SLOW-BURNING    CONSTRUCTION.1 
HE  fearful  losses  of  life  and  prop- 
erty by  fire  in  the  United  States 
have  lately  attracted  the  atten- 
tion which  is  due  to  the  causes 
ot  such  loss  and  to  the  means 
for  preventing  them.  Coinci- 
dently  with  these  investigations  a  very  pro- 
found change  in  the  conduct  of  the  business 
re  insurance  companies  is  in  progress. 
Until  within  a  very  recent  period  the  manage- 
ment oi  an  insurance  company  issuing  policies 
oi  indemnity  against  loss  by  fire  has  consisted 
mainly  in  taking  risks  as  they  might  happen  to 
be.  a  more  or  less  careful  inspection  having  been 
made  into  the  condition  of  the  property  before 
issuing  a  policy,  for  the  purpose  of  estimating 
the  rate  of  premium  to  be  charged  rather  than 
with  a  view  to  improving  such  conditions. 
The  notice  of  the  owners  or  occupants  has 
sometimes  been  called  to  glaring  defects,  and 
a  somewhat  desultory  inspection  has  been 
maintained;  not  so  much  with  the  intention 
of  informing  the  owner  or  occupant  how  to 
protect  the  property  against  fire  so  as  to  re- 
duce the  loss  to  the  lowest  terms,  but  rather 
for  the  purpose  of  informing  the  underwriters, 
that  they  may  not  take  or  maintain  too  low  a 
rate  of  premium.  In  fact,  there  has  been  until 
recently  a  passive  indifference  and  sometimes  a 
frankly  acknowledged  objection  on  the  part  of 
prominent  underwriters  to  the  introduction  of 
the  most  effective  safeguards,  lest  the  reduction 
of  premiums  that  might  be  demanded  should 
diminish  the  profits  of  the  insurance  companies. 
it  may  be  admitted  that  under  this  system 
many  fire  insurance  companies  have  been  es- 
tablished and  conducted  by  men  of  conspicu- 
ous ability,  with  great  profit  to  the  stockholders 
and  indirectly  with  great  benefit  to  the  assured. 
These  companies  have  done  a  world-wide 
business,  scattering  their  risks,  and  by  the  very 
breadth  of  their  operations  and  income  they 
have  been  enabled  to  reduce  their  premiums 
to  the  very  lowest  terms  that  the  system  it- 
self would  permit,  subject  as  it  has  been  to  an 
excessive  expense;  but  as  the  amount  of  prop- 
erty at  risk  has  increased  in  recent  years  with 
qreat  rapidity,  the  companies  of  a  safe 
kind  have  been  unable  to  carry  the  full  lines  re- 
quired in  the  concentrated  hazards  of  our  great 
cities.  Owners  have  therefore  been  obliged 
to  seek  insurance  wherever  they  could  get  it, 
sometimes  exhausting  all  the  fire  insurance 
companies  of  the  world.  At  the  same  time  an 
unwholesome  competition  has  grown  up  among 
1  Copyright,  1888,  by 
the  underwriters  themselves  by  which  their  pre- 
viously heavy  expenses  in  the  conduct  of  their 
business  have  been  increased,  while  badly  man- 
aged or  small  companies  have  been  led  to  take 
risks  at  less  than  cost  —  a  method  ending  inev- 
itably in  bankruptcy  or  in  withdrawal  from 
business. 
In  the  opinion  of  competent  experts  from 
eighty  to  ninety  per  cent,  of  all  the  stock  fire 
insurance  companies  organized  to  transact  busi- 
ness within  the  limits  of  the  United  States,  or 
empowered  thereto,  have  agencies  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  which  renders  it  incumbent  on 
them  to  make  returns  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Insurance  of  that  State  giving  a  statement  of  all 
their  transactions  in  the  United  States.  There 
could  be  no  better  indication  of  the  rapid 
growth  of  wealth  in  this  country  during  the 
last  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  than  a  com- 
parison of  the  sum  of  the  insurance  written  by 
these  companies.  In  1859,  before  the  civil 
war,  the  sum  of  the  risks  taken  by  companies 
making  these  returns  was  a  fraction  under 
$1,500,000,000.  In  the  year  1887  the  amount 
in  round  numbers  was  $12,250,000,000. 
The  proportion  of  loss  to  the  value  of  the  prop- 
erty insured  has  slowly  diminished  :  there  has 
been  a  little  improvement  in  the  construction 
of  buildings  in  some  of  the  great  cities,  though 
not  much  elsewhere,  so  that  the  loss  by  fire  now 
ranges  from  $100,000,000  to  $130,000,000  a 
year.  The  cost  of  sustaining  fire  insurance 
companies  whose  function  is  simply  to  dis- 
tribute this  loss  over  a  wider  field  is  about 
$65,000,000  a  year;  to  this  must  be  added  the 
cost  of  sustaining  expensive  fire  departments, 
which  may  be  computed  at  a  minimum  at  not 
less  than  $25,000,000  a  year,  and  is  probably 
more,  to  say  nothing  of  the  additional  cost  of 
water  supply  for  fire  purposes.  The  fire  tax  of 
the  United  States  may  therefore  be  estimated 
at  a  minimum  of  $180,000,000,  or  at  a  maxi- 
mum of  over  $200,000,000,  in  a  normal  year 
in  which  no  great  conflagration  occurs. 
Within  the  last  five  years  a  great  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  views  of  the  leading  men 
who  conduct  the  business  of  the  fire  insurance 
companies,  and  a  system  is  rapidly  coming 
into  vogue  for  the  frequent  inspection  of 
buildings  with  a  view  to  the  prevention  of 
loss  by  protecting  them,  so  far  as  their  gen- 
erally bad  construction  will  permit,  from  the 
dangers  which  must  occur  from  fires  that  are 
unavoidable,  by  installing  apparatus  to  check 
the  rapid  spread  of  fires  when  they  do  oc- 
Edward  Atkinson.
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:     A    HISTORY.* 
THE    EDICT    OF    FREEDOM. 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY    AND    JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATK    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
tfil^fil: 
December  i,  1862 
N  his  preliminary  procla- 
mation of  September  22 
President  Lincoln  had  an- 
nounced his  intention  to 
urge  once  more  upon  Con- 
gress his  policy  of  compen- 
sated abolishment.  Accord- 
ingly his  annual  message  of 
,  was  in  great  part  devoted 
to  a  discussion  of  this  question.  "  Without  slav- 
ery," he  premised,  "  the  rebellion  could  never 
have  existed ;  without  slavery  it  could  not 
continue."  His  argument  presented  anew, 
with  broad  prophetic  forecast,  the  folly  of  dis- 
union, the  brilliant  destiny  of  the  Republic  as 
a  single  nation,  the  safety  of  building  with  wise 
statesmanship  upon  its  coming  population 
and  wealth.  He  stated  that  by  the  law  of  in- 
crease shown  in  the  census  tables  the  country 
might  expect  to  number  over  two  hundred 
millions  of  people  in  less  than  a  century. 
And  we  will  reach  this  too  [he  continued]  if  we 
do  not  ourselves  relinquish  the  chance,  by  the  folly 
and  evils  of  disunion,  or  by  long  and  exhausting 
war  springing  from  the  only  great  element  of 
national  discord  among  us.  While  it  cannot  be  fore- 
seen exactly  how  much  one  huge  example  of  seces- 
sion, breeding  lesser  ones  indefinitely,  would  retard 
population,  civilization,  and  prosperity,  no  one  can 
doubt  that  the  extent  of  it  would  be  very  great 
and  injurious.  The  proposed  emancipation  would 
shorten  the  war,  perpetuate  peace,  insure  this 
increase  of  population,  and  proportionately  the 
wealth  of  the  country.  With  these  we  should  pay 
all  the  emancipation  would  cost,  together  with  our 
other  debt,  easier  than  we  should  pay  our  other 
debt  without  it. 
He  therefore  recommended  that  Congress 
should  propose  to  the  legislatures  of  the  sev- 
eral States  a  constitutional  amendment,  con- 
sisting of  three  articles,  namely :  one  providing 
compensation  in  bonds  for  every  State  which 
should  abolish  slavery  before  the  year  1900; 
another  securing  freedom  'to  all  slaves  who 
during  the  rebellion  had  enjoyed  actual  free- 
dom by  the  chances  of  war — also  providing 
compensation  to  loyal  owners ;  the  third  au- 
thorizing Congress  to  provide  for  colonization. 
The  plan  [continued  the  message]  consisting  of 
these  articles  is  recommended,  not  but  that  a  restora- 
tion of  the  national  authority  would  be  accepted 
without  its  adoption.  Nor  will  the  war,  nor  pro- 
ceedings under  the  proclamation  of  September  22, 
1  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  Toh 
Vol.  XXXVII.— 93. 
1862,  be  stayed  because  of  the  recommendation  of 
this  plan.  Its  timely  adoption,  I  doubt  not,  would 
bring  restoration,  and  thereby  ^tay  both.  And,  not- 
withstanding this  plan,  the  recommendation  thai 
Congress  provide  by  law  for  compensating  any 
State  which  may  adopt  emancipation  before  this 
plan  shall  have  been  acted  upon  is  hereby  earnestly 
renewed.  Such  would  be  only  an  advance  part  of 
the  plan,  and  the  same  arguments  apply  to  both. 
