11. Report on supply of beeves.
12. Report on Government Fisheries.
13. Letter of Major French, of January 12, 1864, as to difficulties of transportation.
14. Letter of Lieutenant-Colonel Ruffin, of February 11, 1865, as to contracts.
enclosures in report from bureau of subsistence.
No. 1—[Withdrawn from the file, probably before the Government left Richmond.]
(No. 2.)
This paper is respectfully referred for the information of the Hon. Secretary of War in connection with report of Commissary-General of 9th instant.
(Copy of printed extract from printed circular.)
XIV. When enacting laws for impressment Congress could not have expected impressing officers as a class to be competent to settle the meaning of the words "value or just compensation," since jurists and political economists have been unable to determine on a definition or principle of ascertaining the just value of an article. Under these circumstances, Congress enacted that commissioners jointly chosen by the Confederate and State Executives should at intervals fix the value of commodities, as the best mode of settling what was just compensation, and thus fulfilling the constitutional requirement in cases of impressment. The schedules fixed by these boards for the respective States monthly, were objected to by certain parties, and the objection sustained on the ground that value at the time of the impressment could not be determined by rates fixed anteriorly; consequently, in any case of impressment, whether of property in the hands of speculators or producers, the appraisment by neighbors selected by both parties is required, and either party, if not satisfied with the award, can appeal to the joint commissioners. In cases where one-half of the meat, which a party had secured for the subsistence of those dependent on him, was impressed, in accordance with the law promulgated in General Orders No. 39, the necessity of promptly supplying him with an equivalent, settled the principle that just compensation required the local cost of the article; and such appraisement by neighbors, mutually selected, was made final, without appeal.
Whenever the local appraisement of a man's surplus exceeds the price fixed by the last schedule of the commissioners in the State by an amount more than to be understood by any superiority of
