Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/469

Rh numbers and qualities of its people, in resources of prosperity, and with the prospects of exerting a wholesome international influence. It was now a little beyond one year old as a Confederacy, but many of its constituent States were among the oldest on the American continent, and all of them were habituated to the restraints as well as the advantages of free constitutional government. The ancestors of its people had framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, while as jurists they had construed the fundamental law, and as soldiers had led great armies on behalf of the common country. Such were the people who formed the Confederate States of America.

Within a few days after his formal inauguration, Mr. Davis sent in to Congress February 25, 1862, his first message under the permanent organization which has all the features of the grace and force which characterized the State papers produced by him. Its value as a historical document fairly exhibiting the state of the Confederate movement as well as its general principles is sufficiently great to authorize its introduction without any abbreviation, into general political literature.

The message was received with favor by the Congress and people of the Confederate States, and was closely read both in Europe and the United States by those who were greatly interested in the events transpiring on the American continent. Congress, as usual, distributed the able paper appropriately among the committees and then addressed itself earnestly to the consideration of all measures necessary to the conduct of the internal affairs of the Confederacy as well as to such as were required to meet the pressure of the war waged by the United States.

Congress, having assembled and organized in February, had under consideration a resolution offered by Mr. Foote, of Tennessee, declaring against the defensive policy of the Confederate administration, and in favor of