allowed by law, 
 without stopping to enquire, whether they thereby, endan- 
 ger the liberties of the people, and the independence of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 To control the conduct of this class of persons, and to the 
 extent of our ability to provide against the possible contin- 
 gency of a failure of supplies in future, I feel it to be an 
 imperative duty, again to urge upon your consideration, the 
 importance of the legislation above recommended. 
 
 ILLEGAL DISTILLATION. 
 
 I beg leave again to call the attention of the General As- 
 sembly, fcp-the illegal distillation of grain into spirituous li- 
 quors. 80 great are the profits realized by those engaged 
 in this business, that the law is evaded in every way that 
 ingenuity can devise; and I am satisfied that the evil can not 
 be effectually suppressed without farther and more string- 
 ent legislation, feome of the Judges have ruled, that the 
 act passed at your last Session) does not give them author- 
 ity to draw and compel the attendance of a jury, out of the 
 regular term time of the Court, to try the question of nuis- 
 
ance; while some public officers have shown no disposition 
 to act, for fear of incurring the ill-will of persons of wealth 
 and influence, who. are engaged in the daily violation of the 
 law. 
 
 Distillers in some parts of the State, are paying ten dol- 
 lars per bushel for Corn to convert into Whiskey; while 
 soldiers' families, and other poor persons are suffering for 
 bread. r 
 
 I renew the expression of my firm conviction, that the 
 evil can only be effectually suppressed by the seizure of the 
 stills. We now need copper for the use of the State Road, 
 and fed! military uses, and I earnestly request, that an act 
 be passed, authorizing the Governor, to impress all the 
 stills, in the State, which he has reasonable ground to sus- 
 pect have been used in violation of the law; and convert 
 them into such material, for the Road, and implements of 
 war, as the State may need; and that he be authorized to 
 use all the military force necessary to accomplish the ob- 
 ject; and that provision be made for paying the owner just 
 compensation for such stills when seized. I also recom- 
 mend that provision be made for annulling the commission 
 of any civil, or military officer of this State, who fails to 
 exercise vigilance, and to discharge his duty faithfully in 
 the execution of the law against illegal distillation. 
 
 IMPRESSMENT OF PROVISIONS. 
 
 Since ycurlast Session, experience has proven, that from 
 distrust of the currency or from other cause, many {danters 
 have refused to sell corn, or ofher provisions, not necessary 
 for their own use, to State or county agents, for the market 
 price when offered, while soldiers' families have been suffer- 
 ing for provisions. 
 
 I recommend the enactment of a law. authorizing State of- 
 ficers, under the direction of the Governor, to make impress- 
 ments of provisions in all such cases, and providing for the 
 payment of just compensation to the owners of the property 
 impressed. 
 
 SEAVES ESCAPING TO THE ENEMY. 
 
 The official reports of Federal officers, are said to show 
 that the enemy now has 50,000 of our slaves employed 
 against us. If these 50,000 able bodied negroes, had been 
 carried into the interior by their owners, when the enemy 
 approached the locality, where they were employed; and 
 put to work, clearing land and making' provisions, we 
 should to-day have been 50,000 stronger and the enemy that 
 much weaker, making a difference of 100,000 in the present 
 relative strength of the parties to the struggle. When a. 
 negro man worth $1,000 upon the gold basis, escapes to the- 
 enemy, that sum of the aggregate wealth of the State, upon, 
 which she should receive taxes is lost,— one laborer who* 
 
7 
 
 should be employed in the production of provisions is also 
 lost, while one laborer, or one more armed man, is added to 
 the strength of the enemy. 
 
 It is therefore unjustifiable and unpatriotic, for the owner 
 to keep his negroes, within such distance of the enemy's 
 lines as to make it easy for them to escape. This should 
 not "be permitted; and to prevent it in future, such laws 
 should be enacted, as may be necessary to compel their re- 
 moval by the owner in such case or to provide for their for- 
 feiture to the State. 
 
 No man has a right to so use his own property, so as to 
 weaken our strength, diminish our provision supply; and 
 add recruits to the arnly of the enemy. 
 
 DESERTION OF OUR CAUSE BY REMOVALS WITHIN THE EN- 
 EMY'S LINE. 
 
 I am informed that a number of persons in the portion of 
 our State, adjoining to East Tennessee, have lately removed 
 with their families within the lines of the enemy; and carri- 
 ed with them their movable property. Those persons have 
 never been loyal to the cause of the South; and they now 
 avail themselves of the earliest opportunity to unite with 
 the enemies of their State. 
 
 I recommend the enactment of a law, providing for the 
 confiscation of the property of all such persons; and that all 
 such property be sold, and the proceeds of the sale, applied 
 to the payment of damages, done to loyal citizens of the 
 same section; whose property has been destroyed, by raids 
 of the enemy, or by armed bands of torics. 
 
 I am also informed, that some disloyal persons in that sec- 
 tion, have deserted from our armies; or avoiding service have 
 left their families behind, and gone over to the enemy, and 
 are now under arms against us. I am happy to learn that 
 the 'number of such persons is very small. I recommend 
 the confiscation of the property of this class of persons also, 
 and in case they have left families behind, that arc a charge 
 to the county, that no part of the relief fund be allowed 
 them; but that they he carried to the enemy's lines, and 
 turned over to those in whose cause their husbands now 
 serve. 
 
 I also recommend the enactment of such laws, as shall for- 
 ever disfranchise and decitizenize all persons of both classes, 
 should they attempt to return to this State. 
 
 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 The late action of the Congress of the Confederate 
 States upon the subject of the currency has rendered fur- 
 ther legislation necessary in this State upon that question. 
 It can not be denied that this act has seriously embar- 
 rassed the financial system of this State, and has shaken 
 the confidence of our people in either the justice of the late 
 
3 
 
 fUxagre&sor its competency to manage our financial affairs. 
 Probably the history of the past furnishes few more strik- 
 ing .instances of unsound policy combined with bad faith. 
 
 The Government issues its Treasury note for $100, and 
 hinds itself two years after a treaty of peace, between the 
 Confederate States and the United States, to pay the bear- 
 er that snm ; and stipulates upon*the face of the note, that 
 it is fundable in Confederate States stocks or bonds; and 
 receivable in payment of all public dues except export du- 
 (tiea. The Congress while the war is still progressing, pas- 
 ses astatutethatthis bill shall be funded in about forty days 
 or one third of it shall be repudiated, and that a tax of ten 
 per cent a month shall be paid for it after that time by the 
 holder, and it shall no longer be receivable in payment of 
 public dues, and if it is not funded by the 1st of January next, 
 the whole debt is repudiated. Did the holder take the 
 cote, with any such expectation ? Was this the contract, 
 xm.4 is this the way the government is to keep its faith? 
 If we get rid of the old issues in this way, what guaranty 
 4a we give for better faith, in the redemption of the next 
 Sa«ttes ? Again, many ©f the notes have the express prom- 
 ise on their face, that they shall be funded in eight per cent 
 Istmds. When ? The plain import is, and so understood by 
 -.sAt&t the time, of their issue, that it may be done at any 
 ^aeae before the day fixed on the face of the note for its 
 payment. With what semblance of good faith then, does 
 ike government before that time^ compel the holder, to re- 
 ceive a four per cent bond, or lose the whole debt? and 
 wkat better is this than repudiation ? When was it ever 
 before attempted by any government, to compel the fund- 
 ing of almost the entire paper currency of a country, 
 saosoimting to seven or eight hundred millions of dollars in 
 ,' days ? This is certainly a new chapter in financiering. 
 
 The country expected the imposition of a heavy tax, and 
 all patriotic citizens were prepared to pay it cheerfully at 
 aiiy reasonable sacrifice; but repudiation and bad faith 
 were not expected, and the authors of it cannot beheld 
 -trwiltless. 
 
 The expiring Congress took the precaution to discuss this 
 
 are in secret session ; so that the individual act of the 
 
 representative could not reach his constituents, and none 
 
 Id be annoyed during its consideration by the murmurs 
 
 ■ublic disapprobation being echoed back into the Legis- 
 
 e Hall. And to make assurance doubly sure, they 
 
 fixed the day for the assembling of their successors, at a 
 
 e too late, to remedy the evil, or afford adequate re- 
 
 ire*s for the wrong. 
 
 'JTkem secret sessions of Congress are becoming a blighting 
 •oaree to/the country. They are used as a convenient mode 
 mf covering up from the people, such acts or expressions of 
 
their representatives as will not bear investigation in the 
 the light of day. Almost every act of usurpation of pow- 
 er, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and 
 nurtured, in secret, session. If I mistake not the British 
 Parliament never discussed a single measure in secret session 
 during the whole period of the Crimean War. But if it is 
 necessary to discuss a few important military measures, 
 such as may relate to the movement of armies, &c, in se- 
 cret session, it does not follow that discussions of questions 
 pertaining to the currency, the suspension of the writ of 
 Habeas Corpus, and the like, should all be conducted in se- 
 cret session. The people should require all such measures 
 to be discussed with open doors, and the press should have 
 the liberty of reporting and freely criticising the acts of 
 our public servants. Jn this way the reflection of the 
 popular will back upon the reprentative, would generally 
 cause the defeat of such unsound measures, as those which 
 are now fastened upon the country in defiance of the will 
 of the people. 
 
 But dismissing the past and looking to the future, {he in- 
 quiry presented for our consideration is, how. shall the State 
 authorities act in the management of the finances of the 
 State"? As the Confederate States Treasury notes consti- 
 tute the currency of the country, the State has been obliged 
 to receive and pay them out ; and she must continue to do 
 so, as long as they remain the only circulating medium. 
 The present Legislature has very wisely adopted the poli- 
 cy, in the present depreciated condition of the currency, of 
 collecting by taxation a sufficient sum in currency, to pay 
 the current appropriations of the State Government ; in- 
 stead of adding them to the debt of the State to be paid in 
 future upon the gold basis. If the State issues her own 
 bonds and puts them upon- the market, or if she issues her 
 own Treasury notes redeemable at a future day in her 
 bonds, she adds the amount so issued to her permanent in- 
 debtedness ; and defeats the policy of paying as she goes ; 
 as her own bonds or notes, would then be out, and could 
 not b^ redefined with the Confederate note's when received 
 into her Treasury 
 
 If the State receives inpayment of taxes the present 
 Confederate Treasury notes, they will be reduced in amount 
 one third by act of Congress after 1st April next, and the 
 Siate receiving them at par pays a Confederate Tax of 
 33J per cent upon all monies that pass through her Treasu- 
 ry. This of course can not be submitted to. 
 
 The repudiation policy of Congress, seems therefore to 
 have left us but one alternative ; and that is to receive and 
 pay out only such issues of Confederate notes, as under the 
 acts of Congress pass at par, without the deduction of 
 33i or any other per cent. But as we are obliged to have 
 
10 
 
 funds before the tape wHhen the new issues of Confederate, 
 notes can go into circulation, the question presented is 
 how shall we supply the Treasury in the mean time. In 
 my judgment the proper plan will be to issue Stale Treasu- 
 ry notes, payable on the 25th day of December next at the 
 Treasury, and in each of the more important cities of this 
 State in Confederate Treasury notes, of such issue as may 
 be made after 1st April next, to be used as circulating me- 
 dium. This enables the State to anticipate the new issues, 
 and use them in advance of their circulation by Confede- 
 rate authority. The new Georgia Treasury notes of this 
 issue, would be just as good, as the new issue of Confede- 
 rate notes ; because payable in them, and would be as cur- 
 rent in payment of debts. The act should provide that all 
 taxes hereafter due the State for this year, shall be payable 
 in the Confederate Treasury notes of the new issue, and 
 that they shall be deposited in the Treasury, when collec- 
 ted, to redeem the State notes payable in them. The act 
 should also provide that the State notes shall be returned 
 and the Confederate notes received in place of them with- 
 in three months after they are due, or that the State will 
 no longer be liable for their payment. This would pre- 
 vent holders from laying them away, and refusing to bring 
 them in for payment when due, according to the terms of 
 the c'ontract. As the State tax is not due till next fall, 
 there will be an abundant supply of the new Confederate 
 notes in circulation by that time, to obviate all difficulty in 
 obtaining them by our people to pay the tax. 
 
 I recommend the passage of a joint resolution, authoriz- 
 ing the Governor to have funded in the six per cent bonds, 
 provided for by the act of Congress, all Confederate notes 
 which may remain in the Treasury ; or may be in the 
 hands of any of the financial agents of the State ; after the 
 first day, of April next ; and to sell and dispose of such 
 bonds at their market value in currency, which can be 
 made available in. payments to be made by the Treasury ; 
 and to credit the Treasurer with any losses that may ac- 
 crue by reason ©f the failure of the bonds to bring par in 
 the market. 
 
 orphans' estates. 
 
 On account of the present depreciated value of the Con- 
 federate securities I recommend the repeal of the law which 
 authorizes Executors, Administrators and Trustees to in- 
 vest the funds of those whom they represent in thes? secu- 
 rities. As the law stands it enables unscrupulous fiduciary 
 agents, to perpetrate frauds upon innocent orphans, and 
 other helpless persons represented by them ; and iii effect 
 compels orphans and those represented by trustees, to in- 
 vest their whole estates, in government bonds, which no 
 other class is required to do. 
 
11 
 
 FURLOUGHS REFUSED. 
 
