enable the general commanding to rely on the period and tenure of their services it was necessary they should be in Confederate service and subject, not to your judgment or disposal, but to the control of the constitutional commander-in-chief. It is easy to see how uncertainty as to their control or retention must impair reliance by the commander on these troops, and embarrass all calculations for their employment and efficiency in combined operations. An additional ground of the call was that some of these troops had been detailed for objects not admitted by the enrolling officers in the State to be authorized by Confederate law, and others were claimed as primarily liable, or previously subjected, to Confederate service. This had engendered controversy and endangered collision between the local Confederate and State authorities, which it was most desirable to anticipate and preclude.

Besides, these militia, as far as they were serving with the Confederate army, had to be subsisted from the commissary stores of the Confederacy, and might equitably expect pay from its Treasury, but if held as State alone. Serious embarrassments had already arisen on these very points, and departure had been necessary from the regular obligations of the Confederate Government which were not just to either that Governor or its disbursing officers. The powers of the Confederate Government to provide for the common defense are exercised according to laws through agencies adopted by Congress. None of these laws contemplated the fulfillment of this duty by troops organized and held by the State in its own service and under officers responsible only to it. The Constitution of the Confederate States does not confer on the State the power to keep troops in time of war. The States are prohibited from "keeping troops or ships of war in time of peace, entering into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engaging in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay." The power of keeping troops in time of war is thus reserved, and naturally includes whatever is necessary to accomplish the object of the reservation, and is limited in its scope and operation only by the Constitution of the Co" and the laws which shall be made in pursuance thereof." It does not imply any withdrawal from the Confederate Government of those instrumentialities and agencies that the Constitution has confided to the Government of the Confederacy for the fulfillment of the obligations it has imposed upon it. The powers to declare war, to raise armies, to maintain a navy, to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces, to make rules concerning captures on land and water, to protect each of the States against invasion, which are deposited with Congress, manifest the purpose of the States in forming their constitution to charge the Confederate Government with the burden of providing for the common defense. The clause in the Constitution relative to the militia was frmaed in harmony with the same purpose. The Constitution charges Congress with the organization, equipment, and discipline of the militia, and designates the President as Commander-in-Chief of those that may be called into service.

It was evidently the design of the Constitution and of the laws of Congress in pursuance thereof, which are the supreme law of the land, that the President should have the discretion and the power of calling this militia into service, and having personally or through Confederate commanders the disposition and command of them. In a crissis of great peril and in a case of plain invasion of your State he has exercised this power and made the constitutional requirement on you. You have met it with a distinct refusal. This is the first instance in the