This  plan  is  recommended  as  a  means,  not  in  ex- 
clusion of,  but  additional  to,  all  others  for  restoring 
and  preserving  the  national  authority  throughout 
the  Union.  .  .  .  The  plan  is  proposed  as  per- 
manent constitutional  law.  It  cannot  become  such 
without  the  concurrence  of,  first,  two-thirds  of  Con- 
gress, and,  afterwards,  three-fourths  of  the  States. 
The  requisite  three-fourths  of  the  States  will  neces- 
sarily include  seven  of  the  slave  States.  Their  con- 
currence, if  obtained,  will  give  assurance  of  their 
severally  adopting  emancipation  at  no  very  distant 
day  upon  the  new  constitutional  terms.  This  as- 
surance would  end  the  struggle  now  and  save  the 
Union  forever.  .  .  .  We  can  succeed  only  by 
concert.  It  is  not,  "  Can  any  of  us  imagine  better?" 
but,  "Can  we  all  do  better?"  Object  whatsoever 
is  possible,  still  the  question  recurs,  "  Can  we  do 
better?"  The  dogmas  of  the  quiet  past  are  inade- 
quate to  the  stormy  present.  The  occasion  is  piled 
high  with  difficulty,  and  we  must  rise  with  the  oc- 
casion. As  our  case  is  new,  so  we  must  think  anew, 
and  act  anew.  We  must  disenthral  ourselves,  and 
then  we  shall  save  our  country. 
Fellow-citizens,  we  cannot  escape  history.  We, 
of  this  Congress  and  this  Administration,  will  be 
remembered  in  spite  of  ourselves.  No  personal  sig- 
nificance, or  insignificance,  can  spare  one  or  another 
of  us.  The  fiery  trial  through  which  we  pass  will 
light  us  down,  in  honor  or  dishonor,  to  the  latest 
generation.  We  say  we  are  for  the  Union.  The 
world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We  know 
how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows  we  do 
know  how  to  save  it.  We  —  even  we  here  —  hold 
the  power,  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In  giving 
freedom  to  the  slave,  we  assure  freedom  to  the  free 
—  honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and  what  we 
preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly  lose,  the 
last,  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may  suc- 
ceed, this  could  not  fail.  The  way  is  plain,  peace- 
ful, generous,  just —  a  way  which,  if  followed,  the 
world  will  forever  applaud,  and  God  must  forever 
bless.2 
No  immediate  action  followed  this  patriotic 
appeal.  No  indications  of  reviving  unionism 
were  manifested  in  the  distinctively  rebel 
States.  No  popular  expression  of  a  willingness 
to  abandon  slavery  and  accept  compensation 
came  from  the  loyal  border-slave  States,  ex- 
2  Annual  Message,  December  1,  1S62. 
n  Hay,  1SS6.    All  rights  reserved.
ORIGINAJ      MS       IN     POSSESSION     OF    THE    AUTHORS)    OF    THE    FIRST    DRAFT    OF     THE    EMANCIPATION 
-   [OWN    TO    THE    CABINET    IN    JULY,    lS6c.         (SEE     "THE    CENTURY"    FOR    DECEMBER,    1888,    P.    292.) 
cy%  fdvs^rii^**;    P^^h/  ^7*  I^Zr    (M^^  ^r%^c^j    42^X7  (X^-^v  f^^ 
&fCj     /^vx2L»o    *rffg~&j        G^O     /fCe^-CL&y'      m*^OCJ&£t***J  fo       0*<1~e*O 
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**sCZZr. 
INDORSEMENT    ON    THE    DOCUMENT    GIVEN    ABOVE. 
cept,  perhaps,  in  a  qualified  way  from  Missouri, 
where  the  emancipation  sentiment  was  steadily 
progressing,  though  with-somewhat  convulsive 
action  owing  to  the  quarrel  which  divided  the 
unionists  of  that  State.  Thus  the  month  of 
December  wore  away  and  the  day  approached 
when  it  became  necessary  for  the  President  to 
execute  the  announcement  of  emancipation 
made  in  his  preliminary  proclamation  of  Sep- 
tember 22.  That  he  was  ready  at  the  ap- 
pointed time  is  shown  by  an  entry  in  the  diary 
of  Secretary  Welles : 
At  the  meeting  to-day  [December  30,  1862],  the 
President  read  the  draft  of  his  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, invited  criticism,  and  finally  directed  that 
cophs  should  be  furnished  to  each.  It  is  a  good 
and  well  prepared  paper,  but  I  suggested  that  a  part 
of  the  sentence  marked  in  pencil  be  omitted.  Chase 
advised  that  fractional  parts  of  States  ought  not  to 
be  exempted.  In  this  I  think  he  is  right,  and  so 
stated.  Practically  there  would  be  difficulty  in  free- 
ing parts  of  States  and  not  freeing  others — a  clash- 
ing between  central  and  local  authorities.1 
l  Unpublished  MS. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  when  the  Presi- 
dent proposed  emancipation  on  the  2 2d  of 
July  and  again  when  he  announced  emancipa- 
tion on  the  2 2d  of  September  he  informed  his 
Cabinet  that  he  had  decided  the  main  matter 
for  himself  and  that  he  asked  their  advice 
only  upon  subordinate  points.  In  now  taking 
up  the  subject  for  the  third  and  final  review 
there  was  neither  doubt  nor  hesitation  in  re- 
gard to  the  central  policy  and  act  about  to 
be  consummated.  But  there  were  several  im- 
portant minor  questions  upon  which,  as  be- 
fore, he  wished  the  advice  of  his  Cabinet,  and 
it  was  to  present  these  in  concise  form  for  dis- 
cussion that  he  wrote  his  draft  and  furnished 
each  of  them  a  copy  on  the  30th  oi  Decem- 
ber, as  Mr.  Welles  relates..  This  draft,  omit- 
ting its  mere  routine  phraseology  and  quota- 
tions from  the  former  proclamation,  continued 
as  follows : 
Now  therefore  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of 
the  United  States,  by  virtue  ot"  the  power  in  me 
vested,  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  actual  armed 
rebellion  against  the  authority  and  Government  of 
the  United  States,  and  as  a  proper  and  nee; 
war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on 
this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  oi  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  in 
accordance  with  my  intention  so  to  do,  publicly 
proclaimed  for  one  hundred  days  as  aforesaid,  order 
and  designate  as  the  States  and  parts  of  States  in 
which  the  people  thereof  respectively  are  this  day 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States  the  follow-
PRK1  IM1NARY    PROCLAMATION    OF    SEPTEMBER    22,     1862. 
(PROM     THE    ORIGINAL     IN    THE    STATE    LIBRARY    IN    ALBANY,     BY    PERMISSION.) 
Jirh<)    /Phju  A^rw  i*ju£&  /L&  /i^r^^^^L^M^c  yArr/^Lo  crvs 
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A
Thaw. ole persons Keto Od Lapa eee Sz MELE or Heriynatios [or ofa Lia, [Ke frrofile ww hereg? thele Thor to tw pebe Lon gas hee Retiok non, ofgreserer, Ly proclarmot iv, otereg aly Lk LlOCAR, ane [owe of ANG, fay, tw kk L% fete Reree qurpestiney, phate Hew La rn Aes Lf ary DALE or Che profile here shot, on Compton of he linXay Slats, by grombrs chorere ee plete, prion ac Onan of Ke
,J«.t,\     jGTb      /2A<i/  ^%    AiWiA/    /^^uc<3^^XJc/^H^^-^%w 
tAr^U<    (yf^Yc^"    &ff«*»<**  f)h«^<^&J&,  /$<>£  O^.^ 
JBr  it  enarf/d  by  lie  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
Siofes  of  America  in  Congress  rrXrmbltu..  That  hereafter  the  following 
shall  he  promulgated  as  an  additional  article  of  war  for  ibe  government 
of  the  army  of  roe  United  Stale*  and  shall  "be  obeyed  and  observed  63 
such ; 
Article — .  AH  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of 
the  United  States  are  prohibited  from,  employing  any  of  the  forces  tinder 
their  respective  commands  for  the  purpose  of  reluming  fugUivM  from  ser- 
vice or  Tabor,  who  roay  have  escaped  from-any  persons  to  whom  siirh  ser- 
vice or  lahoc  is  claimed  io  "be  due,  and  any  officer  who  shall  Ibe  found 
guilty  "by  a  court-mania}  of  vtolalmj  th"i3  articla  shall  "be  dismissed  from 
the  servfee. 