 On the 27th of February, when I issued my Proclama- 
 tion, calling you into extra session, I telegraphed the Sec- 
 retary of War ; and asked that furloughs be granted, to mem- 
 bers in military service, to attend the session ; and received 
 a reply stating that it had " been concluded not to grant fur- 
 loughs to attend the session", that, " officers so situated are 
 entitled to resign and may so elect". 
 
 I regret this determination of the Confederate govern- 
 ment ; as it places our gallant officers, who have been elec- 
 ted by the people to represent them, and to whom, as well 
 as their predecessors similarly situated, furloughs were nev- 
 er before denied, in a position where it costs them their 
 commissions to attempt to discharge their duties, as Repre- 
 sentatives of the people. 
 
 THE NEW MILITIA ORGANIZATION AND CONSCRIPTION. 
 
 Since your adjournment in December, the Adjutant and 
 Inspector General, under my direction, has done all in his 
 power to press forward the organization ^of the Militia of 
 the State, in conformity to the act passed for that purpose ; 
 and I have the pleasure to state, that the enrollments are 
 generally made ; except in a few localities, where proximi- 
 ty to the enemy has prevented it ; and the organizations will 
 soon be. completed. 
 
 At this stage in our proceedings, we are met with formi- 
 dable obstacles ; thrown in our way, by the late act of Con- 
 gress ; which subjects those between 17 and 50, to enroll- 
 ment as Conscripts, for Confederate service. This act of 
 Congress proposes to take from the State, as was done on a 
 former occasion, her entire military force, who belong to the 
 active list, and to leave her without a force in the different 
 counties sufficient to execute her laws or suppress servile 
 insurrection. 
 
 Our Supreme Court has ruled, that the Confederate gov- 
 ernment, has the power, to raise armies by Conscription ; 
 but it nas not decided, that it also has the power, to enroll 
 the whole populatiop*of the State, who remain at home, so 
 as to place the whole people, under the military control of 
 the Confederate government ; and thereby, take from the 
 States all command over their own citizens, to execute their 
 own laws; and place the internal police regulations of the 
 States, in the hands of the President. It is one thing to 
 " raise armies", and another, and fjuite a differed thing, to 
 put the whole population at home under military law, and 
 compel every man to obtain a military detail, upon such 
 terms as the central government .may dictate, and to carry a 
 military pass in his pocket, while he cultivates his farm, or 
 attends to his other necessary avocations at home. 
 
 Neither a planter nor an overseer engaged upon the farm, 
 
12 
 
 nor a blacksmith making agricultural implements, nor a mil- 
 ler grinding for the people at home, belongs to, or consti- 
 tutes any part of the armies of the Confederacy ; and there is 
 not the shadow of Constitutional power, .vested in the Con- 
 federate government, for conscribing, and putting these 
 classes, and others engaged in home pursuits, under milita- 
 ry rule, while they remain at home, to discharge these du- 
 ties. If Conscription were Constitutional, as a means of 
 raising armies by the Confederate government, it could not 
 be Constitutional to conscribe those not actually needed, and 
 to be employed in the army ; and the Constitutional power to 
 "raise armies", could never carry with it,the power in Congress 
 to conscribe the whole people; who are not needed for the ar- 
 mies ; but are left at home, because more useful there ; and 
 place them uwder military government, and compel them to 
 get military details to plough in their fields, shoe their farm 
 horses, or go to mill. 
 
 Conscription carried to this extent, is the essence of mili- 
 tary despotism ; placing all civil rights, in a state of subor- 
 dination to military power ; and putting the personal free- 
 dom of each individual in civil life, at the will of the chief 
 of the military power. But it may be said that Conscrip- 
 tion may act upon one class as legally as another : and that 
 all classes are equally subject to it. This is undoubtedly 
 true. It the government has a right to conscribe lit all, it 
 has a right to conscribe persons of all classes, till it has rais- 
 ed enough to supply its armies. But it has no right to go 
 farther and conscribe all, who are by its own consent to re- 
 main at home, to make supplies. If it considers supplies ne- 
 cessary, somebody must make them ; and those who do it, 
 being no part of the army, should be exempt irorn Conscrip- 
 tion, and the annoyance of military dictation, while engaged 
 in civil, and not military pursuits. 
 
 If all between 17 and 50 arc to be enrolled and placed in 
 constant military service, we must conquer the enemy while 
 we are consuming our present crop of provisions, ok we are 
 ruined ; as it wiil be impossible for the old men over 50, and 
 the boys under 17, to make supplies enough, to feed our ar- 
 mies and people, another year. I think every practical man 
 in the Confederacy who knows anything about our agricul- 
 tural interests, and resources, will readily admit this. 
 
 If, on the other hand, it is not the intention to put those 
 between 17 and IS, and between 45 and 50, into service, as 
 soldiers, but to leave them at home to produce supplies, and 
 occasionally to do police and other duties, within the State, 
 which properly belong to the Militia of a State ; or in other 
 words, if it is the intention simply to take the control of 
 them from the State, so as to deprive her of all power, a*nd 
 leave her without sufficient force to execute her own laws, 
 or suppress servile insurrection ; and place the whole Militia 
 
13 
 
 of the State, not needed for constant service in the Confed- 
 erate armies, under the control of the President, while en- 
 gaged in their civil pursuits, the act is unconstitutional and 
 oppressive, and ought not to be executed. 
 
 If the act is executed in this State, it deprives her of her 
 whole active Militia, as Congress has so shaped it as to in- 
 clude the identical persons embraced in the act passed at 
 your late session, and to transfer the control of them all from 
 the State to the Confederate government. 
 
 The State has already -en rolled these persons under the 
 solemn act of her Legislature, for her own defense, and it is 
 a question for you to determine, whether the necessities -of 
 the State ; her sovereignty and dignity, and justice to those 
 who are to be affected by the act, do not forbid, that she 
 should permit her organization to be broken* up, and her 
 means of self-preservation to be taken out other hands. If 
 this is done, what will beour condition ? 1 prefer to answer 
 by adopting the language of the present able and patriotic 
 Governor of Virginia : "A sovereign State without a sol- 
 dier, and without the dignity of strength — stripped of all 
 her men, and with only the form and pageantry of power — 
 would indeed, be nothing more than a wretched dependen- 
 cy, to which I should grieve to see our proud old Common- 
 wealth reduced". 
 
 I may be reminded that the enemy hrs three times as 
 many white men, able to bear arms, as we have, and that it is 
 necessary to take all between the ages above mentioned, or 
 we cannot k*eep as many men in the field as he does. 
 
 If the result depended upon our ability to do this, we 
 must necessarily fail. But, fortunately for us, this is not 
 the case. While they have the advantage in numbers, we 
 have other advantages, which, if properly improved, they 
 can never overcome. We are the invaded part}', in the 
 right, struggling for all we have ; and for all that we expect 
 our posterity to inherit. This gives us great moral advan- 
 tage, over a more powerful enemy ; who, as the invaders,, 
 are in the wrong ; and are fighting for conquest and power. 
 We have the inner and shorter lines of defense ; while they 
 have the longer and much more difficult ones. For in- 
 stance, if we desire to reinforce Dalton, from Wilmington, 
 Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile, or to reinforce either of 
 those points, from Dalton, we can do so by throwing troops 
 rapidly over a short line from one point to the other. If the 
 enemy wishes to reinforce Charleston or Chattanooga, from 
 Washington or New Orleans, he must throw his troops a 
 long distance around, almost upon the circumference of a 
 circle; while We meet them with our reinforcements, by 
 throwing them across the diameter of a semi-circle. This 
 difference in our favor, is as great as four to one, and enables. 
 
14 
 
 us, if our troops are properly handled, to repel their assaults, 
 with little more than one-fourth their number. 
 
 In consideration of these, and numerous other advantages, 
 which an invaded people, united and determined to be free, 
 always has ; it is not wise policy for us to undertake to keep 
 in the field as large a number as. the enemy has. 
 
 It is the duty of those in authority, in a country engaged 
 in a war, which calls for all the resources at command, to 
 consider well, what proportion of the whole population, can 
 safely be kept under arms. In our present condition, sur- 
 rounded by the enemy, and our ports blockaded, so that we 
 can place but little dependence, upon foreign supplies, we 
 are obliged to keep a sufficient number of men in the agricul- 
 tural fields, to, make supplies for our troops under arms, and 
 their families at home, or we must ultimately fail. 
 
 The policy which would compel all our men to go to the 
 Military field, and leave our farms uncultivated, and our 
 workshops vacant, would be the most fatal and unwise that 
 could be adopted. In that case, the enemy need only avoid 
 battle, and continue the war, till we consume the supplies 
 now on hand, and we would be completely in their power. 
 There is a certain proportion of a people in our condi- 
 tion, who can remain under arms, and the balance of the 
 population at home can support them. So long as that 
 proportion has not been reached, more may safely be taken ; 
 but when it is reached, every man taken from the field of 
 production, and placed as a consumer in the military field, 
 makes us that much weaker ; and if we go far beyond the 
 proportion, failure and ruin are inevitable ; as the army must 
 soon disband, when it can no longer be supplied with the 
 necessaries of life. There is reason to fear, that those in au- 
 thority have not made safe calculations upon this point, and 
 that they do not fully appreciate the incalculable impor- 
 tance, of the agricultural interests, in this struggle. 
 
 We are able to keep constantly under arms two hundred 
 thousand effective men, and to support and maintain that 
 force by our own resources and productions, for twenty 
 years to come. No power nor State can ever be conquered 
 so long as it can maintain that number of good troops. If 
 the enemy should bring a million against us, let us remem- 
 ber, that there is such a thing as whipping the fight with- 
 out fighting it, and avoiding pitched battles and unnecessa- 
 ry collisions; let us give this vast force time to' melt away 
 under the heat of summer and the snows of winter ;' as did 
 Xerxes' army in Greece and Napoleon's in Russia, and the 
 enemy's resources and strength will exhaust when so prod- 
 igally used, much more rapidly than ours, when properly 
 economised* In properly economising our strength and 
 husbanding our resources, lie our best hope of success. 
 Instead of making constant new drafts upon the agricul- 
 
15 
 
 tural and mechanical labor of the country, for recruits for 
 the army, to swell our numbers beyond our present muster 
 rolls, which must prove our ruin, if our provisions fail, I 
 respectfully submit that it would be wiser to put the troops 
 info the army, and leave men enough at home to support 
 them. In other words, compel the thousands of young offi- 
 cers in gold lace and brass buttons, who are constantly 
 seen crowding our railroads and hotels, many of whom can 
 seldom be found at their posts ; and the thousands of strag- 
 gling soldiers who are absent without leave, or, by the 
 favoritism of officers, whose names are on the pay rolls, and 
 who are not producers at home, to remain at their places in 
 the army. This is justice alike to the country, to the tax 
 payers, to the gallant officers who stand firmly at the post 
 of duty, and the gallant soldiers who seldom or never get 
 furloughs, but are always in the thickest of the fight. When 
 they are enduring and suffering so much, why should the 
 favorites of power and those of their comrades who seek to 
 avoid duty and danger, be countenanced or tolerated at 
 home, while their names stand upon the muster rolls? 
 
 If all who are able for duty, and who are now nominally 
 in service drawing pay from the Government, are compell- 
 ed to do their duty faithfully, there will be no need of coni- 
 pclling men over 45 to leave their homes, or of disbanding 
 the State militia to place more men under the President's 
 control. 
 
 CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 But it may be said that an attempt to maintain the rights 
 of the State will produce conflict with the Confederate 
 Government, I am aware that there are those who, from 
 motives not necessary to be here mentioned, are ever ready 
 to raise the cry of conflict, and to criticise and condemn the 
 action of Georgia, in every case where her constituted au- 
 thorities protest against the encroachments of the central 
 power, and seek to maintain her dignity and sovereignty as 
 a State, and the constitutional rights and liberties of her 
 people. 
 
 Those who are unfriendly to State sovereignty and desire 
 to consolidate all power in the hands of the Confederate 
 Government, hoping to promote their undertaking by ope- 
 rating upon the fears of the timid, after each new aggres- 
 sion upon the constitutional rights of the States, fill the 
 newspaper presses with the cry of conflict, and warn the 
 people to beware of those who seek to maintain their con- 
 stitutional rights, as agitators or -partisans who may embar- 
 rass the Confederate Government in the prosecution of the 
 wa r. 
 
 Let not the people be deceived by this false clamor. It 
 is the same cry of conflict which the Lincoln government 
 
16 
 
 raised against all \yho defended the rights of the Southern 
 States against its tyranny. It is the cry which the usur- 
 pers of power have ever raised against those who rebuke 
 their encroachments and refuse to vield to their aa-gres- 
 sions. 
 
 When did Georgia embarrass, the Confederate Govern- 
 ment in any matter pertaining to the vigorous prosecution 
 of the war? When did she fail- to furnish more than her 
 full quota of troops, when she was called upon as a State 
 by the proper Confederate authority ? And when did her 
 gallant sons ever quail before the enemy, or fail nobly to 
 illustrate her character upon the battle field ? 
 
 She can not only repel the attacks of her enemies on the 
 field' of deadly conflict, but she can as proudly repel the 
 assaults of those who, ready to bend the knee to power for 
 position and patronage, set themselves up to criticise her 
 conduct, and she can confidently challenge them to point to 
 a single instance in which she lias failed to fill a requisition 
 for troops made upon her through the regular constitution- 
 al channel. To the very last requisition made she respon- 
 ded with over double the number required. 
 
