Page:A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865, Volume I.djvu/439

Rh for the use and benefit of the Kentucky troops now in the service. These already receive the same allowance of clothing as all other troops. The act under consideration makes an appropriation for an object for which other money is appropriated, and directs its expenditure by agents other than the bonded officers charged with supplying clothing to the whole Army. If it be designed, as equity would seem to require, to make a proportionate provision for all the other troops, the Senate will not fail to observe the very large expenditure which it would involve, and that the method is objectionable, because it would be to employ two sets of agents to perform the same duty, who, buying in the same market, would necessarily be bidders against each other.

If the allowance of clothing be not sufficient, a better remedy would seem to be an increase of the appropriation for the clothing for the whole Army, that the grateful duty might in that case be performed by the Confederate authorities of issuing to the soldier whatever additional allowance the Government may be able to procure and his wants may require.

It will be further perceived that to recognize as well founded the implication contained in this bill that extra supplies of clothing furnished to the soldiers ought to be paid for by the Confederacy would lay the foundation for large claims to be made hereafter by the States for reimbursement on account of clothing supplied by them to their soldiers.

If the discrimination made by this act in favor of the gallant soldiers of our sister State of Kentucky originates from the natural sympathy excited by their separation from such comforts as they might expect to receive if able to communicate with their homes, Congress will not fail to perceive that there are many other troops in the service in like condition, and whose claims to consideration stand on precisely the same footing.

 February 11, 1864. The House of Representatives of the Confederate States of America. Having carefully considered the act entitled "An Act to provide for wounded and disabled officers, soldiers, and seamen an asylum to be called the 'Veteran Soldiers' Home,'" I feel constrained to 