Sec.  2 .  Anjbei-t  fwrtwrenactvE,  That  this  ad  -shall  take  effect  front 
dud  ifier  its  passage, 
Ji^rx^XZP  Jl^c^J^^y  <7Tf{Y~^&t&,     G^*ks  fiv  J^&^r  /^-yW-7  h 
Sic  0.  And  l>»  i1 fuiflierpiMcipo'.'YrrtA  all  slaves  of  persons  who 
jhdll  hereafter  be  engayed  in  rebellion  against  the  government  or  the 
United  States  or  who  shall  many  way  give  aid  op  comfort  thereto  escap- 
ing from  such  persons  and  taking  refuse  within  the  lines  of  the  army; 
andall  slaves  captured  from  such  persons  or  desert?  d  by  them  and  coming 
unde-r+he  co-Mrol  of  the  government  of  the  United  States;  and  all  slaves 
of  such  persons  found  on  [or]  bein-j  within  any  place  occupied  by  rebel* 
forces  and  afterwards  occupied  by  the  forces  or  the  United  Slates  shall 
be  deemed  c-ip'tiveB  of  war,  and  shall  be  forevar  free  0?  their  iervitiic)«? 
and  no*  again  he'd  as  slaves 
See.  10.  /Incf  Oe<*  Surr//ere/irrotr'r/.r?\\v\  no  tlave  escaping  into  any 
State  ,'l'errrtory, or  the  District  of  Columbia,  from  any  other  State,  shall 
be  delivered  up, or  in  any  way  impeded*  or  hindered  of  his  liberty  ,excepr 
forcnme.or  wrr-<t  offenceajamsr  the  law£>, unless  1he  person  claiming  said 
Ai^lhveshall  n'rit  ma  ke  oath  that  the  person  row/hom  the  labor  orservice 
of  such  fugitive  is  alleged  to  bedue  Is  his  lawful  ownor^nd  has  not  borne 
arrrt.  ajamsMhe.  United  States  in  the  present  rebellion  tior  in  any  wayjgiv«>n 
aid  and  comfort  therein  :  and  no  person  en^o^ed  in  the  military  or  naval 
servlc«of  the  United  States  ihall,  under  any  p'etencci  whatever,  assume 
to  decide  on  the  yalid'fyof  the  claim  cf  any  person  to  the  service  or  labor 
of  any  other  perjon,  or  surrender  up  any  svich  person  to  the  claimant,  ot> 
painof  being  dismissed  from  the  servfee.  ■
CU&S  CiMye^t    rfjt^o  (Lu+~ZZ^u  JjtzXl*    fV^o  /-£#-£&  -&^*s 
^KfL^Co  /fCa^s<4>   &-ej(Ls*/  ^^tyx^r^u^^^j   <?-y-  C^^^Z^^m^J  sO~V 
INDORSEMENT, 
Washington,  January  4,  1864.     My  Dear  Mrs.  Barnes  :  I  have  the  pleasure  of  sendmg  you  w  h  ^^^^^^ 
the  original  draft  of  his  September  proclamation.     The  body  of  it  is  m  his  own  handwriting  ^J£^^?W   ^vTrd 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  final  beginning  and  ending  in  the  hand  of  the  chief  clerk.     \  our*  ^  er>  .mcereh ,   t.  V» .  i  e  •  
■ 
Mrs.  Emily  W.  Barnes,  Albany,  N.  Y.
FAC-SIMILE    OF    THE    FINAL    EMANCIPATION    PROCLAMATION    OK    JANUARY   I,    1863. 
'  Y\  A-^u^a-4,  0W  (/Has  iZ^iJjsJ-iJ^Tis^O  £>**-*  rfjOjeJ\&ZZs&*^/t  c^/  £j£i> 
*f^L&~S   erf*  <fiw  ^Un-oU  J^^J  ^T^rt^^^^£>0  pZyCZT '/t^^tt*t;  <&**-«=*/ 
erf  t^no  {LXhsJ^Z2*><j  m/Z&ZL,    C^TT^CaZ^x^^  t  £L*K-e>>~p  crt^fc*^  ^Ki^^i^  jfc£o 
y^w^. 
fcru~0] 
That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  onr  Lord  owe  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three, 
v  nil  persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in 
((  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever  free  ;  and  the  Executive  Govern- 
(1  ment  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain 
'<  the  freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts 
t(  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 
r<  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the  Stales 
ff  and  parts  of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof,  respectively,  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the 
fy  United  Slates ;  and  the  fact  that  any  State,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that  day  be,  in  good  faith,  repre- 
ft  sented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of 
*i  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the  absence  of  strong  countervailing  testi- 
't  mony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence  that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then,  in  rebellion 
'/  ngainst  the  United  States.
'CL+i^-*^ 
JWm^W  .y^i^W^W  Viyrtr&£rzrt>uKOf  ft^itvW,  «ff%^/  &fr\s£L^ZZ^/t 
tycfLA&&snxA/f  <Uifcr)-*-*Lcv/  ^e^rr-pt^v,  QPCXl^^^  Kc?Ciyyjr^^Jt  jy£ryC&^£*aL^zr£~JaJt 
/^-7  (Wp^&'lw^yo^tSt-jj  a^-t?^  £l&^4>  /t^fij  z&i^CZZL?  <rf  fye^ytzj£^f  ^foc^>^ 
/CfczJOLi     £U^O       i^^^U    K£>i^^<jfi?>**nu~<?<;   /^r\^£^  £~<J  /XJL^>,'    ^^-^^  ^T^Z' 
Vol.  XXXVII.— 
94.
/6^fet7    ^^u^JZ  /uzo^t-w     of  /fa^Cas&Ct  C^n^&CCZurw  ty/CZ&A*? 
/\j2*cjz^s*^yv   is>~€o   JLsfu)    <2^n^jz-£rO  /4~ensLrZ><Z2>   {rf/Zfao  CtsUsiZ*-**/ 
/^-uoo. 
^Avu>U   uJitn-J  fcfiu    C^cXT  /U^u^je^e^   p-eJ&<j2^-*^>o  /&  £~eJ 
J4i  ^if^Jt4/  6rh$tes-ff  $/.&&-&  %^\uoo^tir  SJsf  '**"&- 
■6>cmL  (t  Kua^Ajl^  cu^tl  S^ffy  7UuuLt  cuu^A  <rf  wjL
^d  l(^^J-eX  J^c/sy 
)   /^yufu-  l^^-e^/7/ 
^JefVrtyrLoshJ  au<hAJr& 
ing,  to  wit:  Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana,  except  the 
Parishes  of 
Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  South  Carolina,  North 
Carolina,  and  Virginia,  exceptthe  forty-eightcounties 
designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of 
And  by  virtue  of  the  power,  and  for  the  purpose 
aforesaid,  I  do  order,  and  declare,  that  all  persons 
held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  States,  and 
parts  of  States,  are,  and  henceforward  forever  shall 
be,  free  ;  and  that  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval 
authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  said  persons,  and  will  do  no  act,  or  acts, 
to  repress  said  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  suita- 
ble efforts  they  may  make  for  their  actual  freedom. 
And  1  hereby  appeal  to  the  people  so  declared  to  be 
free  to  abstain  from  all  disorder,  tumult,  and  vio- 
lence, unless  in  necessary  self-defense  ;  and  in  all 
cases,  when  allowed,  to  labor  faithfully  for  wages. 
And  I  further  declare,  and  make  known,  that  such 
persons  of  suitable  condition  will  be  received  into 
the  armed  service  of  the  United  States  to  garrison 
and  defend  forts,  positions,  stations,  and  other  places, 
and  to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service.1 
It  will  be  seen  that  this  draft  presented  for 
discussion,  in  addition  to  mere  verbal  criticism, 
the  question  of  defining  the  fractional  portions 
of  Virginia  and  Louisiana  under  Federal  con- 
trol and  the  yet  more  important  policy,  now  for 
the  first  time  announced  by  the  President,  of  his 
intention  to  incorporate  a  portion  of  the  newly 
liberated  slaves  into  the  armies  of  the  Union. 
Mr.  Welles's  diary  for  Wednesday,  Decem- 
ber 31,  1862,  thus  continues: 
We  had  an  early  and  special  Cabinet  meeting — 
convened  at  10  a.  m.  The  subject  was  the  proclama- 
tion of  to-morrow  to  emancipate  the  slaves  in  the 
rebel  States.  Seward  proposed  two  amendments. 
One  included  mine,  and  one  enjoining  upon,  in- 
stead of  appealing  to,  those  emancipated  to  forbear 
from  tumult.    Blair  had,  like  Seward  and   myself, 
proposed  the  omission  of  a  part  of  a  sentence  and 
made  other  suggestions  which  I  thought  improve- 
ments. Chase  made  some  good  criticisms  and  pro- 
posed a  felicitous  closing  sentence.  The  President 
took  the  suggestions,  written  in  order,  and  said  he 
would  complete  the  document.1 
From  the  manuscript  letters  and  memoranda 
we  glean  more  fully  the  modifications  of  the 
amendments  proposed  by  the  several  meml 
of  the  Cabinet.    The  changes  suggested  in  Mr. 
