e total
white population of the eleven States now comprising the
Confederacy is 6,000,000, and, therefore, to fill up the
ranks of the proposed army (600,000) about ten per cent of
the entire white population will be required. In any other
country than our own such a draft could not be met, but the
Southern States can furnish that number of men, and still
not leave the material interests of the country in a
suffering condition. Those who are incapacitated for bearing
arms can oversee the plantations, and the negroes can go on
undisturbed in their usual labors. In the North the case is
different; the men who join the army of subjugation are the
laborers, the producers, and the factory operatives. Nearly
every man from that section, especially those from the rural
districts, leaves some branch of industry to suffer during
his absence. The institution of slavery in the South alone
enables her to place in the field a force much larger in
proportion to her white population than the North, or indeed
any country which is dependent entirely on free labor. The
institution is a tower of strength to the South,
particularly at the present crisis, and our enemies will be
likely to find that the 'moral cancer' about which their
orators are so fond of prating, is really one of the most
effective weapons employed against the Union by the South.
Whatever number of men may be needed for this war, we are
confident our people stand ready to furnish. We are all
enlisted for the war, and there must be no holding back
until the independence of the South is fully acknowledged."

The facts already noted became apparent to the nation very soon, and
then came a change of procedure, and the war began to be prosecuted upon
quite a different policy. Gen. McClellan, whose loyalty to the new
policy was doubted, was removed from the command of the Army of the
Potomac, and slave catching ceased. The XXXVII Congress convened in Dec.
1861, in its second session, and passed the following additional article
of war:

"All officers are prohibited from employing any of the
forces under their respective commands for the purpose of
returning fugitives from service or labor who may have
escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is
claimed to be due. Any officer who shall be found guilty by