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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Journal of the Confederate Congress --NINTH DAY--WEDNESDAY, December 16, 1863.
OPEN SESSION.
The House met pursuant to adjournment, and was opened with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Duncan.
Mr. Clopton introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to repeal the laws of naturalization;" which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Also, a bill to be entitled "An act to regulate exports and imports;" which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Commerce.
Mr. Foster introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to provide for the funding and further issue of Treasury notes,' approved March twenty-third, eighteen hundred and sixty-three;"
which was read a first and second time and referred to the Special Committee on the Currency.
Mr. Curry introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act so to amend section eleven hundred and twenty-seven of Army Regulations as to prohibit officers not actually in the field from drawing subsistence stores at contract prices for the use of their families;" which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.
On motion of Mr. Curry, leave of absence was granted his colleague, Mr. Smith, who was detained from his seat by indisposition.
Mr. Hanly offered the following resolution; which was adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of reporting a bill ratifying consolidations which have already been made of two or more regiments from the same State, and providing by law for future consolidations and the disposition to be made of the supernumerary officers occasioned by such consolidations.
Mr. Vest introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act for the relief of William F. Haines;" which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Claims.
A message was received from the Senate; which is as follows, viz:
Mr. Speaker: The Senate have concurred in the amendments proposed by this House to the bill of the Senate (S. 142) to be entitled "An act to prevent the enlistment or enrollment of substitutes in the military service of the Confederate States, and to repeal all laws permitting or authorizing the same."
Mr. Vest introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act for placing in the military service all persons claiming to be citizens of the United States;"
which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.
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On motion of Mr. Read, it was ordered that the bill to be entitled "An act continuing in pay all wounded and disabled officers who have been so disabled in the service" be taken from the Calendar of last session and placed on the Calendar of this.
Mr. Smith of North Carolina offered the following resolution; which was adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be directed to inquire whether impressments under the act entitled "An act to regulate impressments," approved March twenty-sixth, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, can be lawfully made otherwise than by actual seizure and appropriation; and whether a notice in writing of an intention to impress accompanying an offer to purchase at a stated price an unascertained surplus of produce in the hands of the owner can have the effect to bind the same and prevent its use by the necessitous; and, further, whether in the practical execution of said law the entire surplus of the necessities of life has been seized in certain districts and counties in the hands of producers without regard to the wants of the nonproducing inhabitants; and, if so, whether any and what legislation is required to prevent abuses under the law.
Mr. Miles offered the following resolution; which was adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing by law the President of the Confederate States to summarily dismiss from the service and put into the ranks any officer of the Army who may allow himself and command to be surprised by the enemy.
Mr. Miles introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to continue in force an act entitled 'An act to provide for the compensation of certain persons therein named,' approved May first, eighteen hundred and sixty-three;"
which was read first and second times and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.
Mr. Foote offered the following resolution; which was adopted:
Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of bringing in a bill as early as practicable providing for the calling into the military service all who have been heretofore exempted therefrom by reason of the employment of substitutes, upon such equitable terms as they shall consider just and proper.
Mr. Conrad introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to put an end to the exemption from military service of those who have heretofore furnished substitutes;" which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Military Affairs.
Mr. Foote offered the following preamble and resolution:
Whereas a copy of the truly characteristic proclamation of amnesty recently issued by the imbecile and unprincipled usurper who now sits enthroned upon the ruins of constitutional liberty in Washington City has been received and read by the members of this House: Now, in token of what is solemnly believed to be the almost undivided sentiment of the people of the Confederate States, be it
Resolved, That there has never been a day or an hour when the people of the Confederate States were more inflexibly resolved than they are at the present time never to relinquish the struggle of arms in which they are engaged until that liberty and independence for which they have been so earnestly contending shall have been at last achieved and made sure and steadfast beyond even the possibility of future danger; and that in spite of the reverses which have lately befallen our armies in several quarters, and cold and selfish indifference to our sufferings thus far for the most part evinced in the action of foreign powers, the eleven millions of enlightened freemen now battling heroically for all that can make existence desirable are fully prepared, alike in spirit and in resource, to encounter dangers far greater than those which they have heretofore bravely met and to submit to far greater sacrifices than those which they have heretofore so cheerfully encountered, in preference to holding any further political connection with a government and people who have notoriously
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proved themselves contemptuously regardless of all the rights and privileges which belong to a state of civil freedom, as well as of all the most sacred usages of civilized war.