Seward's  note  were  all  verbal,  and  were  three 
in  number.    First:  Following  the  declaration 
that "  the  Executive  Government  of  the  United 
States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authori- 
ties thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  said  persons,"  he  proposed  to  omit 
the  further  words  which  had  been  used  in  the 
September  proclamation,  "  and  will  do  no 
or  acts,  to  repress  said  persons,  or  any  of 
in  any  suitable  efforts  they  may  make  for  their 
actual  freedom."  Mr.  Welles  had  J  '.the 
same  change.     Secondly  :    The  next  sentence, 
which  read, "  And  I  hereby  appeal  to  the  people 
so  declared  to  be  free  to  abstain  from  all 
order,"  etc.,  Mr.  Seward  proposed  should  : 
"  And  I  hereby  command  and  require  the  people 
so  declared  to  be  free  to  abstain  from  all  di 
der,"  etc.  Thirdly:  The  phrase. "  and  in  all  e 
when  allowed,  to  labor  faithfully  for  v. 
proposed  should  read.  *'  and  I  do  recommend 
to  them  in  all  cases,  when  allowed,  to  la 
faithfully  for  just  and  reasonable  wages."1 
The  'criticisms    submitted   by    Mr.    Chase 
were  quite  long  and  full,  and  since  the}  - 
gested  the  most  distinctive  dive  from 
the  President's  plan,  namely,  th  "^ing 
no  exceptions  of  fractional  portions  -     5 
except  the  forty-eight  counties  of  West  Virginia, 
his  letter  needs  to  be  quoted  in  full: 
l  Unpublished  MS.
700 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
In  accordance  with  your  verbal  direction  o\  yes- 
terday 1  most  respectfully  submit  the  following 
various  in  respect  to  the  draft  oi  a  proclama- 
tion designating  the  States  and  parts  o(  States  within 
which  the  proclamation  of  September  22,  1802,  is 
to  take  effect  according  to  the  terms  thereof. 
1.  It  seems  to  me   wisest  to   make  no  exceptions 
ts  oi  States  from  the  operation  oi  the   procla- 
mation other  than  the  forty-eight  counties  of  West 
My  reasons  are  these  : 
1.  Such  exceptions  will  impair,  in  the  public  es- 
timation, the  moral  effect  oi  the  proclamation,  and 
invite  censure  which  it  would  be  well,  if  possible, 
.  oid. 
2.  Such  exceptions  must  necessarily  be  confined 
to  some  few  parishes  and  counties  in  Louisiana  and 
nia,  and  can  have  no  practically  useful  effect. 
Through  the  operation  of  various  acts  of  Congress 
the  slaves  of  disloyal  masters  in  those  parts  are  al- 
.  enfranchised,  and  the  slaves  of  loyal  masters 
are  practically  so.  Some  of  the  latter  have  already 
commenced  pavi ng  wages  to  their  laborers,  formerly 
slaves;  and  it  is  to  be  feared  that  if,  by  exceptions, 
slaverv  is  practically  reestablished  in  favor  of  some 
masters,  while  abolished  by  law  and  by  the  neces- 
sary effect  of  military  occupation  as  to  others,  very 
serious  inconveniences  may  arise. 
5.  No  intimation  of  exceptions  of  this  kind  is 
given  in  the  September  proclamation,  nor  does  it 
appear  that  any  intimations  otherwise  given  have 
been  taken  into  account  by  those  who  have  partici- 
pated in  recent  elections,  or  that  any  exceptions 
of  their  particular  localities  are  desired  by  them. 
II.  I  think  it  would  be  expedient  to  omit  from 
the  proposed  proclamation  the  declaration  that  the 
Executive  Government  of  the  United  States  will  do 
no  act  to  repress  the  enfranchised  in  any  efforts  they 
may  make  for  their  actual  freedom.  This  clause  in 
the  September  proclamation  has  been  widely  quoted 
as  an  incitement  to  servile  insurrection.  In  lieu  of 
it.  and  for  the  purpose  of  shaming  these  misrepre- 
sentations. I  think  it  would  be  well  to  insert  some 
such  clause  as  this:  "not  encouraging  or  counte- 
nancing, however,  any  disorderly  or  licentious 
conduct."  If  this  alteration  is  made,  the  appeal  to 
the  enslaved  may,  properly  enough,  be  omitted.  It 
does  not  appear  to  be  necessary,  and  may  furnish  a 
topic  to  the  evil-disposed  for  censure  and  ridicule. 
III.  I  think  it  absolutely  certain  that  the  rebellion 
can  in  no  way  be  so  certainly,  speedily,  and  eco- 
nomically suppressed  as  by  the  organized  military 
force  of  the  loyal  population  of  the  insurgent  regions, 
of  whatever  complexion.  In  no  way  can  irregular 
violence  and  servile  insurrection  be  so  surely  pre- 
vented as  by  the  regular  organization  and  regular 
military  employment  of  those  who  might  otherwise 
probably  resort  to  such  courses.  Such  organization 
is  now  in  successful  progress,  and  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  all  connected  with  the  colored  regi- 
ments in  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina  is  that  they 
are  brave,  orderly,  and  efficient.  General  Butler  de- 
clares that  without  his  colored  regiments  he  could 
not  have  attempted  his  recent  important  move- 
ments in  the  Lafourche  region  ;  and  General  Saxton 
bears  equally  explicit  testimony  to  the  good  credit 
and  efficiency  of  the  colored  troops  recently  sent  on 
an  expedition  along  the  coast  of  Georgia.  Consid- 
ering these  facts,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be 
best  to  omit  from  the  proclamation  all  reference  to 
military  employment  of  the  enfranchised  popula- 
tion, leaving  it  to  the  natural  course  of  things 
already  well  begun;  or  to  state  distinctly  that, 
in  order  to  secure  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion 
without  servile  insurrection  or  licentious  marauding, 
such  numbers  of  the  population  declared  free  as 
may  be  found  convenient  will  be  employed  in  the 
military  and  naval  service  of  the  United  States. 
Finally,  I  respectfully  suggest,  on  an  occasion  of 
such  interest,  there  can  be  no  imputation  of  affecta- 
tion against  a  solemn  recognition  of  responsibility 
before  men  and  before  God  ;  and  that  some  such 
close  as  follows  will  be  proper  : 
11  And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an 
act  of  justice  warranted  by  the  Constitution,  and  of 
duty  demanded  by  the  circumstances  of  the  country, 
I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind,  and 
the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God."  1 
It  is  not  remembered  whether  Mr.  Stanton, 
Secretary  of  War,  was  present  at  the  Cabi- 
net meeting,  but  he  appears  to  have  left  no 
written  memorandum  of  his  suggestions,  if 
he  offered  any.  Stanton  was  preeminently  a 
man  of  action,  and  the  probability  is  that  he 
agreed  to  the  President's  draft  without  amend- 
ment. The  Cabinet  also  lacked  one  member 
of  being  complete.  Mr.  Caleb  B.  Smith,  Sec- 
retary of  the  Interior,  had  lately  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  vacant  bench  of  the  United  States 
District  Court  of  Indiana,  and  his  successor, 
Mr.  Usher,  was  not  appointed  until  about  a 
week  after  the  date  of  which  we  write. 
The  unpublished  memorandum  of  Mr.  Blair, 
Postmaster-General,  proposed  a  condensation 
of  several  of  the  paragraphs  in  the  President's 
draft  as  follows : 
I  do  order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as 
slaves  within  said  designated  States  and  parts  of 
States  shall  be  free  ;  and  that  the  Executive  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authorities,  will  recognize  and  maintain 
the  freedom  of  said  persons.  And,  in  order  that  they 
may  render  all  the  aid  they  are  willing  to  give  to 
this  object  and  to  the  support  of  the  Government, 
authority  will  be  given  to  receive  them  into  the 
service  whenever  they  can  be  usefully  employed, 
and  they  may  be  armed  to  garrison  forts,  to  defend 
positions  and  stations,  and  to  man  vessels.  And  I 
appeal  to  them  to  show  themselves  worthy  of  free- 
dom by  fidelity  and  diligence  in  the  employments 
which  may  be  given  to  them,  by  the  observance  of 
order,  and  by  abstaining  from  all  violence  not  re- 
quired by  duty  or  for  self-defense.  It  is  due  to  them 
to  say  that  the  conduct  of  large  numbers  of  these 
peoplesince  the  war  began  justifies  confidence  in  their 
fidelity  and  humanity  generally.1 
The  unpublished  memorandum  of  Attorney- 
General  Bates  is  also  quite  full,  and  combats 
the  recommendation  of  Secretary  Chase  con- 
cerning fractions  of  States. 
I  respectfully  suggest  [he  wrote]  that:  1.  The 
President  issue  the  proclamation  "by  virtue  of  the 
power  in    him    vested   as  Commander-in-Chief  of 
IMS.
THE  EDTCT  OF  FREEDOM. 
701 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  in  time 
of  actual  armed  rebellion,"  etc.,  "and  as  a  proper  and 
necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebell- 
ion."—  Date,  January,  1863.  2.  It  is  done  in  accord- 
ance with  the  first  proclamation  of  September  22, 
1862.  3.  It  distinguishes  between  States  and  parts 
of  States,  and  designates  those  States  and  parts  of 
States  u  in  which  the  people  thereof,  respectively, 
are  this  day  (January  1,  1863)  in  rebellion  against 
the  United  States." 