 She stands ready at all times to do her whole duty to the 
 cause and to the Confederacy, but while she does this, she 
 will never cease to require that her constitutional rights be 
 respected and the liberties of her people preserved. 
 While she deprecates all conflict with the Confederate Gov- 
 ernment, if to require these be conflict, the conflict will never 
 end till the object is attained. 
 
 • "For freedom's battle once begun, 
 
 Bequeathed by bieediugsire to son, 
 Though baffled oft in ever won,'' 
 
 will be emblazoned in letters of living light upon her proud 
 banners, until State sovereignty and constitutional liberty, 
 as well as Confederate independence, are firmly established. 
 
 SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS. 
 
 I cannot withhold the expression of the deep mortifica- 
 tion I feel at the late action of Congress in attempting to 
 suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and to 
 confer upon the President powers expressly denied to him 
 by the Constitution of the Confederate States. Under pre- 
 text of a necessity which our whole people know does not 
 exist in this case, whatever may have been the motives, our 
 Congress with tlie assent andiit the request of the Execu- 
 tive, has struck a fell blow at the liberties of the people of 
 these States. 
 
 The Constitution of the Confederate States declares that, 
 "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
 pended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
 public safety may require it." The power to suspend the 
 
MESSAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 IMS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH E. BROWN, 
 
 7 M < 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EXTRA SESSION OF THE LEGISLATURE, 
 
 CONVENED MARCH 10TO, 1864, 
 
 Upon the Currency Act; Secret sessions of Con- 
 gress; The late Conscription Act ; The Un- 
 constitutionality of the Act suspending 
 the privilege of the writ of habeas 
 corpus, in cases of illegal ar- 
 RESTS MADKliY THE PRESIDENT ; 
 
 TlIE CAUSES OF the war and manner of CONDUCT- 
 ING it ; And the terms upon which peace 
 
 SHOULD BE SOUGHT, &C. 
 
 BOUGHTON, NISBET, BARNES & MOORE, State Pkixter 
 
 MILLEDGEVir.I.E, GA., 
 
 1864. 
 
MESSAGE. 
 
 EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, ) 
 MlLLEDGEVlLLE, Ga., March 10th 1S64. } 
 
 To ike Senate and House of Representatives : 
 
 The patriotic zeal exhibited by you at your late session, 
 forthe»promotion of the interestand protection of theiiberties 
 •of the country, and the personal kindness and official cour- 
 tesy which I received at your hands, and for which I renew 
 my thanks, have satisfied me that laying aside all past par- 
 ty names, issues, and strifes, your object, as legislators is to 
 discharge faithfully your official duties, and to sacrifice all 
 private interests and personal preferences, to the public 
 good. In view of these considerations, I feel that I can re- 
 ly upon your counsels as a tower of strength in time of 
 darkness and gloom. I have therefore convened you that I 
 may have the benefit of your advice and assistance, at this 
 critical juncture in our State and Confederate affairs. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION OF CORN TO INDIGENT SOLDIERS FAMILIES. 
 
 Since your adjournment experience has shown that it is 
 not possible without assistance from the State, which will 
 require further legislation, for the agents of the counties 
 where there is great scarcity of provisions, to secure trans- 
 portation for the corn purchased in South Western and Mid- 
 dle Georgia, to the places where it is needed. To meet 
 this difficulty, I respectfully recommend the passage of a 
 law, authorizing the Quarter-Master General of this State; 
 or such other officer as the Governor may from time to 
 time designate, under the order of the Governor, to take pos- 
 session of and control any of the Rail Roads in the State, 
 with their rolling stock, or any other available conveyance, 
 and require that corn or other provisions, for the needy or 
 for the county agents for soldiers families, be transported in 
 preference to all other articles or things ; except the troops, 
 and the supplies necessary for the support of the armies of 
 the Confederate States, and that the act provide for the 
 payment of just compensation, for the use of such means of 
 transportation, while in possession of the authorized offi- 
 cers of this State — the compensation to be paid out of the 
 .money already appropriated as a relief fund, by the agents. 
 
or persons at whose request the transportation may be fur- 
 nished. 
 
 Experience has alsoproved that the counties of North Eas- 
 tern Georgia most remote from the Railroad cannot obtain 
 sufficient means of transportation to carry the corn from the 
 Rail Road to the place of consumption. The scarcity of 
 teams is owing to the fact that their horses have been 
 taken for cavalry service, and their oxen have been im- 
 pressed for beef for the army. Finding that there was 
 likely to be much suffering in that Section for bread for 
 soldiers' families, I ordered the energetic Quartet Master 
 General of the State, to purchase, teams and wagons by 
 drafts upon the military fund, and aid those most destitute, 
 and most remote from the Rail Road in the transportation 
 of the corn. If this action is approved by the Legislature, 
 as I trust it will be, the teams now about ready for use, 
 can be employed in this service for a portion of the year. 
 Knot approved they will at any time command more in 
 the market than they cost the State, if not needed for mili- 
 tary uses. 
 
 RELIEF FUND FOR SOLDIERS' FAJfiLIES. 
 
 I am satisfied that the indigent families of soldiers, in 
 many of the counties of this State, are not receiving the 
 benefits to which they are entitled, on account of the neg- 
 lect or mismanagement of the Inferior Courts. Six millions 
 of dollars have been appropriated for this purpose, for the 
 present year, which if properly applied, is sufficient to pre- 
 vent any actual suffering. Complaints come up constantly 
 that adequate provisions are not made for the needy. In 
 many cases, I have no doubt, these complaints ar^ well 
 founded. As evidence of the neglect of part of the Qourts, 
 it may be proper to state, tKat great as the destitution is 
 among those entitled to the fund, fhe amount due for the 
 last quarter of last year, has not in some cases been appli- 
 ed for. Some courts have not yet sent in their reports of 
 the number entitled for the present year; so as to enable 
 me to have the calculation made; and the amount due each 
 county ascertained; while many of the counties have made 
 no application for any part of the fund appropriated for this 
 year. . 
 
 While the Governor has power, to require the courts to 
 make reports, of the disposition made of the fund, in cases 
 where he suspects it is being improperly applied; and to 
 withhold payments to the courts in such cases; he has no 
 power to compel the courts to do their duty, nor can he 
 take the fund from them and appoint any other person or 
 agent to distribute it among those for whom it is intended. 
 If the courts fail to act, the law makes no other provision 
 for the distribution of the fund. Unless some better plan 
 is adopted, I am satisfied the objects of the Legislature, will 
 
be very imperfectly carried out, in many of the counties; 
 and the needy will not receive the benefits of the liberal 
 provision made for them, by the appropriation. As it may 
 be necessary to provide for the appointment of active reli- 
 able agents in the counties, to assist the courts, or to take 
 charge of the fund in case of neglect, or mismanagement 
 by them; I respectfully suggest that provision should be 
 made for commissioning all such, as officers of this State, so 
 as to protect them against conscription. It will ,be im- 
 possible to relieve the needy, if our most valuable county 
 agents, are taken from the discharge of their important du- 
 ties by the enrolling officers of the Confederacy. 
 
 Provision should also be made for the removal from of- 
 fice, of all Justices of the Inferior Courts, who neglect or 
 refuse to discharge their duties promptly and faithfully. 
 
 COTTON PLANTING. 
 
 Having on former occasions, brought the question of far- 
 ther restriction of Cott-on planting to the attention of the 
 General Assembly, I feel a delicacy in again recurring to 
 that subject. The present prices of provisions, and the 
 great importance of securing a continued supply of the ne- 
 cessaries of life, are my excuse for again earnestly recom- 
 mending, that the law be so changed, as to make it highly 
 penal, for any person to plant or cultivate in Cotton, more 
 than one quarter of an acre to the hand, till the end of the 
 war. 
 
 This additional restraint is not necessary, to control the 
 conduct of the more liberal and patriotic portion of our peo- 
 ple; but there are those, who for the purpose of making a 
 little more money, will plant the last seed allowed by law, 
 without stopping to enquire, whether they thereby, endan- 
 ger the liberties of the people, and the independence of the 
 Confederacy. 
 
 To control the conduct of this- class of persons, and to the 
 extent of our ability to provide against the possible contin- 
 gency of a failure of supplies in future, I feel it to be an 
 imperative duty, again to urge upon your consideration, the 
 importance of the legislation above recommended. 
 
 ILLEGAL DISTILLATION. 
 
 I beg leave again to call the attention of the General As- 
 sembly, to the illegal distillation of grain into spirituous li- 
 quors. So great are the profits realized by those engaged 
 in this business, that the law is evaded in every way that 
 ■ ingenuity can devise; and I am satisfied that the evil can not 
 lie effectually suppressed without farther and more string- 
 ent legislation. Some of the Judges have ruled, that the 
 •act passed at your last Session, does not give them author- 
 ity to draw and compel the attendance of a jury, out 01 the 
 xegular term time of the Court, to try the question of nuis- 
 
6 
 
 ance; while some public officers have shown no disposition 
 to act, for fear of incurring the ill-will of persons of wealth 
 and influence, who are engaged in the daily violation of the 
 law. 
 
 Distillers in some parts of the State, are paying ten dol- . 
 lars per bushel for Corn to convert into Whiskey; while 
 soldiers' families, and other poor persons are suffering for 
 bread. 
 
 I renew the expression of my firm conviction, that the 
 evil can only be effectually suppressed by the seizure of the 
 stills. We now need copper for the use of the State Road, 
 and for military uses, and I earnestly request, that an act 
 be passed, authorizing the Governor, to impress all the 
 stills, in the State, which he has reasonable ground to sus- 
 pect have been used in violation of the law; and convert 
 them into such material, for the Road, and implements of 
 war, as the State may need; and that he be authorized to 
 use all the military force necessary to accomplish the ob- 
 ject; and that provision be made for paying the owner just 
 compensation for such stills when seized. I also recom- 
 mend that provision be made for annulling the commission 
 of any-civil, or military officer of this State, who fails to 
 exercise vigilance, and to discharge his duty faithfully in 
 the execution of the }aw against illegal distillation. 
 
 IMPRESSMENT OF PROVISIONS. 
 
 Since ycur last Session, experience has proven, that from 
 distrust of the currency or from other cause, many planters 
 have refused to sell corn, or other provisions, not necessary 
 for their own use, to State or county agents, for the market 
 price when offered, while soldiers' families have been suffer- 
 ing for provisions. 
 
 I recommend the enactment of a law. authorizing State of- 
 ficers, under the direction of the Governor, to make impress- 
 ments of provisions in all such cases, and providing for the 
 payment of just compensation to the owners of the property 
 impressed. 
 
 SLAVES ESCAPING TO THE ENEMY. 
 
 The official reports of Federal officers, are said to show 
 that the enemy now has 50,000 of our slaves employed 
 against us. If these 50,000 able bodied negroes, had been 
 carried into the interior by their owners, when the enemy 
 approached the locality, where they were employed; and 
 put to work, clearing land and making provisions, we 
 should to-day have been 50,000 stronger and the enemy that, 
 much weaker, making a difference of 100,000 in the present 
 relative strength of the parties to the struggle. When a 
 negro man worth $1,000 upon the gold basis, escapes to the 
 enemy, that sum of the aggregate wealth of the State, upon 
 which she should receive taxes is lost, — one laborer who 
 
7 
 
 should be employed in the production of provisions is also 
 lost, while one laborer, or one more armed man, is added to 
 the strength of the enemy. 
 
 It is therefore unjustifiable and unpatriotic, for the owner 
 to keep his negroes, within such distance of the enemy's 
 lines as to make it easy for them to escape. This should 
 not be permitted; and to prevent it in future, such laws 
 should be enacted, as may be necessary to compel their re- 
 moval by the owner in such case or to provide for their for- 
 feiture to the State. 
 
 No man has a right to so use his own property, so as to 
 weaken our strength, diminish our provision supply; and 
 add recruits to the army of the enemy. 
 
 DESERTION OF OUR CAUSE BY REMOVALS WITHIN THE EN- 
 EMY'S LINK. 
 
 I am informed that a number of persons in the portion of 
 our State, adjoining to East Tennessee, have lately removed 
 with their families within the lines of the enemy; and carri- 
 ed with them their movable property. Those persons have 
 never been loyal to the cause of the South; and, they now 
 avail themselves of the earliest opportunity to unite with 
 the enemies of their State. 
 
 , I recommend the enactment of a law, providing for the 
 confiscation of the property of all such persons; and that all 
 such property be sold, and the proceeds of the sale, applied 
 to the payment of damages, done to loyal citizens of the 
 same section; whose property has been destroyed, by raids 
 of the enemy, or by armed bands of tories. 
 
 I am also informed, that some disloyal persons in that sec- 
 tion, have deserted from our armies; or avoiding service have 
 left their families behind, and gone over to the enemy, and 
 are now under anus against us. I am happy to learn that 
 the number of such persons is very small. I .recommend 
 the confiscation of the property of this class of persons also, 
 and in case they have left families behind, that are a charge 
 to the county, that no part of the relief fund be allowed 
 them; but thai they be carried to the enemy's lines, and 
 turned over to those in whose cause their husbands now 
 serve. 
 
 I also recommend the enactment of such laws, as shall for- 
 ever disfranchise and decitizenize all persons of both classes, 
 should they attempt to return to this State. 
 
