The speech at Columbiia in the report before me is an appeal to the people to trust to their own courage and fortitude for the maintenance of their rights. It was delivered after the publication of McClellan's letter avowing his purpose to force reunion by war if we declined reconstruction when offered, and therefore warned the people against delusive hopes of peace from any other influence than that to be exerted by the manifestation of an uncounquerable spiriit. There is nothing in the speech, as I now read it, that I would wish unsaid, and there is not in it the remotest allusion to a choice between Lincoln and McClellan. It does, however, contain denunciations of Lincoln, and no mention of McClellan is to be found in it.

I now say that, knowing I had never done an act nor uttered a word that could justify you in attributing to me a preference for Lincoln over McClellan, I addressed you my note of 21st of November in the hope that you would admit your mistake.

I must accept your letter oof the 13th ultimo as a substantial admission that you have no just ground for your statement, though it would have been much more acceptable to me to find the admission made frankly instead of having to infer it from the unsubstantial character of the "points" on which you seek to base it.

I close by expressing regret that this correspondence should have been forced on me. I am aware that I was unfortunate enough to incur your disapproval of my policy. I should not, however, have departed from my rule of bearing all animadversion in silence, and leaving m future iif it had not seemed to me that a publicatioin by the Vice-President, intended quite plainly to disparage me and to inspire distrust in me among the people, was calculated to do public injury. It was therefore necessary to show, as this correspondence has done, that your statement that you judged from my "acts" that "I preferred Lincoln to McClellann" was unfounded; and that you are equally without justification for the expression in the letter to which this is a reply, that you "could form no other conclusion" than that it was my intention in my remarks at Columbia to 'strengthen" among the people of the North "the opponents of peace instead of its friends. "

I have felt much reluctance in calling your attention to the subject, as my earnest wish is, if it be impossible to avert, at least to postpone to the close of the war all discussion or dispute with those who are united wiith me in a common hostility against the enemies of our country. I assure you that it would be to me a source of the sincerest pleasure to see you devoting your great and admitted ability exclusively to upholding the confidence and animating the spirit of the people to unconquerable resistance against their foes.

I am, very respectfully and truly, yours,

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

ADJUTANT AND INSPECTOR GENERAL'S OFFICE,

Columbia, S. C., January 6, 1865.

Hon. JAMES A. SEDDON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: I have been ordered by His Excellency the Governor of South Carolina to give you notice that under the third section of the act of the General Assembly of this State, entitled "An act to authorize the Governor to require the exemption of certain State officers and other