REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON CLAIMS.
Hon. Howell Cobb,
President of Congress:
Your committee, to whom have been referred divers claims
for money against the Government of the Confederate States,
owing to the tedious method by which it is necessary, under
the existing order of affairs, to establish a claim for money
against the Government, and owing too to the ignorance on
the part of claimants of the manner in which it is neces¬
sary to proceed to make proof of their demands, propose a
plan embodied in a hill herewith submitted, in accordance
with which all claims shall hereafter be authenticated.
Your committee also have had under consideration a reso¬
lution of inquiry referred to them, whether or not it is ex¬
pedient that the Government of the Confederate States pro¬
vide by law for the compensation of those persons who were
employed by the Government of the United States to take
the census of 1860, and who performed that labor. This
resolution embodies the whole question, whether it is the
duty of this Government to assume the payment of all legal,
demands held by citizens of the Confederate States, at the
time of our secession, against the Government of the United
States, the payment of which ivas prevented by secession.
Your committee are of the opinion, that there is no obli¬
gation upon this Government, either legal or moral, to pay.
In this opinion, your committee think they are sustained as
well by the history of revolutions and the practice of revo¬
lutionary governments, as by reason. For, to hold the con¬
trary opinion, the conclusion necessarily follows, that a peo¬
ple have no moral right to overthrow an iniquitous govern¬
ment, until they shall be able to establish a new one which
will have the means to liquidate all demands against the old.
If, then, this Government shall undertake to satisfy all
demands against the Government of the United States, in
favor of the citizens of these States, it will he simply an act
of o-race towards such citizens. This act of grace, your
committee think, should be postponed until'the close of our
present struggle for independence.
2
But in order that proper evidence of these claims may he
preserved, your committee have embodied a plan for the per¬
petuation of testimony in the bill already referred to. They
therefore recommend that the bill pass.
JOHN GREGG, CKn.
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