 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 The late action of the Congress of the Confederate 
 States upon the subject of the currency has rendered fur- 
 ther legislation necessary in this State upon that question. 
 It can not be denied that this act has seriously embar- 
 rassed the financial system of this Stale, and has shaken 
 the confidence of our people in either the justice of the late 
 
Congress or its competency to manage our financial affairs. 
 Probably the history of the past furnishes few more strik- 
 ing instances of unsound policy combined with bad faith. 
 
 The Government issues its Treasury note for $100, and 
 bmds itself two years after a treaty of peace, between the 
 Confederate States and the United States, to pay the bear- 
 er that sum ; and stipulates upon the face of the note, that 
 jJt is fundable in Confederate States stocks or bonds; and 
 receivable in payment of all pubKc dues except export du- 
 ties. The Congress while the war is still progressing, pas- 
 ses a statute that this bill shall be funded in about forty days 
 or one third of it shall be repudiated, and that a tax of ten 
 per cent a month shall be paid for it after that time by the 
 holder, and it shall no longer be receivable in payment of 
 public dues, and if it is not funded by the 1st of January next, 
 the whole debt is repudiated. Did the holder take the 
 note, with any such expectation? Was this the contract, 
 and is this the way the government is to keep its faith ? 
 If we get rid of the old issues in this way, what guaranty 
 tlo we give for better faith, in the redemption of the # next 
 issues ? Again, many of the notes have the express prom- 
 ise on their face, that they shall be funded in eight per cent 
 bonds. When ? The plain import is, and so understood by 
 all at the time, of their issue, that it may be done at any 
 titae before the day fixed on the face of the note for its 
 payment. With what semblance of good faith then, does 
 the government before that time, compel the holder, to re- 
 ceive a, four per cent bond, or lose the whole debt? and 
 wkat better is this than repudiation ? When was it ever 
 before attempted b}? - any government, to compel the fund- 
 tug of almost the entire paper currency of a country, 
 amounting to seven or eight hundred millions of dollars in 
 forty days ?„ This is certainly a new chapter in financiering. 
 
 The country expected the imposition of a heavy tax, and 
 all patriotic citizens were prepared to pay it cheerfully at 
 any reasonable sacrifice ; but repudiation and bad faith 
 were not expected, and the authors of it cannot beheld 
 guiltless. 
 
 The expiring Congress took the precaution to discuss this 
 'measure in secret session ; so that the individual act of the 
 representative could not reach his constituents, and none 
 could be annoyed during its consideration by the murmurs 
 «f public disapprobation being echoed back into the Legis- 
 lative Hall. And to make assurance doubly sure, they 
 tlxed the day for the assembling of their successors, at a 
 time too late, to remedy the evil, or afford adequate re- 
 dress for the wrong. 
 
 Tkese secret sessions of Congress are becoming a blighting 
 corse'tp the country. They are used as a convenient mode 
 #f covering up from the people, such acts or expressions of 
 
their representatives as will not bear investigation in the 
 the light of day. Almost every act^ of usurpation of pow- 
 er, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and 
 nurtured, in secret session. If I mistake not the British 
 Parliament never discussed a single measure in secret session 
 during the whole period of the Crimean War. But if it ts 
 necessary to discuss a few important military measures, 
 such as may relate to the movement of armies, &c, in se- 
 cret session, it does not follow that discussions of questions 
 pertaining to the currency, the suspension* of the writ of 
 Habeas Corptis, and the like, should all be conducted in se- 
 cret session. The people should require all such measures 
 to be discussed with open doors, and the press should have 
 the liberty of reporting and freely criticising the acts of 
 our public servants. In this way the reflection Of the 
 popular will back upon the reprentative, would generally 
 cause the defeat ofeuch unsound measures, as those which 
 are now fastened upon the country in defiance of the will 
 of the people. 
 
 But dismissing the past and looking to the future, the in- 
 quiry presented for our consideration is, how shall the State 
 authorities act in the management of the finances of the 
 State? As the Confederate States Treasury notes consti- 
 tute the currency of the country, the State has been obliged 
 to receive and pay them out; and she must continue to do 
 so, as long as they remain the only circulating medium. 
 The present Legislature has very wisely adopted the poli- 
 cy, in the present depreciated condition of the currency, of 
 collecting by taxation a sufficient sum in currency, to pay 
 the current appropriations of the State Government ; in- 
 stead of adding them to the debt of the State to be paid in 
 future upon the gold basis. If the State ^issues her own . 
 bonds and puis them upon the market, or if she issues her 
 own Treasury notes redeemable at a future day in her 
 bonds, she adds the amount so issued to her permanent in- 
 debtedness ; and defeats, the policy (.('paying as she goes ;* 
 as her own bonds or notes, would then be out, and could 
 not be redeemed with the Confederate notes when received 
 into her ^Treasury 
 
 If the Stale receives inpayment of taxes the present 
 Confedt rate Treasury notes, they will be reduced in amount 
 one third by act of Congress after 1st April next, and the 
 State receiving them at par pays a Confederate Tax of 
 33$ per cent" upon all monies that pass through her Treasu- 
 ry. This of course can not be submitted to. 
 
 The repudiation policy of Congress, seems therefore to 
 have left us but one alternative; and that is to receive and 
 pay out only such issues of Confederate notes, as under the 
 acts of Congress pass at par, without the deduction of 
 33^ 'or any other per cent. But as we are obliged to have 
 
10 
 
 funds before the. time when the new issues of Confederate 
 notes can go into circulation, the question presented is 
 how shall we, supply the Treasury in the mean time. In 
 my judgment the proper plan will be to issue State Treasu- 
 ry-notes, payable on the 25th clay of December next at the 
 Treasury, and in each of the more important cities of this 
 State in Confederate Treasury notes, of such issue as may 
 be made after 1st April next, to be used as circulating me- 
 dium. This enables the State to anticipate the new issues, 
 and use them in advance of their circulation by Confede- 
 rate authority. The new Georgia Treasury notes of this 
 issue, would be just as good, as the new issue of Confede- 
 rate notes ; because payable in them, and would be as cur- 
 rent in payment of debts. The act should provide that all 
 taxes hereafter due the State for this year, shall be payable 
 in the Confederate Treasury notes of the new issue, and 
 that they shall be deposited in the Treasury, when collec- 
 ted, to redeem the State notes payable in them. The act 
 should also provide that the State notes shall be returned 
 and the Confederate notes received in place of them with- 
 in three months after the} 7 are due, or that the State will 
 no longer be liable for their payment. This would pre- 
 vent holders from laying them away, and refusing to bring 
 them in for payment when due, according to the terms of 
 the contract. As the State tax is not due till next fall, 
 there will be an abundant supply of the new Confederate 
 notes in circulation by that time, to obviate all difficulty in 
 obtaining them by our people to pay the tax. 
 
 I recommend the passage of a joint resolution, authoriz- 
 ing the Governor to have funded in the six per cent bonds, 
 provided for by the act of Congress, all Confederate notes 
 which may remain in the Treasury ; or may be in the 
 hands of any of'the financial agents of the State ; after the 
 first day of April next ', and to sell and dispose of such 
 bonds at their market value in currency, which can be 
 made available in payments to be. made by the Treasury ; 
 and to credit the Treasurer with any losses that may ac- 
 crue by reason of the failure of the bonds to bring par in 
 the market. 
 
 orphans' estates. 
 On account of the present depreciated value of the Con- 
 federate securities I recommend the repeal of the law which 
 authorizes Executors, Administrators and Trustees to in- 
 vest the funds of those whom they represent in these secu- 
 rities. As the law stands it enables unscrupulous fiduciary 
 agents, to perpetrate frauds upon innocent orphans, and 
 other helpless persons represented by them ; and in effect 
 compels orphans and those represented by trustees, to in- 
 vest their whole estates, in government bonds, which no 
 other class is required to do. 
 
11 
 
 FURLOUGHS REFUSED. 
 
 On the 27th of February, when I issued my Proclama- 
 tion, calling you into extra session, I telegraphed the Sec- 
 retary of War ; and asked that furloughs be granted, to mem- 
 bers in military service, to attend the session ; and received 
 a reply stating that it had " been concluded not to grant fur- 
 loughs to attend the session", that, " officers so situated are 
 entitled to resign and may so elect". 
 
 I regret this determination of the Confederate govern- 
 ment ; as it places our gallant officers, who have been elec- 
 ted by the people to represent them, and to whom, as well 
 as their predecessors similarly situated, furloughs were nev- 
 er before denied, in a position where it costs them their 
 commissions to attempt to discharge their duties, as Repre- 
 sentatives of the people. 
 
 THE NEW MILITIA OBGANIZATION AND CONSCRIPTION. 
 
 Since your adjournment in December, the Adjutant and 
 Inspector General, under my direction, has done all in his 
 power to press forward the organization of the Militia of 
 the State, in conformity to the act passed for that purpose ; 
 and I have the pleasure to state, that the enrollments are 
 generally made ; except in a few localities, where proximi- 
 ty to the enemy lias prevented it ; and the organizations will 
 soon be completed. 
 
 At this stage in our proceedings, we are met with formi- 
 dable obstacles ; thrown in our way, by the late act'of Con- 
 gress ; which subjects those between 17 and 50, to enroll- 
 ment as Conscripts, (or Confederate service. This act of 
 Congress proposes to take from the State, as was done on a 
 former occasion, 1mm- entire military, force, who belong to the 
 active, list, and to leave her without a force in the different 
 counties sufficient to execute her laws or suppress servile 
 insurrection. 
 
 Our Supreme Court has ruled, that the Confederate gov- 
 ernment, has the power to raise armies by Conscription ; 
 but it has not decided, that it also has the power, to enroll 
 the whole population of the State, who remain at home, so 
 as to place the whole people, under the military control of 
 the Confederate government ; and thereby, take from the 
 States all command over their own citizens, to execute their 
 own laws: ;md place the internal police regulations of the 
 Slates, iu the hands of the President. It is one thing to 
 " raise jinnies", and another, and quite a different thing, to 
 put the whole population at home under military law, and 
 compel every man to obtain a military detail, upon such 
 tfcnns as the central government may dictate, and to carry a 
 military pass in his pocket, while he cultivates his farm, or 
 attends to his other necessary avocations at home. 
 
 Neither a planter nor an overseer engaged upon the farm, 
 
12 
 
 nor a blacksmith making agricultural implements, nor a mil- 
 ler grinding for the people at home, belongs to, or consti- 
 tutes any part of the armies of the Confederacy ; and there is 
 not the shadow of Constitutional power, vested in the Con- 
 federate government, for couscribfng, and putting these 
 classes, and others engtiged in home pursuits, under milita- 
 ry rule, while they remain at home, to discharge these du- 
 ties. If Conscription were Constitutional, as a means of 
 raising armies by the Confederate government, it could not 
 be Constitutional to conscribe those not actually needed, and 
 to be employed in the army ; and the Constitutional power to 
 "raise armies", could never carry with it,the power in Congress 
 to conscribe the whole people; who are not needed for the ar- 
 mies ; but are left at home, because more useful there ; and 
 place them wader military government, and compel them to 
 get military details to plough in their fields, shoe their farm 
 horses, or go to mill. 
 
 Conscription carried to this extent, is the essence of mili- 
 tary despotism ; placing all civil rights, in a state of subor- 
 dination to military power ; and putting the personal free- 
 dom of each individual in civil life, at the will of the chief 
 of the military power. But it may be said that Conscrip- 
 tion may act upon one class as legally as another : and that 
 all classes are equally subject to it. This is undoubtedly 
 true. It the government has a right to conscribe nt all, it 
 has a right to conscribe persons of all classes, till it has rais- 
 ed enough to supply its armies. But it has no right to go 
 farther and conscribe all, who are by its own consent to re- 
 main at home, to make supplies. If it considers supplies ne- 
 cessary, somebody must make them ; and those who do it, 
 being no part of the army, should be exempt from Conscrip- 
 tion, and the annoyance of military dictation, while engaged 
 in civil, and not military pursuits. 
 
 If all between 17 and 50 arc to be enrolled and placed in 
 constant military service, we must conquer the enemy while 
 we are consuming our present crop of provisions, or we are 
 ruined ; as it will be impossible for the old men over 50, and 
 the boys under 17, to make supplies enough, to fee*J our ar- 
 mies and people, another year. I think every practical man 
 in the Confederacy who knows anything about our agricul- 
 tural interests, and resources, will readily admit this. 
 
 If, on the other hand, it is not the intention to put those 
 between 17 and IS, and between 45 and 50, into service, as 
 soldiers, but to leave them at home to produce supplies, and 
 occasionally to do police and other duties, within the State, 
 which properly belong to the Militia of a State ; or in other 
 words, if it is the intention simply to take the control of 
 them from the State, so as to deprive her of all power, and 
 leave'her without sufficient force to execute her own laws, 
 or suppress servile, insurrection; and place the whole Militia 
 
13 
 
 of the State, not needed for constant service in the Confed- 
 erate armies, under the control of the President, while en- 
 gaged in their civil pursuits, the act is unconstitutional and 
 oppressive, and ought not to be executed. 
 
 If the act is executed in this State, it deprives her of her 
 whole active Militia, as Congress has so shaped it as to in- 
 clude the identical persons embraced in the act passed at 
 your late session, and to transfer the control of them all from 
 the State to the Confederate government. 
 
