Page:A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865, Volume I.djvu/577

Rh resolute devotion of the whole resources of men and money in the Confederacy to the achievement of our liberties and independence. The measures now required, to be successful, should be prompt. Long deliberation and protracted debate over important measures are not only natural, but laudable in representative assemblies under ordinary circumstances; but in moments of danger, when action becomes urgent, the delay thus caused is itself a new source of peril. Thus it has unfortunately happened that some of the measures passed by you in pursuance of the recommendations contained in my message of November last have been so retarded as to lose much of their value, or have, for the same reason, been abandoned after being matured, because no longer applicable to our altered condition, and others have not been brought under examination. In making these remarks it is far from my intention to attribute the loss of time to any other cause than those inherent in deliberative assemblies, but only urgently to recommend prompt action upon the measures now submitted. We need, for carrying on the war successfully, men and supplies for the Army. We have both within our country sufficient to obtain success. To obtain the supplies, it is necessary to protect productive districts and guard our lines of communication by an increase in the number of our forces; and hence it results that, with a large augmentation in the number of men in the Army, the facility of supplying the troops would be greater than with our present reduced strength. For the purchase of the supplies now required, especially for the armies in Virginia and North Carolina, the Treasury must be provided with means, and a modification in the impressment law is required. It has been ascertained by examination that we have within our reach a sufficiency of what is most needed for the Army, without having recourse to the ample provision existing in those parts of the Confederacy with which our communication has been partially interrupted by hostile operations. But in some districts from which supplies are to be drawn the inhabitants, being either within the enemy's lines or in very close proximity, are unable to make use of Confederate Treasury notes for the purchase of articles of prime necessity, and it is necessary that to some extent coin be paid in order to obtain