Mr. Miles moved to lay the preamble and resolution on the table.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. Sexton introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to raise a revenue by direct taxation;" which was read first and second times and referred to the Special Committee on the Currency.
Mr. Gray, by unanimous consent, moved that the special order fixed for the third Monday of this session, which was the consideration of a bill to be entitled "An act to organize a supreme court," be postponed until the third Monday in January.
Mr. Garland moved to amend the motion by striking out the "third Monday in January" and inserting in lieu thereof "until the subject of the currency is disposed of by this House."
The hour devoted to the call of the States having expired,
Mr. Gartrell moved that the consideration of the Calendar be postponed.
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. Gartrell moved the question; which was ordered.
The question being on agreeing to the amendment of Mr. Garland,
It was decided in the negative, and the motion of Mr. Gray was agreed to.
On motion of Mr. Russell, the bill to be entitled "An act to organize a court of claims" was also postponed until the third Monday in January.
Mr. Chambliss offered the following resolution; which was adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the Committee on Military Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of allowing the families of soldiers who are refugees from their homes by reason of the presence of the public enemy to purchase of the commissary of the military post near which they may be residing one ration per day, at Government price.
Mr. Chambliss presented a proposition on the currency; which, without being read, was referred to the Special Committee on the Currency.
Mr. Russell introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to facilitate the raising of ways and means to carry on the war;"
which was read a first and second time and referred to the Special Committee on the Currency.
Mr. Miller offered the following preamble and resolutions:
Whereas in the present condition of the affairs, military and political, of these Confederate States of America, and in view of the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, President of the Northern United States, lately promulgated, it well becomes the Representatives of the people in Congress assembled to express their opinions and announce their determination to the world: Therefore, be it
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On motion of Mr. Miles, the preamble and resolutions were laid upon the table.
Mr. Garnett introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to allow the tax in kind of cured bacon to be commuted in certain cases;"
which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.
Mr. Chambliss introduced
A bill to be entitled "An act to facilitate the detection of frauds in the Commissary and Quartermaster's Departments;"
which was read a first and second time and referred to the Committee on Quartermaster's and Commissary Departments.
A message was received from the Senate, by Mr. Nash, their Secretary; which is as follows, viz:
Mr. Speaker: I am directed to communicate to this House the proceedings of the Senate upon the occasion of the death of the Hon. William Lowndes Yancey, late a Senator from the State of Alabama.
The proceedings of the Senate were then read as follows, viz:
Resolved, That we have heard with deep regret of the death of the Honorable William Lowndes Yancey, a Senator from the State of Alabama, and that we tender to his family our earnest sympathy in their afflictive bereavement.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the family of the deceased, and that the House of Representatives be informed of the action of the Senate.
Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect to the memory of the deceased, the Senate do now adjourn.
Mr. Chilton offered the following resolutions; which were unanimously adopted, viz:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives receives with sincere regret the announcement of the death, on the twenty-eighth of July last, of the Honorable William Lowndes Yancey, late a member of the Senate from the State of Alabama, and tenders to the family of the deceased the assurance of their sympathy with them under the bereavement they have been called upon to sustain.
Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Representatives be directed to transmit to the family of Mr. Yancey a certified copy of the foregoing resolution.
Resolved (as a mark of respect for the memory of the deceased), That the House do now adjourn.
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Pursuant to the last resolution,
The Speaker announced that the House stood adjourned until 12 o'clock to-morrow.
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