 The State has already enrolled these persons under the 
 solemn act of her Legislature, for her own defense, and it is 
 a question for you to determine, whether the necessities of 
 the State ; her sovereignty and dignity, and justice to those 
 who are to be aflected by the act, do not forbid, that she 
 should permit her organization to be broken up, and her 
 means of self-preservation to be taken out of her hands. If 
 this is done, what will lie our condition ? I prefer to answer 
 by adopting the language of the present able and patriotic 
 Governor of Virginia : " A sovereign State without a sol- 
 dier, find without the dignity of strength — stripped of all 
 her men, and with only the form and pageantry of power — 
 would indeed, be nothing more than a wretched dependen- 
 cy, to which I should grieve to see our proud old Common- 
 wealth reduced". 
 
 I may be reminded that the enemy hi s three times as 
 many white men, able to bear arms, as we have, and that it is 
 necessary to take all between the ages above mentioned, or 
 wc cannot keep as many men in the held as he does. 
 
 If the result depended upon our ability to do this, we 
 must necessarily fail. But, fortunately for us, this is not 
 the case. While they have the advantage in numbers, we 
 have other advantages, which, if properly improved, they 
 can never overcome. We are the invaded party, in the 
 right, struggling for all we have ; and for all that we expect 
 our posterity to inherit. This gives us great moral advan- 
 tage, over a more powerful enemy ; who, as the invaders, 
 are in the wrong ; and are fighting for conquest and power. 
 We have the inner and shorter lines of defense; while they 
 have the longer and much more difficult ones. For in- 
 stance, if we desire to reinforce Dal ton, from Wilmington, 
 Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile, or to reinforce either of 
 those points, from Dalton, we can do so by throwing troops 
 rapidly over a short line from out' point to the otl er. If the 
 enemy wishes to reinforce Charleston or Chattanooga, from 
 Washington or New Orleans, he must throw his troops a 
 long distance around, almost upon the circumference of a 
 .circle; while ws meet them with our reinforcements, by 
 throwing them across the diameter of a semi-circle. This 
 difference in our favor, is as great as four to one, and enables 
 
♦ 14 
 
 us, if our troops are properly handled, to repel their assaults, 
 with little more than one-fourth their number. 
 
 In consideration of these, and numerous other advantages, 
 which an invaded people, united and determined to be free, 
 always has ; it is not wise policy for us to undertake to keep 
 in the field as large a number as the enemy has. 
 
 It is the duty of those in authority, in a country engaged 
 in a war, which calls for all the resources at command, to 
 consider well, what proportion of the whole population, can 
 safely be kept under arms. In our present condition, sur- 
 rounded by the enemy, and our ports blockaded, so that we 
 can place but little dependence, upon foreign supplies, we 
 are obliged to keep a sufficient number of men in the agricul- 
 tural fields, to make supplies for our troops under arms, and 
 their families at home, or we must ultimately fail. 
 
 The policy which would compel all our men to go to the 
 Military field, and leave our farms uncultivated, and our 
 workshops vacant, would be the most fatal and unwise that 
 could be adopted. In that case, the enemy need only avoid 
 battle, and continue the war, till we consume the supplies 
 now on hand, and we would be completely in their power. 
 
 There is a certain proportion of a people in our condi- 
 tion, who can remain under arms, and the balance of the 
 population 'at home can support them. So long as that 
 proportion has not been reached, more may safely be taken ; 
 but when it is reached, every man taken from the field ot 
 production, and placed as a consumer in the military field, 
 makes us that much weaker ; and if we go far beyond the 
 proportion, failure and ruin are inevitable ; as the army must 
 soon disband, when it can no longer be supplied with the 
 necessaries of life. There is reason to fear, that those in au- 
 thority have not made safe calculations upon this point, and 
 that they do not fully appreciate the incalculable impor- 
 tance, ''of the agricultural interests, in this struggle. 
 
 We are able to keep constantly under arms two hundred 
 thousand effective men, and to support and maintain that 
 force by our own resources and productions, for twenty 
 years to come. No power nor Statecan ever be conquered 
 so long as it can maintain that number of good troops. If 
 the enemy should bring a million against us, let us remem- 
 ber, that there is such a thing as whipping the fight with- 
 out fighting it, and avoiding pitched battles and unnecessa- 
 ry collisions; let us give this vast force time to melt away 
 under the heat of summer and the snows of winter ; as did 
 Xerxes' army in Greece and Napoleon's in Russia, and the 
 enemy's resources and strength will exhaust when so prod- 
 igally used, much more rapidly than ours, when properly, 
 economised. In properly economising our strength and 
 husbanding our resources, lie our best hope of suceess. 
 Instead of making constant new drafts upon the agricul- 
 
.15 
 
 tural and mechanical labor of the country, for recruits for 
 the army, to swell our numbers beyond our present muster 
 rolls, which must prove our ruin, if our provisions fail, I 
 respectfully submit that it would be wiser to put the troops 
 into the army, and leave men enough at home to support 
 them. In other words, compel the thousands of young offi- 
 cers in gold lace and brass buttons, who are constantly 
 seen crowding our railroads and hotels, many of whom can 
 seldom be found at their-posts ; and the thousands of strag- 
 gling soldiers who are absent without leave, or, by the 
 favoritism of officers, whose names are on the pay rolls, and 
 who are not producers at home, to remain at their places in 
 the army. This is justice alike to the country, to the tax 
 payers, to the gallant officers who stand firmly at the post 
 of duty, and the gallant soldiers who seldom or never get 
 furloughs, but are always in the thickest of the fight. When 
 they are enduring and suffering so much, why should the 
 favorites of power and those of their comrades who seek to 
 avoid duty and danger, be countenanced or tolerated at 
 home, while their names st;ihd upon the muster rolls? 
 
 If all who are able for duty, and who are now nominally 
 in service drawing pay from the Government, are compell- 
 ed to do their duty faithfully, there will be no need of com- 
 pelling men over 45 to leave thejr homes, or of disbanding 
 the State militia to place more men under the President's 
 control. 
 
 CONFLICT WITH THE CONFEDERATE (iOVEKNMENT. 
 
 Hut it may be said that an attempt to maintain the rights 
 of the State will produce conflict with the Confederate 
 Government. I am aware that there are those who, from 
 motives not necessary to be here mentioned, are ever ready 
 to raise the cry of conflict, and to criticise and condemn the 
 action of Georgia, in every case where her constituted au- 
 thorities protest against the encroachments of the central 
 power, and seek to m aid tain her dignity and sovereignty as 
 a State^and the constitutional rights and liberties of her 
 people. 
 
 Those who are unfriendly to State sovereignty and desii'e 
 to consolidate all power in the hands of the Confederate 
 Government, hoping to promote their. undertaking by ope- 
 rating upon the fears of the timid, after each new aggres- 
 sion upon the constitutional rights of the States, fill the 
 newspaper presses with the cry of conflict, and warn the 
 people to. beware of those who seek to maintain their con- 
 stitutional rights, as agitators or jxirtisans who may embar- 
 rass the Confederate Government in the prosecution of the 
 war. 
 
 Let not the people be deceived by this false clamor. It 
 is the same cry of conflict which the Lincoln government 
 
16, 
 
 raised against all who defended the rights of the Southern 
 States against its tyranny. It is the cry which the usur- 
 pers of power have ever raised against those who rebuke 
 their encroachments and refuse to yield to their aggres- 
 sions. 
 
 When did Georgia embarrass the Confederate Govern- 
 ment in any matter pertaining to the vigorous prosecution 
 of the war ? When did she fail to furnish more than her 
 full quota of troops, when she was called upon as a State 
 by the proper Confederate authority ? And when did her 
 gallant sons ever quail before the enemy, or fail nobly to 
 illustrate her character upon the battle field ? 
 
 She can not only repel the attacks of her enemies on the 
 field of deadly conflict, but she can as proudly repel the 
 assaults of those who, ready to bend the knee to power for 
 position and patronage, set themselves up to criticise her 
 conduct, and she can confidently challenge them to point to 
 a single instance in which she has failed to fill a requisition 
 for troops made upon her through the regular constitution- 
 al channel. To the very last requisition made she respon- 
 ded with over double the number required. 
 
 She stands ready at all times to do her whole duty to the 
 cause and to the Confederacy, but while she does this, she 
 will never cease to require^that her constitutional rights be 
 respected and the liberties of her people "preserved. 
 While she deprecates all conflict with the Confederate Gov- 
 ernment, if to require these be conflict, the conflict will never 
 end till the object is attained. 
 
 • ."For freedom's battle once begun, 
 
 Beqneftth'd by bleeding sire to son, 
 Though baffled oft is ever won," 
 
 will be emblazoned in letters of living light upon her proud 
 banners, until State sovereignty and constitutional liberty, 
 as well.as Confederate independence, are firmly established. 
 
 SUSPENSION OF THE HABEAS CORPUS. 
 
 I cannot withhold the expression of the deep mortifica- 
 tion I feel at the late action of Congress in attempting to 
 suspend the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and to 
 confer upon the President powers expressly denied to him 
 by the Constitution of the Confederate States. Under pre- 
 text of a necessity which our whole people know does not 
 exist in this case, whatever may have been the motives, our 
 Congress with the assent and at the request of the Execu- 
 tive, has struck a fell blow at the liberties of the people of 
 these States. 
 
 The Constitution of the Confederate States declares that, 
 "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
 pended,, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
 public safety may require it." The power to suspend the 
 
33 
 and no breach of it, was ever laid at their door; or truly 
 charged against them. In exercising their undoubted right 
 to withdraw from the Union, when the covenant had been 
 broken by the Northern States, they sought no war — no 
 strife. — They simply withdrew from further connection 
 with self-confessed, faithless Confederates. They offered 
 no injury to them — threatened none — proposed none — in- 
 tended none. If their previous union with the Southern 
 States, had been advantageous to them, and our withdrawal 
 affected their interests injuriously, they ought to have been 
 truer to their obligations. They had no just cause to com- 
 plain of us, the breach of the Compact was by themselves 
 — flie vital cord of the union, was severed by their own 
 .hands. 
 
 After the withdrawal of the Confederate States from the- 
 Union, if those whose gross dereliction of duty had caused 
 it, had reconsidered their own acts; and offered new assu- 
 rances for better faith in future; the question would have 
 beeu fairly and justly put to the seceded States, in their 
 sovereign capacity to determine; whether in view of their 
 past and future interest and safety, "they should renew the 
 union with them or not, and upon what terms, and guar- 
 antees; and if they had found it to be their interest to do 
 so, upon any terms that might have beer. agreed upon; on 
 the principle assumed at the beginning, thai it was for the 
 best interest of all the States, to be bound, by some Com- 
 pact of union, with a Central Government of limited pow- 
 ers; each State faithfully performing its obligations; ikey 
 would doubtless have consented to it. But if they had 
 found it to be their interest not to do it, they would not,, 
 and ought not to have done it. For the first law of nature 
 as applicable to States and communities, as to individuals,, 
 is self-protection and self-preservation. 
 
 Possibly a new government might have been formed a 7 
 that time, upon the basis of the Germanic Confederation; 
 with a guaranty of the complete sovereignty of all the sep- 
 arate States; and with a central agent or government, of 
 more limited powers than the old one; which would have 
 been as useful for defence against foreign aggression; and 
 much less dangerous to the Sovereignty and the existence 
 of the States, than the eld one, when in the hands of abolition 
 leaders, had proved itself to be. 
 
 The length of time for which the-Germanic Confederation 
 has existed, has proved, that its strength lies in what might 
 have been considered its weakness — the separate Sc> 
 eignty of the individual members; and the very line 
 powers of the Central Government. 
 
 In taking the Step which they were forced to do, the 
 Southern States were careful not to provoke a conflict <>f 
 arms; or any serious misunderstanding, with the States 
 that adhered to the government at Washington; as long as 
 it was possible to avoid it. Commissioners were sent to 
 3 
 
34 
 \\ r ashingtoTi to settle and adjust all matters relating to their 
 past connection;* 01 " joint interests, and obligations; justly, 
 honorably, and peaceably. Our Commissioners were not 
 received — they wei e denied the privilege of an audience— 
 they were not heard. But they were indirectly trifled with, 
 lied to, and misled, by duplicity as infamous as that practic- 
 ed by Philip of Spam, towards the peace Commissioners 
 sent by Elizabeth of England. They were detained, and 
 deceived, with private assurances of a prospect of a peace- 
 ful settlement; while the roo.^t extensive preparations were 
 ■being made for war and subjugation. When they discov- 
 ered this they withdrew, and the government at Washing 
 ton continued its vigorous preparations to reinforce its 
 garrisons, and hold the possession of our Forts; and to send 
 armies to invade our territory. 
 
 Having completed his preparations for war, and refused 
 to hear any propositions for a peaceful adjustment of our 
 difficulties; President Lincoln issued his proclamation de- 
 claring Georgia, and the other^seceded States to be in rebel- 
 lion; and sent forth his armies of invasion. 
 
 In rebellion against whom or what? As sovereign States 
 have no common arbiter, to whose decision they can appeal; 
 when they are unable to settle their differences amicably, 
 they often resort to the sword as the arbiter; and as sover- 
 eignty is always in dignity the equal ofjsovereignty, and a 
 sovereign can know no superior to which allegiance is due, 
 one sovereign may be at war with another; but one can 
 never be in rebellion against another. 
 
 To say that the sovereign State of Georgia, is in rebel- 
 lion against the sovereign State of Rhode Island, is as much 
 an absurdity, as it, would be to say that the sovereign State 
 of Russia was in rebellion against the sovereigfi State of 
 Great Britain in their late war. They were at war, with 
 each other; but neither was in rebellion against the other; 
 nor indeed could be; for neither owed an}'' allegiance to the 
 other. 
 
