The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-17 00:00:00

THE CONFEDERATE CONGRESS.

In the Confederate Congress on the 26th, a message was
received from the Senate, stating that the Senate had agreed
to the report of the committee of conference in relation to
the bill further to provide for the public defence.
Mr. Miles, of South Carolina, from the committee of con-
ference, reported that the committee recommended that the
house concur in the report of the committee of conference.
He said he was deeply impressed with the importance of
speedy and harmonious action in relation to the subject be-
fore the house. It was found impracticable in the commit-
tee of conference to embody the features which were dis-
tinctly the features of the house bill. The bill nowreported
was substantially the senate bill, with some slight, but very
essenti4l, amendments. _

Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, obtained the floor.
Mr. Foote hoped the gentleman did not rise to call the
question. If he did, he appealed to him by every conside-
ration of courtesy and patriotism not to do it.
Mr. Boteler replied that he was blind to any appeal to
courtesy, and to everything but the welfare of his country,
at the present moment. \Vhatevtr his will might have
been, his patience was exhausted, and many an hour had
been lost already in discussion. He had recently returned
from the army of the Potomac, and he had heard the ap-
peals of soldiers made again and again asking when rein-
forcements were coming. It was now time that the eternal
talk on this bill should cease. it was an easy matter to
vote down the question if gentlemen did not desire to sus-
tain it, but he was impelled by a sense of public duty. He
did call the question upon the bill, and he should adhere to
it.

The call of the question having been sustained, the yeas
and nays were ordered on the passage of the bill, and were
recorded as follows :

Yeas.—Messrs. Baldwin, Barksdale, Batson, Boteler,
Breckinridge, Chambers, Chilton, Collier, Conrad, Conrow,
Curtin, Dargan, Dawkins, De Jarnett, Dupre, Elliott,
Foster, Freeman, Gardenhier, Garland, Garnett, Gentry,
Goone, Graham, Gray, Hartridge, Heiskell, Hilton, Hol-
comb, Holt, Johnson, Kenan, of Georgia, Kenan, of North
Carolina, Kenner, Lander, Lyon, Machen, M'Rae, MeneeB,
Miles, Moore, Munnerlynn, Pugh, Raiff, Read, Royston,
Russell, Sexton, Swann, Tibbs, Vest, Wilcox, Wright, of
Texas, and Mr. Speaker-54.

Nays—Arrington, Bell, Bonham, Boyce, Bridgers, Cham-
bliss, Clapp, Clopton, Curry, Davidson, Davis, Farrow,
Foote, Gartrell, Hanly, anis, Hechert, Jones, Lyons,
Marshall, M'Dowell, M'Queen, Perkins, Preston, Smith,
of Alabama, Strickland, Trippe, Welsh, and Wright, of
Georgia-29.
So the bill passed.

Mr. Kenan, of Georgia, moved to reconsider the vote by
which the bill had been passed. The measure just passed
struck out the only adjustment, looking to peace, between
the State and Confederate Governments, by which the
House Bill had authorised the President to make a requi-
sition on the Governors of the States for the troops needed,
Was it proper at a time like this to create dissension and
collision in any State of this confederacy ? Where could
be the objections to this feature of the bill? He would
always sustain the Government, but there had always been
dissension upon the Conscript Law. In the State of
Georgia it had been declared to be null and void, because it
was unconstitutional. He had no doubt but if the Presi-
dent were to make requisitions upon the Governors they
would be complied with. He could tell gentlemen now
there was danger of dissension between the Government
and States in this confederacy. He hoped it could be
avoided, but he greatly feared it would come. Therefore h•
appealed to the house to reconsider the vote by which they
passed the Senate Bill.

Mr. Foote said that he was very happy that the gentle-
man from Georgia had found that opportunity to address
the house which the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boto-
ler) had so ungraciously refused him. The gentleman
from Virginia had been away in camp for some time, and
now came back to lecture the house on its legislation, and
ungraciously and discourteously refused to listen to any
appeals whatever. Cries of " order.") The house had
been informed by a member of the State of things in the
State of Georgia. That member had said that there was
danger of a eDllision between the States and the Confede-
rate Government. He would tell the house that a similar
state of things existed elsewhere. There had been facts re-
ported which showed it. Why should the house be re-
stricted to the edict, and be dictated to as to what
course it should pursue by a party of Consolidationists
in the other legislative branch of the Government? Mr.
Foote said that he spoke of some who were then outside the
hall, and not in the other branch of the Government. It
was well known that some time since he hall emphatically
declared, in unequivocal language, that there was danger
existing, and now they had it from the lips of a high-toned
gentleman from Georgia, making magnanimous disclosures
in relation to the condition of the country, and appealing to
them not to involve this country in a civil war. By the bill
of the house the country would have been quieted, and an
abundance of soldiers procured for the war. Let all the Con-
solidation men of this day, and all the Federalists of the old
Government cry out, let those who had always been enemies
of State rights, and those who voted against paying back
the fine of Gen. Jackson, all Consolidationists and Federal-
ists, utter their sentiments in a voice of thunder--let them
come on. He was done ; he had had his say ; he had ex-
pressed his opinion, and he called the question. (Laughter.)
The house refused to reconsider—yeas, 24; nays, 53.

