The minority of the Select Committee to whom was referred the bill "to increase the military force of the Confederate States," dissenting from the views of the majority, beg leave respectfully to report:

The employment of negroes as soldiers presupposes that our white population is inadequate to, or cannot be made available for, the defence of the country, and that the arming of our slaves will supply the deficiency in our military strength. We believe that if the able-bodied while men liable to military service under our laws can be placed in the army, and kept there, they will constitute a force sufficient to continue the war to a successful termination. A thorough enforcement of the conscription laws, and a rigorous system of discipline in the army, would effect these objects. It would seem, therefore, to be our first duty to exhaust every effort to recruit and maintain our white Armies, before resorting to the experiment of arming out black population. Have we done so? We can scarcely answer in the affirmative; while our country notoriously swarms with skulkers from military service and absentees and deserters from the army, to confess that we cannot execute the most necessary laws, nor inforce the military discipline essential to the very existence of an army, is an admission that we are are not prepared to make. Such an admission would [???]mply an utter want of vitality in both the [???] and military administrations of the country. If such were the condition of a country, even in time of peace, it would die of atrophy -- but in the midst of war and revolution it would be equivalent to terminating its existence by suicide. We do not believe that the Confederate States are in this deplorable condition. And if such were the demoralized and prostrate state of the free white citizens of this Confederacy, in vain might we expect to be elevated and made to stand erect through the assistance of our negro slaves. Without a proper tone, spirit and sentiment among our people -- without a strict enforcement of and prompt obedience to law -- without an inflexible adherence to those military regulations which the experience of all countries has shown to be indispensable to the efficiency of armies -- our cause is hopelessly lost.

But let us consider the specific proposition before us. We do not believe that the arming of our slaves will add to our military strength. It will not be considered that the negro possesses naturally any of the attributes of a soldier. He is constitutionally timid. He has neither fortitude, constancy nor endurance. He is excitable, and may -- especially when maddened by liquor -- make wild assaults and reckless charges. But he lacks coolness and steadiness, which are more than a match for impetuosity. It is said that the enemy has made good soldiers of negroes. This is a disputed point. It may well be doubted whether they have ever decided the late of a battle. It is said that if we do not arm our negroes the enemy will. This can only be true in regard to those in territory occupied or overrun by the enemy. And since the policy of arming them has been pursued of the enemy, the negro men, so far from flocking to them, seek to keep out of their way. But if we determine to arm them, and thus compel them to fight on one side or the other, they will, in the great majority of cases, prefer to fight under the Yankee banner. The enemy offer them present personal freedom, and, in the event of success, the freedom of their family and race. In addition to this they hold out to them the promise -- however illusory it may prove -- of perfect equality with the white man -- and a proprietary right in the soil upon which they were born, and to which their local attachment is so strong. It is not freedom at the North -- in a strange land and an uncongenial climate, that they promise them -- but freedom, equality and ownership of the soil in their native South. Can we offer them any of these inducements? Congress has no power to guarantee them even their personal freedom. That is a matter over which the States alone have control. The Confederate Government clearly have none. Will the States agree to this? in several the organic law, and in most, statutory enactments forbid it. But suppose the consent of the States obtained by some measure of emancipation, is it likely that any of them would go as far as the Yankees would promise to do? And would not any measure of emancipation -- even if confined to such as might have fought faithfully for us during the war -- be a fatal stab at the institution of slavery itself? What would be the effect upon the entire social and political fabric of the South, of having in our midst one or two hundred thousand free negroes -- trained to arms -- inured to danger and familliarized to scenes of blood and carnage? Would they be willing to remain forever disfranchised? Would we ever be willing to admit them to the rights of citizenship? Would they not always be an element of danger, discord and weakness? These are questions which present a tremendous problem for solution. The imagination recoils from its consideration. We have only space briefly to allude to it. How, too, it may be well asked, can we hold out freedom to the slave as a boon or reward, when the defence of the institution of slavery has always been based upon the argument that it was the proper and natural condition of the negro -- that it was his happiest and best condition -- and that the tender mercy of the abolitionist would be cruelty to him?

Have we the arms, clothing and food necessary for converting any large portion of our slaves into soldiers? We have difficulty in supplying our present armies, even moderately, with these essentials. Will the negro fight for us halt fed and halt clothed, as our noble and heroic soldiers have frequently done? The enemy will give him as much bacon, molasses, coffee, sugar and whisky as he can consume. He will furnish him with fine clothes and military trappings and tinsel. These are powerful appeals to the strong animal instincts of the negro. They must necessarily have a great influence with him. There are no motives adapted to his nature which the enemy cannot bring to operate upon him more cogently than we can.

But granting, for the sake of argument, that the negro may be made something of a soldier and kept faithful to us, would he be as valuable in that capacity as he would be in agriculture? Can we afford to withdraw him from the cultivation of the soil? The number of slaves lost since the beginning of the war, by seizure of the enemy, is immensely large -- and the majority of these are able-bodied males. We have authorized the employment of one in five of those remaining, as cooks, teamsters, pioneer laborers, &c., with our armies. We cannot abstract a still larger proportion without endangering the supply of subsistence both for our army and home population.