 Nor could one of the Sovereign States be in rebellion 
 ■against the government of the United States. That gov- 
 ernment was the creature of the States, by which it was 
 created; and they had the same power to destroy it at' 
 pleasure, which they had to make it. It was their common 
 agent with limited powers, and the States by which the 
 agency w T as created, had the undoubted right when it abused 
 these powers to withdraw them. Suppose by mutual con- 
 sent all the States in the Union, had met in convention ; 
 each in its separate sovereign capacity, and had withdrawn 
 all the delegated powers from the federal government, and 
 all the States had refused to send Senators or Representa- 
 tives to Congress, or to elect a President ; will any sane 
 man question their right, or deny that such action of the 
 States would have destroyed the federal government ? If 
 so the federal government was the creature of the States 
 
35 
 and could exist only at their pleasure. It lived and breath- 
 ed only by their consent. If all the parties to the compact, 
 had the right by mutual consent, to resume the powers 
 delegated by them to the common agent ; why had not part 
 of them the right to do so, when the others violated the 
 compact — refused to be bound longer by its obligations ; 
 and thereby released their copartners ? The very fact that 
 the States — by which it was formed, could at any time by 
 mutual consent, disband, and destroy the federal govern- 
 ment, shows that it had no original inherent sovereignty or 
 jurisdiction. As the creature of the States it had only such 
 powers and jurisdictions as they gave it ; and it held what 
 it had at their pleasure. If therefore a State withdrew 
 from the Confederacy without just cause, it was a question 
 for the other sovereign States to consider, what should be 
 their future relations towards it ; but it was a question of 
 which the federal government had not the shadow of jurisdic- 
 tion. So long as Georgia remained in the Union, if her 
 citizens had refuseH to obey such laws of Congress, a3 it 
 had constitutional jurisdiction to pass, they might have 
 been in rebellion against tiie federal government; because 
 they resisted the authority over them, which Georgia had 
 delegated to that government, and which with her consent 
 it still possessed. But if Georgia for just cause, of which 
 she was the judge, chose to withdraw from the Union, and 
 resume the attributes of sovereignty, which she had dele- 
 gated to the. United States Government, her citizens could 
 no longer be subject to the laws of the Union, and no lon- 
 
 ::ilty as rebels if they did not obey them. 
 It could be as justly said, that the principal, who has 
 d (legated certain limited powers to his agent, in the trans- 
 action ol hi- business, which he has afterwards withdrawn 
 on account of their abuse by the agent,is in rebellion against 
 
 gent : or thai the master is in rebellion against his ser- 
 vant ; or lie landlord against his tenant ; because lie has 
 withdrawn certain privileges fcr a time allowed them ; as 
 that Georgia is in rebellion against her former agent the 
 government of the United States. 
 
 These I understand to be the great fundamental doctrines 
 of our republican form of government ; bo ably expounded 
 in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of L798 and L799 j 
 which have ever since been a text hook of the inn republi- 
 can party of the United States. Departure from these 
 principles, has destroyed the federal government j and been 
 the prolific cause of all our woes. Out of this departure 
 has spinier the doctrine of loyalty and disloyalty of the 
 States in i he federal government; from which comes osten- 
 sibly this war against us : which 18 itself at war with the 
 til's t principles of American constitutional liberty. It in- 
 volves the interests, the future safety, and welfare, ot 
 States now deemed loyal, as well as those pronounced dis- 
 loyal. It is the doctrine of absolutism revived in- its worst 
 
36 
 form. It strikes down the essential principles of self-gov- 
 ernment, ever held so sacred in our past history ; and to 
 which all the States were indebted for their unparalleled 
 career, in growth, prosperity, and greatness, so long as 
 those principles were adhered to and maintained inviolate. 
 If carried out and established, its end can be nothing 
 but centralism, and despotism. It and its fatal corollary — 
 the policy of forcing sovereign States to the discharge of 
 their assumed constitutional obligations, were foreshadowed 
 by President Lincoln in his inaugural address. 
 
 Now at the time of tiie delivery of that inaugural address 
 it was well known to him, that the faithless States above 
 alluded to ; and to whose votes in the electoral college he 
 was indebted for his election, had for years been in open 
 avowed and determined violation, of their constitutional 
 obligations. This he well knew, and he also knew, that 
 the seceded States had withdrawn from the Union, because 
 of this breach of faith on the part of the abolition States ; 
 and other anticipated violations, more dangerous, threaten- 
 ed from the same quarter. Yet without a word of rebuke, 
 censure, or remonstrance, with them, for their most flagrant 
 disloyalty to the constitution, and their disregard of their 
 most sacred Obligations under it ; he then threatened and 
 now wasres war against us, on the ground of our disloyalty ; 
 in seeking new safe-guards for our security, when the old 
 ones failed. ' And the people of those very States, whose 
 disloyal hands had severed the ties of the Union — breaking- 
 one of the essential parts of .the compact, have been, and 
 are, his most furious myrmidons, in this most wicked and 
 unjust crusade against us, with the view to compel the peo- 
 ple of these so outraged States, to return to the discharge 
 of their constitutional obligations! It may be gravely 
 doubted, if the history of the world can furnish an instance 
 of .grosser perfidy or more shameful wrong. 
 
 But while the war is- thus waged, professedly under the 
 paradoxical pretext of restoring the Union that was a 
 creature of consent, by force; and of upholding the Con- 
 stitution by coercing sovereigu States ; yet its real objects,, 
 as appears more obviously every day, are by no means so 
 paradoxical. The Union under the Constitution as it was; 
 each and every State being bound faithfully to perform and 
 discharge its duties, and obligations, and the central gov- 
 ernment confining itself within the sphere of its limited 
 powers ; is what the authors, projectors, and controllers, of 
 this war never wanted ; and never intended ; and do not 
 now intend to maintain. 
 
 Whatever differences of opinion may have existed at the 
 commencement, among our own people, as to the policy of 
 secession, or the objects of the federal government; all- 
 doubt has been dispelled by the Abolition Proclamation of 
 President Lincoln ; and his subsequent action. Maddened 
 by abolition fanaticism, and deadly hate for the white race 
 
-37 
 of the South, he wages war not for the restoration of the 
 Union — not for the support of the Constitution — but for the 
 abolition of slavery, and the subjugation, and as he doubt- 
 less desires ultimate extermination, of the anglo-Norman 
 race in the Southern States. Dearly beloved by him as are 
 the African race, his acts are prompted less by love of 
 them, than by Puritanic hate for the Cavaliers, the Hugue- 
 nots, and Scotch Irish, whose blood courses freely through 
 the veins of the white population of the South. But fed- 
 eral bayonets can never reverse the laws of God, which 
 must be done, 'before the negro can be made the equal of 
 the white man of the South. The freedom sought for them, 
 by the abolition party if achieved, would result in their re- 
 turn to barbarism ; and their ultimate extermination from 
 the soil, where most of them were born ; and were com- 
 fortable and contented, under the guardian care of the 
 white race, before this wicked crusade was commenced. 
 
 What have been the abolition achievements of the ad- 
 ministration ? The m6st that has been claimed by them, 
 is that they have taken from their owners, and set free, 
 100,000 negroes. What has this cost the white race of the 
 North and South? More than half a million of white 
 men slain or wrecked in health beyond the hope of recov- 
 ery, and an expenditure of not perhaps less than four thousand 
 millions of dollars. What will it cost at this rate, to lib- 
 erate nearly 4,000,000 more of slaves V Northern accounts, 
 of the sickness, suffering and death, which have under nor- 
 thern treatment, carried off so large a proportion of those 
 set free, ought to convince the most fanatical, of the cruel in- 
 jury they are inflicting upon the poor helpless African. 
 
 The real objects of the war aimed at from the beginning, 
 were ami are, not so much the deliverance of the African 
 irom bondage, as the repudiation of the great American 
 doctrine of self-government ; the subjugation of the peo- 
 ple of these States; and the confiscation ot their property. 
 To carry out (heir tell purpose by misleading some simple 
 minded folks, within their own limits, as well as ours per- 
 haps, they passed in the liens,' of lu-presentatives of the 
 Federal Congress a short time since the famous resolution: 
 
 "That as our country and the very Existence of the best 
 government ever instituted by man is imperiled, by the 
 most causeless and wicked rebellion, that the only hope of 
 saving tbe country and preserving this governmenl is by the 
 power of the BWord, we are for the most vigorous prosecu- 
 tion of the war ; until the constitution and fans, shall be en- 
 forced and obeyed, in all parts of the United States ; and to 
 thai end we oppose any armistice, or intervention, or media- 
 tion, or proposition for peace, from any quarter ; so long as 
 there shall be found a rebel in arms against the government; 
 and we ignore all part\ names lines and issues, and recognize 
 but two parties to this war — patriots, and traitors." 
 
 Were solemn mockery, perfidious baseness, unmitigated 
 
• •»• 33 . 
 
 hypocrisy, and malignant barbarity, ever more conspicu- 
 ously combined, and presented for the just condemnation 
 of a right thinking world, than they are in this resolution ; 
 passed by the abolition majority in the Lincoln Congress? 
 Think of the members- from Massachusetts and Vermont, 
 voting for the most vigorous prosecution of the war, until 
 the Constitution and laws, shall be enforced and obeyed, in all 
 parts of the United States. Think of the acts of the Leg- 
 islature of Massachusettes, passed in 1843 and 1S55, still 
 standing upon her statute book, setting at defiance the 
 Constitution and laws. What would become of these States? 
 And what would become of their members themselves, 
 who have upheld and sustained these violations of the 
 Constitution and laws, which is the chief reason why they 
 now hold their' seats, by the votes of their constituents, if 
 the war should be so waged ? How long Avould it be be- 
 fore they would ground their arms of rebellion, against the 
 provision of the Constitution which they have set at 
 naught, and give it their loyal support? What would be- 
 come of their President and his cabinet ; and all who from 
 the beginning of the war, and before that time, have been 
 trampling the Constitution under their feet ? Were the 
 war waged as they thus declare it to be their purpose to 
 wage it, they would be the first victims of the sword ; were 
 it first turned, as it ought to be, against the first .offenders. 
 This they know full well.* Obedience to the Constitution, 
 is the last thing they want or intend. Hence the mockery, 
 baseness, and hypocrisy, of such a declaration of purpose. 
 On their part, it is a war of most wanton and savage ag- 
 gression ; on ours it is a war in defence of inalienable 
 rights ; in defence of everything for which freemen should 
 live ; and for which freemen may ,well be willing to die. 
 
 |The inestimable rights of self government, and State[Sover- 
 eignty for which their fathers and our fathers bled and suffered 
 together, in the struggle with England for Independence; are 
 the same for which we are now engaged, in this mostunnat- 
 ural and sanguinary struffgle»with them. Those rights are as 
 dear to the people of these States, as they were to those who 
 achieved them ; and on account of the great cost of the 
 achievement, they are the more preciously cherished, by 
 those. to whom they were bequeathed, and will never be 
 surrendered or abandoned at less sacrifise. 
 
 If no proposition for peace or armistice is to be received, 
 or entertained, so long as we hold arms in our hands, to 
 defend ourselves, our homes, our hearthstones, our altars, 
 and our birthright, against such ruthless and worse than 
 vandal invaders ; be it so ! We deem it due, however, • to 
 ourselves, to the civilized world, and to those who shall 
 come after us ; to put upon record, what we are fighting 
 tor ; and to let all know, who may now or hereafter, feel 
 an interest in knowing, the real nature of this conflict; 
 
39 
 that the heavy responsibility, of such suffering, desolation,, 
 and carnage, may rest where it rightfully belongs. 
 
 It is believed that many of the people of the Northern 
 States, labor under the impression, that no propositions for 
 peaceful adjustment, have ever been made by us. 
 . President Lincoln, in his letter to the "Unconditional 
 Union" meeting at Springfield last summer, stated in sub- 
 stance, that no proposition for a peaceful adjustment of the 
 matters in strife, had ever been made to him by those who 
 were in control of the military forces, of the Confederate 
 States; but if any such should be made, he would enter- 
 tain and give it his consideration. 
 
 This was doubtless sand to make the impression, on the 
 minds of those not well informed, that the responsibility of 
 the war was with us. This declaration of President Lin- 
 coln stands in striking contrast, with that above quoted, 
 from the republican members of the. House of Representa- 
 tives. 
 
 When this statement was . made by President Lincoln, it 
 was well known to him, that our commissioners, sent to 
 settle the whole matter in dispute psaceably,were refused a 
 hearing!. They were not even permitted to present their 
 terms ! 
 
 This declaration was • .also made soon after it was well 
 known, throughout the Confederate States at least, that a 
 distinguished son of this State, who is a high functionary 
 of the government at Richmond, had consented as military 
 commissioner, to bear a communication in writing from 
 President Davis, the Commander-in-Chief of our armies, 
 to President Lincoln himself ; with authority to confer up- 
 on matters therein set forth. This Commissioner sent from 
 the head of our armies, was not granted an audience, nor 
 was the communication he bore received. That communi- 
 cation, as was afterwards known, related to divers matters 
 connected with the general conduct of the war. Its na- 
 ture however, or to what it referred, President Lincoln did 
 not know, when he refused to receive it. But from what 
 is now known of it, if he had received it, and had heard 
 what terms might have been proposed, for the general con- 
 duet of the war, it is reasonable to conclude, that the dis- 
 cussion of these, and kindred topics, mighl have led to 
 some more definite ideas, of the aims and objects of the war 
 on both sides; from which the initiative of pes ful ad- 
 justment, mighl have sprung ; unless his real purpose be, 
 as it is believed to be, nothing short of the conquest, and sub- 
 jugation, of these States. Hi* announcement, that no offer 
 of terms of adjustment had ever been made to him, is be- 
 lieved to be an artful pretext on his part, to cover, and 
 hide, from the people over whom he is assuming Buch ab- 
 solute sway, his deep designs; first against our liberties* 
 and then against theirs. 
 