These  three  propositions  being  true,  I  think  they 
ought  to  be  followed  out,  without  excess  or  diminu- 
tion, by  action,  not  by  the  declaration  of  a  principle 
nor  the  establishment  of  a  law  for  the  future  guid- 
ance of  others.  It  is  a  war  measure  by  the  President, 
—  a  matter  of  fact, —  not  a  law  by  the  legislature. 
And  as  to  what  is  proposed  to  be  done  in  the  future 
the  least  said  the  better.  Better  leave  yourself  free 
to  act  in  the  emergencies  as  they  arise,  with  as  few 
embarrassing  committals  as  possible.  Whether  a 
particular  State  or  part  of  a  State  is  or  is  not  in 
actual  rebellion  on  the  1st  of  January,  1863,  is  a 
simple  matter  of  fact  which  the  President  in  the 
first  proclamation  has  promised  to  declare  in  the 
record.  Of  course  it  must  be  truly  declared.  It  is 
no  longer  open  to  be  determined  as  a  matter  of 
policy  or  prudence  independently  of  the  fact.  And 
this  applies  with  particular  force  to  Virginia.  The 
eastern  shore  of  Virginia  and  the  region  round  about 
Norfolk  are  now  (December  31,  1862)  more  free 
from  actual  rebellion  than  are  several  of  the  forty- 
eight  counties  spoken  of  as  West  Virginia.  If  the 
latter  be  exempt  from  the  proclamation,  so  also  ought 
the  former.  And  so  in  all  the  States  that  are  consid- 
ered in  parts.  The  last  paragraph  of  the  draft  I  con- 
sider wholly  useless,  and  probably  injurious — being 
a  needless  pledge  of  future  action,  which  may  be 
quite  as  well  done  without  as  with  the  pledge. 
In  rewriting  the  proclamation  for  signature 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  substance  followed  the  sugges- 
tions made  by  the  several  members  of  the 
Cabinet  as  to  mere  verbal  improvements ;  but 
in  regard  to  the  two  important  changes  which 
had  been  proposed  he  adhered  rigidly  to  his 
own  draft.  He  could  not  consent  to  the  view 
urged  by  Secretary  Chase,  that  to  omit  the 
exemption  of  fractional  parts  of  States  would 
have  no  practical  bearing.  In  his  view  this 
would  touch  the  whole  underlying  theory  and 
legal  validity  of  his  act  and  change  its  essen- 
tial character.  The  second  proposition  favored 
by  several  members  of  the  Cabinet,  to  omit 
any  declaration  of  intention  to  enlist  the  freed- 
men  in  military  service,  while  it  was  not  so 
vita1,  yet  partook  of  the  same  general  effect  as 
tending  to  weaken  and  discredit  his  main  cen- 
tral act  of  authority. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  various  manuscript 
notes  and  memoranda  which  his  Cabinet  ad- 
visers brought  him  on  the  31st  of  December, 
and  during  that  afternoon  and  the  following 
morning  with  his  own  hand  carefully  rewrote 
the  entire  body  of  the  draft  of  the  proclama- 
tion. The  blanks  left  to  designate  fractional 
parts  of  States  he  filled  according  to  latest 
official  advices  of  military  limits;1  and  in 
the  closing  paragraph  suggested  by  Chase  he- 
added,  after  the  words  "  warranted  by  the 
Constitution,"  his  own  important  qualifying 
correction,  "  upon  military  necessity." 
It  is  a  custom  in  the  Executive  Mansion  to 
hold  on  New  Year's  Day  an  official  and  public 
reception,  beginning  at  1 1  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, which  keeps  the  President  at  his  post  in 
the  Blue  Room  until  2  in  the  afternoon.  The 
hour  for  this  reception  came  before  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  entirely  finished  revising  the  engrossed 
copy  of  the  proclamation,  and  he  was  com- 
pelled to  hurry  away  from  his  office  to  friendly 
handshaking  and  festal  greeting  with  the  rap- 
idly arriving  official  and  diplomatic  guests. 
The  rigid  laws  of  etiquette  held  him  to  this 
duty  for  the  space  of  three  hours.  Had  actual 
necessity  required  it  he  could  of  course  have 
left  such  mere  social  occupation  at  any  mo- 
ment; but  the  President  saw  no  occasion  for 
precipitancy.  On  the  other  hand,  he  probably 
deemed  it  wise  that  the  completion  of  this  mo- 
mentous executive  act  should  be  attended  by 
every  circumstance  of  deliberation.  Vast  as 
were  its  consequences,  the  act  itself  was  only 
the  simplest  and  briefest  formality.  It  could 
in  no  wise  be  made  sensational  or  dramatic. 
Those  characteristics  attached,  if  at  all,  only 
to  the  long  past  decisions  and  announcements 
of  July  22  and  September  22  of  the  previous 
year.  Those  dates  had  witnessed  the  mental 
conflict  and  the  moral  victory.  Xo  ceremony 
was  attempted  or  made  of  this  final  official 
signing.  The  afternoon  was  well  advanced 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  went  back  from  his  New 
Year's  greetings,  with  his  right  hand  so  fatigued 
that  it  was  an  effort  to  hold  the  pen.  There  was 
no  special  convocation  of  the  Cabinet  or  of 
prominent  officials.  Those  who  were  in  the 
house  came  to  the  executive  office  merely  from 
the  personal  impulse  of  curiosity  joined  to 
momentary  convenience.  His  signature  was 
attached  to  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  be- 
neficent military  decrees  of  history  in  the  pres- 
ence of  less  than  a  dozen  persons ;  after  which 
it  was  carried  to  the  Department  of  State  to  be 
attested  by  the  great  seal  and  deposited  among 
the  official  archives. 
Since  several  eminent  lawyers  have  publicly 
questioned  the  legal  validity  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
1  The  fractional  parts  of  States  excepted  in  the  proc-  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans  ;  in  Virginia,  the 
lamation  were  as  follows  :  In  Louisiana,  the  parishes  forty-eight  counties  designated  as  West  Virginia,  and 
of  St.  Bernard,  Plaquemines,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  also  the  counties  of  Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton, 
Charles,  St.    James,  Ascension,  Assumption,   Terre  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess  Anne,  and  Norfolk,  in- 
Bonne,  Lafourche,  St.  Mary,  St.  Martin,  and  Orleans,  eluding  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth.
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
Edict  of  Freedom, —  as  his  final  Emancipation 
Proclamation  may  be  properly  styled, —  it  is 
i  while  to  gather,  if  possible,  Mr.  Lincoln's 
own  conception  and  explanation  of  the  con- 
stitutional and  legal  bearings  of  his  act.    There 
is  little  difficulty  in  arriving  at  this.    His  lan- 
mbodied  in  a  number  of  letters  and 
ments,  contains  such  a  distinct  and  logi- 
n    of  the    whole  process    of  his 
thought  and  action,  from  the  somewhat  extreme 
rvatism  of  his  first  inaugural  to  his  great 
ediet  of  January  i,  1S63,  and  the  subsequent 
policy  of  its  practical  enforcement,  that  we  need 
arrange  them  in  their  obvious  sequence. 
The  proper  beginning  is  to  be  found  in  his 
•  of  April  4,  1864,  to  A.  G.  Hodges,  Esq., 
>f  Frankfort,  Kentucky.    In  this  he  says: 
I  am  naturally  antislavery.  If  slavery  is  not 
wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.  I  cannot  remember  when 
I  aid  not  so  think  and  feel,  and  yet  1  have  never 
understood  that  the  Presidency  conferred  upon  me 
\x\  unrestricted  right  to  act  officially  upon  this 
ment  and  feeling.  It  was  in  the  oath  I  took 
that  I  would,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve, 
protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
.  I  could  not  take  the  office  without  taking 
the  oath.  Nor  was  it  my  view  that  I  might  take 
an  oath  to  get  power,  and  break  the  oath  in  using 
the  power.  I  understood,  too,  that  in  ordinary 
civil  administration  this  oath  even  forbade  me  to 
ically  indulge  my  primary  abstract  judgment  on 
the  moral  question  of  slavery.  I  had  publicly  de- 
clared this  many  times,  and  in  many  ways.  And  I 
aver  that,  to  this  day,  I  have  done  no  official  act 
i:i  mere  deference  to  my  abstract  judgment  and 
feeling  on  slavery.  I  did  understand,  however,  that 
my  oath  to  preserve  the  Constitution  to  the  best  of 
my  ability  imposed  upon  me  the  duty  of  preserving, 
by  every  indispensable  means,  that  government  — 
that  nation,  of  which  that  Constitution  was  the 
organic  law.    Was  it  possible  to  lose  the  nation  and 
reserve  the  Constitution  ?  By  general  law,  life 
and  limb  must  be  protected,  yet  often  a  limb  must 
be  amputated  to  save  a  life  ;  but  a  life  is  never 
wisely  given  to  save  a  limb.  I  felt  that  measures 
otherwise  unconstitutional  might  become  lawful  by 
becoming  indispensable  to  the  preservation  of  the 
aution  through  the  preservation  of  the  nation. 