Mr. Boteler said he was much obliged to the gentleman
from Tennessee for the reply made to his call for the ques-
tion. He had stated in his remarks that in the exercise of
his right, and impelled by a sense of duty, he had done what
he thought proper. There was no one in the house who felt
the remarks of the gentleman less than be did, and the best
reply he could make to them was to recal the action of the
gentleman on this very bill. The gentleman had seized
every opportunity to talk and speak on this very bill, upon
this and every occasion, and he ought to be one of the last
members to complain, lie was induced to pursue the
course of action which he had done because he had been, as
he said, among the camps, and had been appealed to again
and again to say when the reinforcements were coming,
and he could not give an answer, because he did not know
when the eternal talk would end and action be taken. The
gentleman from Tennessee, then, he,d no cause to lay. the
charges against him which he cu. But of him he would
say that if we were about to :lend an ambassador abroad he
would certainly advocate the sending of the gentleman from
Tennessee, for then it could be said of the Government ex
pede Hereulein,' from the size of the foot (Foote) we recog-
nise a Hercules.' (Laughter.)
On the 29th ult.—
Mr. Semmes, of Louic.4lana, submitted the following joint
resolution :

" Resolved,—By the Congress of the Confederate States
that the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, President of
the United States of America, issued at the city of Washing-
ton in the year 1862, wherein he declares, ' that on the Ist
day of January in the year of our Lord, 1863, all persons
he,l.d as slaves within any State or designated parts of a
State, whereof the people shall be in rebellion against the
United States, shall be henceforth and for ever free, is
levelled against the citizens of the Confederate States, and,
as such, is a gross violation of the usages of civilised war-
fare, an outrage on the rights of private property, and an
invitation to an atrocious servile war, and therefore should
be held up to the execration of mankind, and counteracted
by such severe retaliatory measures as in the judgment of
the President may be best calculated to secure its with-
drawal or arrest its execution."

Mr. Clark, of Missouri, moved that the resolution be re-
ferred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was in
favour of declaring every citizen of the Southern Confecle-
acy a soldier, authorised to put to death every wan caught
on our soil in arms against the Government.
Mr. Semmes, of Louisiana, said that the resolution had not
bean drawn without reflection. The question of retaliation
was exclusively an executive one, to be regulated by circum-
stances. But it was proper that the legislative department
of the Government should express its approval of the re •
taliation contemplated by the resolution.
Mr. Henry, of Tennessee, said that the resolution did not
go far enough. He favoured the passage of a law providing
that upon any attempt being made to execute thetreo,c,l balnateak:
tion of Abraham Lincoln we immediately ho
flag," and proclaim a. war of exterminationaigstainst all in-
vaders of our soil.
Mr. Phelan, of Mississippi, said that he had always been
in favour of conducting a year ago, the
If that flag had been raised at Maness
the war under the " black flag."
war would have been over now.
Mr. Yancy, of Alabama, moved that the pending resolu-
tion, together with the resolutions
submitted by him some
aa,
&c., be referred to a select
time since relative to retaliation,
committee of three, and be made the special order for Wed-
nesday next.
Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, moved that all of said reso-
lutions be referred to the Committee on Judiciary. This
Was agreed to.

WIVES AND MOTHERS.--The Esperance
I NancyCHINESE publishes the following particulars respecting the
of
proceedings of the Society of the Sainte-Enfance, in China,
extracted from a letter written by a lady, a native of Nancy,
at present residing at Hong Kong :_c,
All that you have
heard about Chinese children is but too true. They are not,
indeed, given to pigs here, but that is the case farther in the
interior. At Hong Kong mothers Come to the asylum of
Sainte-Enfance and offer their children for sale, as I my-
self saw only a day or two ago. I have just visited this
asylum, kept by the nuns of St. Paul, whose principal esta-
blishment is 4t Chartres. While I was there the bell rang,
a nun went to open it, and returned an instant after with a
female infant only a few days old. The price paid was 200
sapeks, but the mother, a hideous ci eature, wanted more, or
else to have the child's clothes returned, which were ac-
cordingly given to her. The nuns told me that there were
women who carried on quite a trade in these poor babies.
One had brought no less than 40 to the asylum, and she
confessed that, before she had the opportunity of selling
them, she had thrown above GOO into the sea. I must tell
YOU that I stood godmother to the poor thing purchased in
my presence. The great cause of all these horrors is th it
the Chinese can repudiate their wives, and marry again
every year. The divorced wives, according to the Chinese
laws, have the right of life and death over their children,
and if unable or unwilling to rear them, they get rid of them
in, any way they choose,",