40 
 
 HOW PEACE SHOULD BE SOUGHT. 
 
 In view of these difficulties, it may be asked, when and 
 how is this war to terminate ? It is impossible to say when 
 it may terminate ; but it is easy to say how it will end. We 
 do not seek to conquer the Northern people, and if we are 
 true to ourselves they can never conquer us. We do not 
 seek to take from them the right of self-government ; or'to 
 govern them without their consent. And they have not 
 force enough, to govern us without our consent ; or to de- 
 prive us of .the right to govern «ur8elves. " The blood of 
 hundreds of thousands may yet be spilt, and the war will 
 not still be terminated by force of arms. Negotiation uill 
 finally terminate it. The pen of the Statesman, more potent 
 than the sword of the warrior, must do, what the latter has 
 failed to do. 
 
 But I may be asked how negotiations are to commence, 
 when President Lincoln refuses to receive commissioners 
 sent by us ; and his Congress resolves to hear no proposition 
 for peace? I reply, that in my opinion, it is our duty, to 
 keep it always before the Northern people, and the civilized 
 world, that we are ready to negotiate for peace ; whenever 
 the people and government of the Northern State's, are pre- 
 pared to recognize, the great fundamental principles of 
 the declaration of Independence, maintained by our common 
 ancestry — the rigid of all self-government and the sovereignty of 
 the States. In my judgment it is the duty of our govern- 
 ment, after each important victory, achieved by our gallant 
 an$ glorious armies, on the battle field, to make a distinct 
 proposition to the Northern government for peace, upon 
 these terms. By doing this, if the proposition is declined 
 by them, we will hold them up constantly in the wrong, 
 before their own people, and the judgment of mankind. If 
 they refuse to receive the commissioners who bear the prop- 
 osition, publish it in the newspapers ; and let the conduct 
 of their rulers be known to the people ; and there is reason- 
 able ground to hope, that the time may not be far distant, 
 when a returning sense of justice, and a desire for self-pro- 
 tection against despotism at home ; will prompt the people 
 of the Northern States to hurl from ptwer, those who deny 
 the fundamental principle, upon which their own liberties 
 rest ; and who can never be satiated with human blood. 
 Let us stand on no delicate point of etiquette, or diplomat- 
 ic ceremony. If the proposition is rejecte/1 a dozen times, 
 let us tender it again after the next victory — that the world 
 may be reassured from month to month, that we are not re- 
 sponsible, for the continuance of this devastation and car-' 
 nage. 
 
 Let it b« repeated again and again, to the Northern peo- 
 ple, that all we ask, is that they recognize the great princi- 
 ple upon which their own government rests, — the sovereign- 
 ty oftlie States: and let our own people hold our own gov- 
 
41 
 eminent to a strict account, for every encroachment upon 
 this vital principle. 
 
 Herein lies the simple solution of all these troubles. 
 
 If there be any doubt, or «ny question of doubt, as to the 
 sovereign will of any one of all the States of this Confede- 
 racy,or of any border State whose institutions are similar to 
 ours not in the Confederacy, upon the subject of their pres- 
 ent or future alliance ; let all armed force be withdrawn ; 
 and let that sovereign will be fairly expressed at the ballot 
 box ; by the legal voters of the State ; and let all parties 
 abide by the decision. 
 
 Let each State have and freely exercise, the right to de- 
 termine its own destiny, in its own way. This is all that 
 we have been struggling for from the beginning. It is a 
 principle that secures " rights, inestimable to freemen, and 
 formidable to tyrants only." 
 
 Let both governments adopt this mode of settlement, 
 which was bequeathed to them by the great men of the Rev- 
 olution ; and which has since been adopted J>y the Emper- 
 or Napoleon as the only just mode for the government of 
 States, or even provinces : and the ballot box will soon 
 achieve what the sword cannot accomplish — restore peace 
 to the country; and uphold the great doctrines of State sov- 
 ereignty and constitutional liberty. 
 
 If it is a question of strife, whether Kentucky or Mary- 
 land, or any other State, shall cast her lot with the United 
 States, or the Confederate States, thcje is no mode of set- 
 tling it so justly, with so little cost, and with so much sat- 
 isfaction to herown people, as to withdraw all Military force 
 from her limits, and leave the decision, not to the sword, but 
 t6 the ballot box. If she should decide for herself to abol- 
 ish slavery and go with the North, the Confederate govern- 
 ment can have no just cause of complaint, for that govern- 
 ment had its origin in the doctrine that all jts just " powers 
 are derived from the consent of the governed", and we have 
 no right to insist on governing a sovereign State, against 
 her will. But if she should decide to retain her institu- 
 tions and go with the South, as we doubt not she will, when 
 the question is fairly submitted to her people at the polls, 
 the Lincoln government must acquiesce, or it must repudi- 
 ate and trample upon, the very essential principles; on 
 which it was founded, and which were carried out in prac- 
 tice by thejathers of the Republic, for the first half century 
 of its existence. 
 
 What Southern man can object to this mode of settle- 
 ment? His all that South Carolina, Virginia, or Georgia, 
 claimed when she seceded from the Union. It is all that 
 either has at any time claimed, and all that either ever can 
 justly claim. And what friend of Southern Independence 
 fears the result ? What has the Abolition government done, 
 
42 
 
 to cause the people of any Southern State, to desire to re- 
 verse her decision ; and return iugloriously to its embrace. 
 Are we afraid the people of any seceded State, will desire ' 
 to place the State back, in the Abolition union ; under the 
 Lincoln despotism ; after it has devastated their fields, laid 
 waste their country, burned their cities, slaughtered their 
 sons, and degraded, their daughters? There is no reason for 
 such fear. 
 
 But I may be told that Mr. Lincoln has repudiated this 
 principle in advance, and that it is idle again to tender a 
 settlement upon these terms. This is no reason why we 
 should withhold, the repeated renewal of the proposition. 
 Let it be made again and again, till the mass of the Northern 
 people understand it : and Mr. Lincoln can not continue, to 
 stand before them and the world, stained with the blood of 
 their sons, their husbands, and their fathers, and insist, when 
 a proposition so fair is constantly tendered, that thousands 
 of new victims shall still continue to bleed, to gratify his 
 abolition fanaticism, satisfy his revenge, and serve his ambi- 
 tion, to govern these States, upon the decision of one tenth 
 of the people in his favor, against the other nine tenths.* Let 
 the Northern and Southern mind be brought to contem- 
 plate this subject in all its magnitude ; and while there may 
 be extreme men on the Northern side, satisfied with nothing 
 less than the subjugation of the South, and the confiscation' 
 of our property ; and like extremists on the Southern side, 
 whose morbid sensibilities are shocked, at the mention of 
 negotiation, or the renewal of an otFer by us for a settle- 
 ment upon any terms; I eannot doubt that the cool-headed 
 thinking men on both sid^s of the line, who are devoted to 
 the great principles of self government, and State soverign- 
 ty, including the scar-covered veterans of the Army, will 
 finally settle down upon this as the true solution of the great 
 problem, whiclj now embarrasses so many millions of peo- 
 ple ; and will find the higher truth between the two ex- 
 tremes. 
 
 If, upon the sober second thought, the public sentiment 
 North, sustains the policy of Mr. Lincoln, when he proposes, 
 by the power of the sword, to place the great doctrines of 
 the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. of 
 his country, under his feet, and proclaims his purpose to 
 govern these States, by Military power, when he shall have 
 obtained the consent of one tenth of the governed; how can 
 the same public sentiment condemn him, if, at the head of 
 his vast armies he shall proclaim himself Emperor of the 
 whole country ; and submit the question to the vote of the 
 Northern people, and when he has obtained, as he could ea- 
 sily do, the vote of one tenth in his favor, he shall insist on 
 his right to govern them, as their legitimate sovereign? If 
 he is right in principle in the one case, he would unquestion- 
 
43" 
 
 ably be right in the other. If he may rightfully continue 
 the war against the South to sustain the one, why may he 
 not as rightfully turn his armies against the North to estab- 
 lish the other ? 
 
 But the timid among us may say, how are we to meet 
 and repel his armies, if Mr. Lincoln shall continue to reject 
 these terms; and shall be sustained by the sentiment of the 
 North ? as he claims not only the right to govern us, but he 
 claims the right to take from us all that we have. 
 
 The answer is plain. Let every man do his duty ; and let 
 us as a people place our trust in God, and we shall certain- 
 ly repel his assaults, and achieve our Independence, and if 
 true to ourselves and to posterity, we shall maintain our 
 Constitutional liberty also. The achievement of our Inde- 
 pendence is a great object ; but not greater than the pres- 
 ervation of Constitutional liberty. 
 
 The good man cannot read the late proclamation of Mr. 
 Lincoln, without being struck with the resemblance between 
 it, and a -similar one, issued several thousand years ago, by 
 Ben-hadad, king of Syria. That wicked king, denied in oth- 
 ers the right of self-government ; and vaunting himself in 
 numbers, and putting his trust in chariots and horses, he in- 
 vaded Israel, and beseiged Samaria with an overwhelming 
 force. When the king of Israel, with a small band, resisted 
 his entrance into the city, the Syrian king sent him this 
 message : " Thou shalt deliver me thy silver and thy gold, 
 and thy wives, and thy children ; yet I will send my ser- 
 vants unto thee to-morrow, about this time ; and they shall 
 search thy house, and the houses of thy servants ; and it, 
 shall be, that whatsoever is pleasant in thine eyes, they shall 
 put in their hands and take it away." The king of Israel 
 consulted the Elders, after receiving this arrogant message, 
 and replied : '• This thing I may not do." Ben-hadad enra- 
 ged at this reply v and confident of his strength, sent back 
 and said: 
 
 " The Gods do so to me, and more also, if the dust of Sa- 
 maria shall suffice, for handfuls, for all the people that fol- 
 low me". The king of Israel answered and said: "Tell 
 him, let not him that girdeth on his harness, boast himself 
 as he that putteth it off". 
 
 The result was, that the small band of Israelites guided by 
 Jehovah, attacked the Syrian armies, and routed them with 
 great slaughter ;. and upon a second trial of strength, the 
 Syrian armies were destroyed and their king made captive. 
 
 "When Mr. Lincoln, following the example of this wick- 
 ed king, and relying upon his chariots, and his horsemen, and 
 his. vast armies, to sustain a cause equally unjust ; proclaims 
 to us, that all we have is his, and that he will send iiis ser- 
 vants, whose, numbers are overwhelming, with arms in their 
 hands to take it, and threatens vengeance if we resist ; let 
 
44 
 
 us — " Tell him, let not him that girdethon his harness boast 
 himself as he that putteth it off." The race is not to the 
 swift, nor the battle to the stropg. " God is the judge, he 
 putteth down one and setteth up another." 
 
 Not doubting the justice of our cause, let us stand in our 
 allotted pltces, and in filename of Him who rules the hosts 
 of Heaven, and the armies of Earth, let us contiue to strike, 
 for liberty and independence, and our efforts will ultimately 
 be crowned with triumphant success. 
 
 JOSEPH E. BROWN. 
 
4o 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ACT OF SIXTEENTH CHARLES I, CHAPTER 10. 
 
 This went into operation 1st August, 1G41. 
 An Act for the regulating of the privy council, and for 
 taking away the Court commonly called the Star-Chamber. 
 WiiEKEASby the Great Charter many times confirmed in par- 
 liament, it is enacted, That no freeman shall he taken <a- impru- 
 oned, or disseized of his freehold or liberties, or fee customs, or be 
 outlawed, or exiled, or otherwise destroyed ; and that the King will 
 not pass upon, him, or condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his 
 peers, or by the law of the land. 
 