Right  or  wrong.  I  assumed  this  ground,  and  now 
avow    it.     I  could  not  feci  that,  to  the  best  of  my 
y,  I  had  even  tried  to  preserve  the  Constitu- 
tion, if.  to  save  slavery  or  any  minor  matter,  I 
should  permit  the  wreck  of  government,  country, 
and  Constitution  together.    When,  early  in  the  war, 
il  Fremont  attempted  military  emancipation, 
ade  it,  because  I  did  not  then  think  it  an  in- 
dispensable necessity.  When,  a  little  later,  General 
Cameron,  then  Secretary  of  War,  suggested  the  arm- 
.  I  objected,  because  I  did  not  yet 
think  it  an  indispensable  necessity.  When,  still 
later,  General  Hunter  attempted  military  emancipa- 
tion, I  again  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  yet  think 
the  indispensable  nece,sity  had  come.  When  in 
March  and  May  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnestand 
successive  appeals  to  the  border  States  to  favor  com- 
pensated emancipation,  I  believed   the  indispensa- 
ble necessity  for  military  emancipation  and  arming 
the  blacks  would  come  unless  averted  by  that  meas- 
ure. They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in 
my  best  judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either 
surrendering  the  Union,  and  with  it  the  Constitution, 
or  of  laying  strong  hand  upon  the  colored  element. 
I  chose  the  latter. 
The  question  of  legal  and  constitutional  va- 
lidity he  discusses  briefly,  but  conclusively,  in 
his  letter  of  August  26,  1863,  to  James  C. 
Conkling,  of  Springfield,  Illinois.  In  this,  ad- 
dressing himself  to  his  critics,  he  says : 
You  say  it  is  unconstitutional.  I  think  differently. 
I  think  the  Constitution  invests  its  Commander-in- 
Chief  with  the  law  of  war  in  time  of  war.  The 
most  that  can  be  said,  if  so  much,  is,  that  slaves 
are  property.  Is  there,  has  there  ever  been,  any 
question  that,  by  the  law  of  war,  property,  both  of 
enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken  when  needed? 
And  is  it  not  needed  whenever  taking  it  helps  us 
or  hurts  the  enemy?  Armies  the  world  over  de- 
stroy enemies'  property  when  they  cannot  use  it ; 
and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it  from  the  ene- 
my. Civilized  belligerents  do  all  in  their  power  to 
help  themselves  or  hurt  the  enemy. 
Admitting  the  general  principle  of  interna- 
tional law,  of  the  right  of  a  belligerent  to  ap- 
propriate or  destroy  enemies'  property,  there 
came  next  the  question  of  how  his  military  de- 
cree of  enfranchisement  was  practically  to  be 
applied. 
This  point,  though  not  fully  discussed,  is  suf- 
ficiently indicated  in  several  extracts.  In  the 
draft  of  a  letter  to  Charles  D.  Robinson  he 
wrote,  August  17,  1864  : 
The  way  these  measures  were  to  help  the  cause 
was  not  by  magic  or  miracles,  but  by  inducing  the 
colored  people  to  come  bodily  over  from  the  rebel 
side  to  ours.1 
And  in  his  letter  to  James  C.  Conkling  of 
August  26,  1863,  he  says: 
But  negroes,  like  other  people,  act  upon  motives. 
Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us  if  we  will  do 
nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us, 
they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest  motive, 
even  the  promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise, 
being  made,  must  be  kept. 
The  actual  tangible  military  result  which  he 
declares  was  his  constitutional  and  legal  war- 
rant for  his  edict  of  military  emancipation  is 
set  forth  in  the  following  extracts.  Whether 
we  judge  it  by  the  narrow  technical  rules  of 
applied  jurisprudence,  or  by  the  broader  prin- 
ciples of  the  legal  philosophy  of  Christian  na- 
tions, it  forms  equally  his  complete  vindication. 
In  the  draft  of  a  letter  to  Isaac  M.  Schermer- 
horn  he  wrote,  September  12,  1864: 
Any  different  policy  in  regard  to  the  colored  man 
deprives  us  of  his  help,  and  this  is  more  than  we 
can  bear.    We  cannot  spare  the  hundred  and  forty 
l  Unpublished  MS.
THE  EDICT  OE  FREEDOM. 
703 
or  fifty  thousand  now  serving  us  as  soldiers,  sea- 
men, and  laborers.  This  is  not  a  question  of  senti- 
ment or  taste,  but  one  of  physical  force,  which  may 
be  measured  and  estimated  as  horse-power  and  steam- 
power  are  measured  and  estimated.  Keep  it,  and 
you  can  save  the  Union.  Throw  it  away,  and  the 
Union  goes  with  it.1 
And  in  the  one  already  quoted,  to*  Robin- 
son, August  17,  1864: 
Drive  back  to  the  support  of  the  rebellion  the 
physical  force  which  the  colored  people  now  give 
and  promise  us,  and  neither  the  present  nor  any 
coming  Administration  can  save  the  Union.  Take 
from  us  and  give. to  the  enemy  the  hundred  and 
thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  thousand  colored  persons  now 
serving  as  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers  and  we 
cannot  longer  maintain  the  contest. 
So  also  in  an  interview  with  John  T.  Mills 
he  said  : 
But  no  human  power  can  subdue  this  rebellion 
without  the  use  of  the  emancipation  policy  and 
every  other  policy  calculated  to  weaken  the  moral 
and  physical  forces  of  the  rebellion.  Freedom  has 
given  200,000  men,  raised  on  Southern  soil.  It 
will  give  us  more  yet.  Just  so  much  it  has  sub- 
tracted from  the  enemy.  .  .  .  Let  my  enemies 
prove  to  the  contrary  that  the  destruction  of  slavery 
is  not  necessary  to  a  restoration  of  the  Union.  I 
will  abide  the  issue. 
We  might  stop  here  and  assume  that  Presi- 
dent Lincoln's  argument  is  complete.  But  he 
was  by  nature  so  singularly  frank  and  conscien- 
tious, and  by  mental  constitution  so  unavoida- 
bly logical,  that  he  could  not,  if  he  had  desired, 
do  things  or  even  seem  to  do  them  by  indirec- 
tion or  subterfuge.  This,  the  most  weighty  of 
his  responsibilities  and  the  most  difficult  of  his 
trials,  he  could  not  permit  to  rest  upon  doubt 
or  misconstruction.  In  addition  to  what  we 
have  already  quoted  he  has  left  us  a  naked 
and  final  restatement  of  the  main  question,  with 
the  unequivocal  answer  of  his  motive  and  con- 
viction. It  has  been  shown  above  how  Mr. 
Chase,  in  the  discussions  of  the  final  phraseol- 
ogy of  the  January  proclamation,  urged  him 
to  omit  his  former  exemptions  of  certain  frac- 
tional parts  of  insurrectionary  States.  Despite 
the  President's  adverse  decision,  Mr.  Chase  con- 
tinued from  time  to  time  to  urge  this  measure 
during  the  year  1863.  To  these  requests  the 
President  finally  replied  as  follows  on  the  2d 
of  September : 
Knowing  your  great  anxiety  that  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  shall  now  be  applied  to  certain  parts  of 
Virginia  and  Louisiana  which  were  exempted  from  it 
last  January,  I  state  briefly  what  appear  to  me  to  be 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  a  step.  The  original 
proclamation  has  no  constitutional  or  legal  justifica- 
tion, except  as  a  military  measure.  The  exemptions 
were  made  because  the  military  necessity  did  not 
apply  to  the  exempted  localities.  Nor  does  that  ne- 
1  Unpublished  MS. 
cessity  apply  to  them  now  any  more  than  it  did 
then.  If  I  take  the  st.-p  must  I  not  do  so  without 
the  argument  of  military  necessity,  and  so  without 
any  argument  except  the  one  that  I  think  the  meas- 
ure politically  expedient  and  morally  right?  V. 
I  not  thus  give  up  all  footing  upon  Constitution  or 
law?  Would  I  not  thus  be  in  the  boundless 
of  absolutism  ?  Could  this  pass  unnoticed  or  un- 
resisted ?  Could  it  fail  to  be  perceived,  that  without 
any  further  stretch  I  m  ght  do  the  same  in  Dela- 
ware, Maryland,  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri, 
and  even  change  any  law  in  any  State  ? l 
In  these  extracts  we  have  the  President's 
outline  explanation  of  the  legal  validity  of  the 
proclamation.  Like  all  his  reasoning,  it  is  simple 
and  strong,  resting  its  authority  on  the  powers 
of  war  and  its  justification  upon  military  ne- 
cessity. As  to  the  minor  subtleties  of  interpre- 
tation or  comment  which  it  might  provoke 
from  lawyers  or  judges  after  the  war  should 
be  ended,  we  may  infer  that  he  had  his  opin- 
ions, but  that  they  did  not  enter  into  his 
motives  of  action.  On  subsequent  occasions, 
while  continuing  to  declare  his  belief  that  the 
proclamation  was  valid  in  law,  he  neverthe- 
less frankly  admitted  that  what  the  courts 
might  ultimately  decide  was  beyond  his  knowl- 
edge as  well  as  beyond  his  control. 
