[2] Passed as part of the Second Conscription Act in 1862, the law was a reaction to United States President Abraham Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued barely three weeks earlier.By the spring of 1862, the Confederate Army was facing the prospect of a severe manpower shortage, since the twelve-month terms of most initial enlistees were expiring, and far fewer men were re-enlisting than had been hoped for.The First Conscription Act, passed by the Confederate Congress in April 1862, attempted to address this problem by making all white Southern men between 18 and 35 liable for compulsory military service.[6]When Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, many in the Confederacy (and in the North, including George McClellan)[7] believed that the Union president was specifically trying to foment a slave rebellion.Partly to address this concern, and partly to address other issues related to the First Conscription Act, the Confederate Congress passed its Second Conscription Act on October 11, 1862, which included a provision that read: To secure the proper police of the country, one person, either as agent, owner or overseer on each plantation on which one white person is required to be kept by the laws or ordinances of any State, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to do military service, and in States having no such law, one person as agent, owner or overseer, on each plantation of twenty negroes, and on which there is no white male adult not liable to military service; And furthermore, For additional police for every twenty negroes on two or more plantations, within five miles of each other, and each having less than twenty negroes, and of which there is no white male adult not liable to military duty, one person, being the oldest of the owners or overseers on such plantations;… are hereby exempted from military service in the armies of the Confederate States;… Provided, further, That the exemptions herein above enumerated and granted hereby, shall only continue whilst the persons exempted are actually engaged in their respective pursuits or occupations.
Exemption granted to Lycurgus Rees of Georgia in May 1864, pursuant to terms of the so-called "Twenty Negro Law." By the time this exemption was granted, the number of slaves necessary to qualify had been reduced from 20 to 15.