 (2.) And by another statute made in the fifth year of the 
 reign of King Edward, it is enacted, that no man shall be 
 attached by any at cusation, nor forejudged of life, or limb, nor his 
 lands, tenements, goads nor chattt Is s< ized into the King's bands, 
 against the firm of the GREAT, CHARTER and the Law of THE 
 Land; 
 
 (o.) And by another statute made in the five and twen- 
 tieth year of the reign of the same King Edward the Thin'. 
 it is accorded, assented, and established, that none shall be 
 taken by petition, or suggestion made to the King, or to his council, 
 unless it be by indict matt cr presentment of good and lawful 
 jwople of the same neighborhood, where such deeds he done, in 
 due manner, or by process made by writ original at the com- 
 mon law ; and that none be put out of his franchise, or freehold, 
 unless he be duly brought in to answer, and forejudged of 
 the same by the course of the law: And if anything be done 
 against the same, it shall be redressed, and holden for none. (4) 
 And by another statute made in the eight and twentieth 
 year of the reign of the same King Edward the Third, it is, 
 amongst other things, enacted, That no man, of what estate 
 or condition soever he be, shall be put out of his lands and 
 tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned, nor disinherited, without be- 
 ing brought in to answer by DUE PROCESS of LAW. 
 (6) And by another statute made in the two and fortieth year 
 of the reign of the said King Edward the Third, it is enac- 
 ted, That no man be put to answer without presentment 
 fore justices or matter of record, or by due process and writ 
 original, according to the OLl> LAW <f the land: And if 
 anything be done to the contrary, it shall be void in law and 
 holden for error. ((}) And by another statute in the six and 
 thirtieth year of the reign of i lie same King Edward tee 
 Third, it is, amongst other things, Enacted, That all pleas, 
 which shall be pleaded in any courts, "before any of the 
 King's justices, or in his other places or before any of his 
 other ministers, or in the courts and places of any other 
 lords within this realm, shall be entered and enrolled in 
 
4G 
 
 Latin. (7) And whereas by the statute made in the third 
 year of King Henry the Seventh, power is given to the 
 "chancellor, the lord treasurer of England, for the time be- 
 ing, and the keeper of the King's Privy seal, or two of 
 them, calling unto them a bishop, and a temporal lord of 
 the King's most honorable council, and the two chief jus- 
 tices of the King's bench, and common pleas for the time 
 being, or other two justices in their absence, to proceed as 
 in that act is expressed, for the punishment of some particu- 
 lar offences therein mentioned. (S) And by the statute 
 made in the one and twentieth year of King Henry the 
 Eighth, the president of the council associated to join with 
 the lord chancellor, and other judges in the said statute of 
 the third of Henry the Seventh mentioned. (9) But the 
 said iudges have not kept themselves to the points limited 
 by the said statute, but have undertaken to punish where 
 no law doth warrant, and to make decrees for things, having 
 no such authority, and to inflict heavier punishments, than by 
 any taw is warranted. 
 
 2. And forasmuch as all matters examinable or determin- 
 able before the said judges dr in the court commonly called 
 the star-bfuimber, may have their proper remedy and redress, 
 and their due punishment and correction by the common law 
 of the land, and in the ordinary course of justice elsewhere. (2) 
 And forasmuch as the reasons and motives, inducing the 
 erection and continuance of that court do now cease. , (3) 
 And the proceedings, censures, and decrees of that court, 
 have by experience been found to bean intolerable burthen 
 to the subject, and the means to introduce an arbitrary pow- 
 er and government. (4) And .for as much as the council ta- 
 ble hath of late times assumed unto itself, a power to inter- 
 meddle in civil and matters only of private interest between 
 party and party; and have ADVEN t'URJED to determine of 
 the estates and liberties of the subjects, cqntrary to the LAWS of 
 the LAND, and the Rights and Privileges of the subject, by 
 which great and manifold mischiefs and inconveniences have 
 arisen and happened, and much in certainty, by means of- 
 such proceedings, hath been conceived concerning men's 
 rights and estates ; for settling whereof and Preventing the 
 like in time to come, 
 
 3. Be it ordained and Enacted by the authority of this pres- 
 ent purlin mutt, That the said court commonly called the 
 star-chamber, and all jurisdictions, power and authority, be- 
 longing unto, or exercised in the same court, or by any the 
 judges, officers, or ministers thereof, be from the first day 
 of August, in the year of our Lord God one thousand six 
 hundred forty and one, CLEARLY and ABSOLUTELY 
 di ssn/ red, taken away, and determined. (2) And that from the 
 said first day of August neither the lord chancellor or keep- 
 er of the Great seal of England, the lord treasurer of Eng- 
 
•47 
 
 land, the keeper of the King's Privy seal, or president of 
 the council, nor any bishop, temporal lord, privy counsel- 
 lor or judge, or justice whatsoever, shall have any power 
 or authority to hear, examine or determine any matter or 
 thing whatsoever, in the said court, commonly called the 
 Star-Chamber, or to make, pronounce, or deliver anv judg- 
 ment, sentence, order or decree ; or to do any judicial or 
 ministerial act in the said court. (■">). And that all and eve- 
 ery act and acts of parliament, and all and every article, 
 clause, and sentence in them, and every of them, by which 
 any jurisdiction, power or authority is given, limited or tip- 
 pointed unto the said court, commonly called the Star- 
 Chamber, or unto all, or any of the judges, officers, or min- 
 isters thereof, or for any proceedings to be had or made in 
 the said court, or for any matter or thing to be drawn into 
 question, examined or determined there, shall for so much 
 as concerneth the said court of Star-Chamber, and the pow- 
 er and authority thereby given unto it, be from the first 
 day of August REPEALED and ABSOLUTELY, REVOK- 
 ED (Did made void. 
 
 4. And be it likewise Enacted, That the like jurisdiction 
 now used and exercised in the court, before the president 
 and council in the marches of Wales; (2) And also in the 
 court, before the president and council established in the 
 northern ports; (3) And also in the c6urt commonly called 
 the court of the duchy of Lancaster, held before the chan- 
 cellor and council of that court'; (4) And also in the court 
 of Exchequer of the county palatine of Chester , held before the 
 chamberlain and council of that court ; (5) The like juris- 
 diction being exercised there, shall, from the said first day 
 of August one thousand six hundred forty-one, be also RE- 
 PEALED, and ABSOLUTELY REVOKED, and made 
 VOID ; am/ law, prescription, custom or usage, or Hue said stat- 
 ute made in the third year of King Henry the Seventh, or the 
 statute made in the one and twentieth of Henry the Eighth, or 
 any act or acts of parliament heretofore had <n- made, to the con- 
 trary thereof, in any wise notwithstanding. ('">) AND THAT 
 FROM HENCEFORTH No court, council or PLACE OF 
 JUDICATURE, SHALL BE ERECTED, ORDAINED, 
 CONSTITUTED OR APPOINTED WITHIN THIS 
 REALM OF /: 'land, OR DO MINION OF Wales, WHICH 
 SHALL HAVE, USE, OB EXERCISE Tin: SAME, OR 
 THE LIKE JURISDICTION, AS IS OR HATH BEEN 
 USED, PRACTICED OR EXERCISED IN THE SAID 
 COURT OF Star-Chamber. 
 
 lie it liken ise declared, and Enaeied by the authority 
 of this presmt parliament. That neither his MAJESTY, 
 NOR his PRIVY COUNCIL, HAVE, or OUGHT TO 
 HAVE any jurisdiction, power or authority, by English bti>. 
 tition, articles, libels, or any other ARBITRARY WAV 
 
4S 
 
 WHATSOEVER, to examine or draw into question) determine 
 or dispose of the lands, tenements, hereditaments, goods or chattels 
 of any of the subjects of this kingdom ; but. that the same ought to 
 be tried, and determined in the ordinary courts of justice and bij 
 the ordinary course of lav. 
 
 6. And be it further provided and enacted, that if any lord 
 chancellor or keeper of the Great seal of England ; lord treas- 
 urer, keeper of the king's privy seal, president of the coun- 
 cil, bishop, temporal lord, privy counsellor, judge or justice 
 whatsoever, shall offend, or do anything contrary to the pur- 
 port, true intent, and meaning of this law, then he or the)' - 
 for such offence forfeit the sum FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS 
 of lawful money of England, unto any party grieved, his ex- 
 ecutors or administrators, who shall really prosecute for the 
 same, and first obtain judgment thereupon to be recovered 
 in any Court of record at Westminister, by action of debt, bill, 
 plaint, or information, wherein no essoign, protection, wa- 
 ger of law, aid prayer," privilege, injunction or order of re- 
 straint, shall be IN asy WISE prayed, granted or allowed, nor 
 any more than one imparlance. (2) And if any person, 
 against whom, any such judgment or recovery shall be had 
 as aforesaid, shall, after such judgment or recovery, offend 
 again, in the same, then he or they for such offence shall 
 forfeit the sum of OttE THOUSAND POUNDS of lawful 
 money of England, unto any party grieved, his ( xecutors or 
 administrators, who shall really prosecute for the same, and 
 first obtain judgment thereupon, to be recovered in any 
 court of record at Westminister by action of debt, bill, plaint, 
 or information, inwhich no essoign, protection, wager of 
 law, aid prayer, privilege, injunction or order of restraint, 
 shall be IN ANY WISE prayed, granted or allowed ; nor any 
 more than one imparlance, (-i) And if any person, against 
 whom any such second judgment or recovery shall be had as 
 aforesaid, shall after such judgment of recovery offend again 
 in the same kind, and shall be thereof duly convicted by in- 
 dictment, information, or any other lawful way or means, 
 that such person so convicted shall be from thenceforth 
 DISABLED, and become, by virtue of this act INCAPA- 
 BLE, ipso facto, to bear his and their said office and offices respec- 
 tively. (4) And shall be likewise disabled to male any gift, 
 grant, conveyance, or other disposition, of any of Jus lands, tene- 
 ments, hereditaments; goods or chattels ; or to make any benefit of 
 any gifts, conveyance or legacy, to his own use. 
 
 7. And every person so offending, shall likewise profit and' 
 loose to the party grieved, by anything done, contrary to the 
 true intent and meaning of this law, his trible damages, which 
 lie shall sustain and be put unto, by means or occasion of 
 any such act, or thing done ; the same to be recovered in 
 any of his Majesty's courts of record at Westminister, by ac- 
 tion of debt, bill, plaint, or information, wnerein no essoign, 
 
49 
 
 protection, wager of law, aid prayer, privilege, injunction, 
 or order of restraint, shall be IN ANY WISE prayed, granted 
 or allowed, nor any more than one imparlance. 
 
 8. And be it also provided and enacted, That if any per- 
 son shall hereafter be committed, restrained of his liberty ,or 
 suffer imprisonment, by the order or^lecree of any such court 
 of star-chamber, or other court aforesaid, now, or at any 
 time hereafter, having, or pretending to have, the same, or 
 like jurisdiction, power or authority, to commit or imprison 
 as aforesaid ; (2) Or by the command or warrant of the 
 Icing's Majesty, his heirs and successors in their own person ; or 
 by the command or warrant of the council-board ; or of any 
 of the lords, or others of his Majesty's privy council ; (3) That in 
 every such case, every person so committed, restrained of his 
 liberty, or suffering imprisonment, upon demands or motion 
 made by his counsel, or other employed by him for that pur- 
 pose, unto the Judges of the court of king's bench, 'or com- 
 mon pleas, in open court, shall, without delay, upon any 
 pretence whatsoever, for the ordinary fees usually paid for 
 the same, have forthwith granted unto him a writ of habeas 
 corpus, to be directed generally unto all and every sheriff, 
 gaoler, minister, officer, or other person, in whose custody" 
 the person committed or restrained, shall be. (4) And the 
 sheriffs, gaoler, minister, officer, or other person, in whose 
 custody the person so committed or restrained shall be, shall, 
 at the return of the said writ and according to the command 
 thereof, upon due and convenient notice thereof, given unto 
 him, at the charge of the party who requireth or prosecuteth 
 such writ, and upon security by his own bond given, to pay 
 the charge of carrying back the prisoner, if he shall be re- 
 manded by the court to which he shall be brought ; as in 
 like cases hath been used ; such charges of bringing up, and 
 carrying back the prisoner, to be always ordered by the court, 
 if any differance shall arise thereabout ; bring or cause to be 
 brought, the body of the said party so committed or restrain- 
 ed, unto and before the Judges or justices of the said court, 
 from whence the same writ shall issue, in open court. (6) 
 And shall then likewise certify the true cause of such, his de- 
 tainer^ imprisonment.and thereupon the court, within three 
 court days after such return, made and delivered in open 
 court, shall proceed to examine and determine, whether the 
 cause of such commitment, appearing upon the said return, 
 be just and legal or not, and shall thereupon do what to 
 JUSTICE SHALL APPERTAIN, either by delivering, 
 bailing, or remanding the prisoner. (6) And if anything 
 shall be otherwise wilfully done, or omitted to be done by 
 any judge, justice, officer or other person afore-mentioned, 
 contrary to the directions and true meaning hereof, then 
 such persons so offending shall forfeit to the party grieved, bis 
 triblc damages to be recovered by such means, and in such 
 4 
 
50 
 
 manner as is formerly in this act, limited and appointed, for 
 the like penalty to be sued for and recovered. 
 
 9. Provided always, and be it enacted, That this act and 
 the several clauses therein contained shall be taken and ex- 
 pounded to extend only to the court of STAR-CHAMBER ; 
 (2) And to the said court-holden before the president and 
 council in the marches of Wales ; (3) And before the president 
 and council in the Northern ports ; (4) And aleo to the court 
 commonly called the court of the duchy of Lancaster holden 
 before tne chancellor and council of that court ; (5) And also* 
 in the court of Exchequer, of the county palatine cf Chester, 
 held before the chamberlain and council of that court ; (6) 
 And to all courts of like jurisdiction to be hereafter erected, "or- 
 dained, constituted, or appointed, as aforesaid ; and to the 
 warrants and directions of the council-board, and to the com- 
 mitments, restraints aud irnprisojirnents of any person or persons, 
 made, commanded or awarded by the Icing's Majesty, his heirs 
 or successors, in their own person, or by the lords, and others of 
 the privy council, and every one of them. 
 
 And lastly, provided and be it enacted, That no person or 
 persons shall be sued, impleaded, molested or troubled, for 
 any offence against this present act, unless the party suppos- 
 ed to have so offended, shall be sued, or impleaded for the 
 isame, within two years, at the most, after such time, wherein 
 the Baid offence shall be committed. 
 
 O