For  the  moment  he  was  dealing  with  two 
mighty  forces  of  national  destiny,  civil  war 
and  public  opinion;  forces  which  paid  little 
heed  to  theories  of  public,  constitutional,  or 
international  law  where  they  contravened  their 
will  and  power.  In  fact  it  was  the  impotence 
of  legislative  machinery,  and  the  insufficiency 
of  legal  dicta  to  govern  or  terminate  the  con- 
flicts of  public  opinion  on  this  identical  question 
of  slavery,  which  brought  on  civil  strife.  In  the 
South  slavery  had  taken  up  arms  to  assert  its 
nationality  and  perpetuity ;  in  the  North  free- 
dom had  risen  first  in  mere  defensive  resistance, 
then  the  varying  fortunes  of  war  had  rendered 
the  combat  implacable  and  mortal.  It  was  not 
from  the  moldering  volumes  of  ancient  prece- 
dents, but  from  the  issues  of  the  present  wager  of 
battle,  that  future  judges  of  courts  would  draw 
their  doctrines  to  interpret  to  posterity  whether 
the  Edict  of  Freedom  was  void  or  valid. 
When  in  the  preceding  July  the  crisis  of 
the  McClellan  campaign  had  come  upon  the 
President  he  had  written  his  well-considered 
resolve :  "  I  expect  to  maintain  this  contest 
until  successful,  or  till  I  die,  or  am  conquered, 
or  my  term  expires,  or  Congress  or  the  country 
forsake  me."  Grand  as  was  the  historical  act  of 
signing  his  decree  of  liberation,  it  was  but  an 
incident  in  Ihe  grander  contest  he  was  commis- 
sioned and  resolved  to  maintain.  That  was  an 
issue,  not  alone  of  the  bondage  of  a  race,  but 
of  the  life  of  a  nation,  a  principle  of  govern- 
ment, a  question  of  primary  human  right. 
Was  this  act,  this  step,  this  incident  in  the
■o4 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
contest,  wise  or  unwise  ?  Would  it  bring  suc- 
cess or  failure  ?  Would  it  till  the  army,  weaken 
the  enemy,  inspirit  the  country,  unite  public 
opinion?  These,  we  may  assume,  and  not  a 
lawyer's  criticisms  of  phrase  or  text,  dictum 
or  precedent,  were  the  queries  which  filled 
his  mind  when  he  wrote  his  name  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  famous  document.  If  the  rebellion 
should  triumph,  establishing  a  government 
founded  on  slavery  as  its  corner-stone,  mani- 
festly his  proclamation  would  be  but  waste 
paper,  though  every  court  in  Christendom 
outside  the  Confederate  States  should  assert 
its  official  authority.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
Union  arms  were  victorious,  every  step  of 
that  victory  would  become  clothed  with  the 
mantle  of  law.  But  if,  in  addition,  it  should 
turn  out  that  the  Union  arms  had  been  ren- 
dered victorious  through  the  help  of  the  negro 
soldiers,  called  to  the  field  by  the  promise  of 
freedom  contained  in  the  proclamation,  then 
the  decree  and  its  promise  might  rest  secure 
in  the  certainty  of  legal  execution  and  fulfill- 
ment. To  restore  the  Union  by  the  help  of  black 
soldiers  under  pledge  of  liberty,  and  then,  for 
the  Union,  under  whatever  legal  doctrine  or  con- 
struction, to  attempt  to  reenslave  them,  would 
be  a  wrong  at  which  morality  would  revolt. 
"  You  cannot,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  in  one  of  his 
early  speeches,  "  repeal  human  nature." 
The  problem  of  statesmanship  therefore  was 
not  one  of  theory,  but  of  practice.  Fame  is 
due  Mr.  Lincoln,  not  alone  because  he  decreed 
emancipation,  but  because  events  so  shaped 
themselves  under  his  guidance  as  to  render 
the  conception  practical  and  the  decree  suc- 
cessful. Among  the  agencies  he  employed 
none  proved  more  admirable  or  more  power- 
ful than  this  two-edged  sword  of  the  final 
proclamation,  blending  sentiment  with  force, 
leaguing  liberty  with  Union,  filling  the  voting 
armies  at  home  and  the  fighting  armies  in  the 
field.  In  the  light  of  history  we  can  see  that 
by  this  edict  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  slavery  its  vital 
thrust,  its  mortal  wound.  It  was  the  word  of 
don,  the  judgment  without  appeal,  the 
sentence  of  doom. 
But  for  the  execution  of  the  sentence,  for 
the  accomplishment  of  this  result,  he  had  yet 
many  weary  months  to  hope  and  to  wait.  Of 
its  slow  and  tantalizing  fruition,  of  the  gradual 
dawning  of  that  full  day  of  promise,  we  cannot 
get  a  better  description  than  that  in  his  own 
words  in  his  annual  message  to  Congress  nearly 
a  year  after  the  proclamation  was  signed : 
When  Congress  assembled  a  year  ago  the  war 
had  already  lasted  nearly  twenty  months,  and 
there  had  been  nrmy  conflicts  on  both  land  and 
sea,  with  varying  results.  The  rebellion  had  been 
pressed  back  into  reluced  limits;  yet  the  tone  of 
public  feeling  and   opinion,  at   home  and   abroad, 
was  not  satisfactory.  With  other  signs,  the  popular 
elections,  then  just  past,  indicated  uneasiness  among 
ourselves  ;  while  amid  much  that  was  cold  and  men- 
acing the  kindest  words  coming  from  Europe  were 
uttered  in  accents  of  pity  that  we  were  too  blind 
to  surrender  a  hopeless  cause.  Our  commerce  was 
suffering  greatly  by  a  few  armed  vessels  built  upon 
and  furnished  from  foreign  shores,  and  we  were 
threatened  with  such  additions  from  the  same  quar- 
ter as  would  sweep  our  trade  from  the  sea  and  raise 
our  blockade.  We  had  failed  to  elicitfrom  European 
governments  anything  hopeful  upon  this  subject.  The 
preliminary  emancipation  proclamation,  issued  in 
September,  was  running  its  assigned  period  to  the 
beginning  of  the  new  year.  A  month  later  the  final 
proclamation  came,  including  the  announcement 
that  colored  men  of  suitable  condition  would  be  re- 
ceived into  the  war  service.  The  policy  of  emanci- 
pation and  of  employing  black  soldiers  gave  to  the 
future  a  new  aspect,  about  which  hope  and  fear 
and  doubt  contended  in  uncertain  conflict.  Accord- 
ing to  our  political  system,  as  a  matter  of  civil  ad- 
ministration the  General  Government  had  no  lawful 
power  to  effect  emancipation  in  any  State,  and  for  a 
long  time  it  had  been  hoped  that  the  rebellion 
could  be  suppressed  without  resorting  to  it  as  a  mil- 
itary measure.  It  was  all  the  while  deemed  possible 
that  the  necessity  for  it  might  come,  and  that  if  it 
should  the  crisis  of  the  contest  would  then  be  pre- 
sented. It  came,  and,  as  was  anticipated,  it  was  fol- 
lowed by  dark  and  doubtful  days.  Eleven  months 
having  now  passed  we  are  permitted  to  take  another 
review.  The  rebel  borders  are  pressed  still  further 
back,  and  by  the  complete  opening  of  the  Mississippi 
the  country  dominated  by  the  rebellion  is  divided 
into  distinct  parts,  with  no  practical  communica- 
tion between  them.  Tennessee  and  Arkansas  have 
been  substantially  cleared  of  insurgent  control,  and 
influential  citizens  in  each,  owners  of  slaves  and  ad- 
vocates of  slavery  at  the  beginning  of  the  rebellion, 
now  declare  openly  for  emancipation  in  their  respect- 
ive States.  Of  those  States  not  included  in  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  Maryland  and  Missouri, 
neither  of  which  three  years  ago  would  tolerate  any 
restraint  upon  the  extension  of  slavery  into  new 
Territories,  only  dispute  now  as  to  the  best  mode 
of  removing  it  within  their  own  limits. 
Of  those  who  were  slaves  at  the  beginning  of  the 
rebellion,  full  one  hundred  thousand  are  now  in  the 
United  States  military  service,  about  one-half  of 
which  number  actually  bear  arms  in  the  ranks  ; 
thus  giving  the  double  advantage  of  taking  so  much 
labor  from  the  insurgent  cause  and  supplying  the 
places  which  otherwise  must  be  filled  with  so  many 
white  men.  So  far  as  tested  it  is  difficult  to  say 
they  are  not  as  good  soldiers  as  any.  No  servile 
insurrection  or  tendency  to  violence  or  cruelty  has 
marked  the  measures  of  emancipation  and  arming 
the  blacks.  These  measures  have  been  much  dis- 
cussed in  foreign  countries,  and  contemporary  with 
such  discussion  the  tone  of  public  sentiment  there 
is  much  improved.  At  home  the  same  measures 
have  been  fully  discussed,  supported,  criticised,  and 
denounced,  and  the  annual  elections  following  are 
highly  encouraging  to  those  whose  official  duty  it  is 
to  bear  the  country  through  thisgreat  trial.  Thus  we 
have  the  new  reckoning.  The  crisis  which  threatened 
to  divide  the  friends  of  the  Union  is  past.1  ,,<_^- 
1  Annual  Message,  Dec.  8,  1863. 
<^U^/fT7
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:     A    HISTORY.1 
RETALIATION.— THE    ENROLLMENT    AND    THE    DRAFT 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY   AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
RETALIATION. 
