Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/505

Rh repugnance, which the administration at Washington disregarded, to an armed conflict between the two races. To the influences of these fears, and of resentment to the indignity thus offered, must be credited the first out bursts through the South, while the subsequent conservative action of the Confederate authorities will commend the wisdom with which the &quot;new policy&quot; was treated. When the Confederate Congress assembled, President Davis called attention in his message of January 12, 1863, to the emancipation proclamation as a war measure which encouraged a servile population to a course of action which would doom them to extermination. In its political aspect the Confederate President regarded the proclamation as a justification of the earliest fears felt by the South on the ascendency into power of the new sectional power, and that it created an insurmountable barrier to the reconstruction of the Union. &quot; So far as regards the action of this government on such criminals as may attempt its execution,&quot; the message proposed to deliver to State authorities all commissioned officers of the United States captured thereafter in any of the States embraced in the proclamation that they may be dealt with in accordance with the laws of those States providing for the punishment of criminals engaged in inciting servile insurrection, but enlisted soldiers were to be discharged on parole according to the customs of war. The President thus treated the new measure as an attempt to excite insurrection of slaves, which was contrary to the penal statutes of the Southern States, and proposed to leave the offenders to the action of the State courts. Congress having already the exciting question under consideration, adopted the course which has been mentioned.

Amidst these civil proceedings in the beginning of 1863 the Confederate armies were considerably strengthened by the operation of the several enrollment acts, although bounties for enlistment had been discontinued,