HE  policy  of  arming  the 
blacks  having  been  offi- 
cially announced  in  the  final 
Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion of  January  i,  1863, 
steps  were  taken  as  rapidly 
as  the  nature  of  the  case 
permitted  to  put  the  plan 
into  practical  execution.  Mr.  Lincoln  not  only 
watched  these  efforts  with  great  interest,  but 
from  time  to  time  personally  wrote  letters  to 
several  of  his  commanders  urging  them  to  active 
efforts  in  organizing  negro  regiments.  If  a  single 
argument  were  needed  to  point  out  his  great 
practical  wisdom  in  the  management  of  this 
difficult  question,  that  argument  is  found  in 
the  mere  summing  up  of  its  tangible  military 
results. 
We  have  seen  that  at  the  beginning  of  De- 
cember, 1863,  less  than  a  year  after  the  Presi- 
dent first  proclaimed  the  policy,  he  was  able  to 
announce  in  his  annual  message  that  about  fifty 
thousand  men  formerly  slaves  were  then  actual- 
ly bearing  arms  in  the  ranks  of  the  Union  forces. 
A  report  made  by  the  Secretary  of  War  on 
April  2,  1864,  shows  that  the  number  of  negro 
troops  then  mustered  into  the  service  of  the 
United  States  as  soldiers  had  increased  to 
7 1, 976,2  and  we  learn  further  from  the  report 
of  the  Provost-Marshal  General  that  at  the 
close  of  the  war  there  were  in  the  service  of 
the  United  States,  of  colored  troops,  120  regi- 
ments of  infantry,  12  regiments  of  heavy 
artillery,  10  companies  of  light  artillery,  and 
7  regiments  of  cavalry,  making  a  grand  aggre- 
gate of  123,156  men.  This  was  the  largest 
number  in  service  at  any  one  time,  but  it 
does  not  represent  all  of  them.  The  entire 
number  commissioned  and  enlisted  in  this 
branch  of  the  service  during  the  war,  or,  more 
properly  speaking,  during  the  last  two  years 
of  the  war,  was  186,017  men.3 
This  magnificent  exhibit  is  a  testimony  to 
Mr.  Lincoln's  statesmanship  which  can  hardly 
be  overvalued.  If  he  had  adopted  the  policy 
when  it  was  first  urged  upon  him  by  impulsive 
2  Stanton's  Report,  April  2,  1864,  unpublished  MS. 
3  Report  of  the  Provost-Marshal  General. 
enthusiasts  it  would  have  brought  his  admin- 
istration to  political  wreck,  as  was  clearly  indi- 
cated by  the  serious  election  reverses  of  1862  ; 
but  disregarding  the  impatience  and  the  bad 
judgment  of  his  advisers,  and  using  that  pol- 
icy at  the  opportune  moment,  he  made  it  not 
only  a  powerful  lever  to  effect  emancipation, 
but  a  military  overweight,  aiding  effectually 
to  crush  the  remaining  rebel  armies  and  bring 
the  rebellion  as  a  whole  to  a  speedy  and  sud- 
den collapse. 
One  point  of  doubt  about  employing  negroes 
as  soldiers  was  happily  removed  almost  imper- 
ceptibly by  the  actual  experiment.  It  had  been 
a  serious  question  with  many  thoughtful  men 
whether  the  negro  would  fight.  It  was  appre- 
hended that  his  comparatively  recent  transition 
from  barbarism  to  civilization  and  the  inherited 
habits  of  subjection  and  dependence  imposed 
upon  him  by  two  centuries  of  enslavement  had 
left  his  manhood  so  dwarfed  and  deadened  as 
to  render  him  incapable  of  the  steady  and  sus- 
tained physical  and  moral  courage  needful  to 
armies  in  modern  warfare.  Practical  trial  in 
skirmish  and  battle  gave  an  immediate  and  suc- 
cessful refutation  to  this  fear,  and  proved  the 
gallantry  and  trustworthiness  of  the  black  sol- 
dier in  the  severest  trials  of  devotion  and  hero- 
ism. Within  half  a  year  after  Lincoln's  order  of 
enlistment  the  black  regiments  had  furnished 
such  examples  of  bravery  on  many  fields  that 
commanders  gave  them  unstinted  praise,  and 
white  officers  and  soldiers  heartily  accepted 
them  as  worthy  companions-in-arms. 
The  rebel  authorities  watched  the  experi- 
ment of  arming  the  blacks  with  the  keenest 
apprehension  and  hostility.  In  Mr.  Lincoln's 
order  of  July  22,  1862,  directing  military 
commanders  to  seize  and  use  property,  real  or 
personal,  for  military  purposes,  and  to  employ 
"persons  of  African  descent  as  laborers."  Jef- 
ferson Davis  professed  already  to  discover  a 
wicked  violation  of  the  laws  of  war,  apparently 
forgetting  that  his  own  generals  were  every- 
where using  such  persons  in  military  labor. 
When  it  was  learned  that  Hunter  and  Phelps 
were  endeavoring  to  organize  negro  regiments. 
the  language  employed  to  express  Southern 
affectation  of  surprise  and  protest  borders  on 
the  ludicrous.    "  The  best  authenticated  news- 
1  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  1S86.     All  rights  reserved.
9 '  ^ 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
papers  received  from  the  United  States,"  writes 
General  Lee,  "announce  as  a  fact  that  Major- 
General  Hunter  has  armed  slaves  tor  the  mur- 
f  their  masters,  and  has  thus  done  all  in 
his  power  to  inaugurate  a  servile  war,  which  is 
worse  than  that  oi  the  savage,  inasmuch  as  it 
superadds  other  horrors  to  the  indiscriminate 
slaughter  Lges,  -exes,  and  conditions";  and 
Phelps  is  charged  with  imitating  the  bad  ex- 
ample. l  Halleck  very  properly  returned  this 
and  another  letter,  as  insulting  to  the  Govern- 
ment oi  the  United  States.  A  little  later  the 
Confederate  War  Department  issued  a  formal 
order : 
That  Major-General  Hunter  and  Brigadier-General 
Phelps  be  no  longer  held  and  treated  as  public  en- 
emies of  the  Confederate  States,  but  as  outlaws; 
and  that  in  the  event  of  the  capture  of  either  of 
them,  or  that  of  any  other  commissioned  officer  em- 
ploved  in  drilling,  organizing,  or  instructing  slaves, 
with  a  view  to  their  armed  service  in  this  war,  he 
shall  not  be  regarded  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  but  held 
in  close  confinement  for  execution  as  a  felon  at  such 
time  and  place  as  the  President  shall  order.2 
Mr.  Davis  seems  to  have  cultivated  a  sort 
of  literary  pride  in  these  formulas  of  invective, 
for  in  his  sensational  proclamation  of  out- 
lawry against  General  Butler  and  all  commis- 
sioned officers  in  his  command  he  repeats : 
••  African  slaves  have  not  only  been  incited  to 
insurrection  by  every  license  and  encourage- 
ment, but  numbers  of  them  have  actually  been 
armed  for  a  servile  war  —  a  war  in  its  nature 
far  exceeding  the  horrors  and  most  merciless 
atrocities  of  savages."  In  this  it  was  ordered 
that  "  negro  slaves  captured  in  arms  be  at 
once  delivered  over  to  the  executive  authori- 
ties of  the  respective  States  to  which  they 
belong,  to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  laws 
of  said  States  "  ;  and  that  Butler  and  his  com- 
missioned officers,  "robbers  and  criminals  de- 
serving death,  be  whenever  captured  reserved 
for  execution."  '■> 
President  Lincoln's  two  proclamations  of 
emancipation  excited  similar  threats.  About 
a  week  after  the  first  was  issued  it  was  made 
a  subject  of  discussion  in  the  Confederate  sen- 
ate at  Richmond,  and  a  Confederate  writer 
rded  in  his  diary  the  next  day:  "  Some  of 
the  gravest  of  our  senators  favor  the  raising  of 
the  black  flag,  asking  and  giving  no  quarter  here- 
after." 4  When  the  final  proclamation  reached 
Richmond,  Jefferson  Davis  was  writing  his 
annual  message  to  the  rebel  Congress,  and  he 
ransacked  his  dictionary  for  terms  to  stigma- 
tize it.  '-'•  Our  detestation  of  those  who  have  at- 
tempted the  most  execrable  measure  recorded 
in  the  history  of  guilty  man  is  tempered  by 
profound  contempt  for  the  impotent  rage  which 
it  discloses." 5  This  new  provocation  also 
broadened  his  field  of  retaliation.  He  now 
declared  that  he  would  deliver  "  such  crimi- 
nals as  may  attempt  its  execution" — all  com- 
missioned officers  of  the  United  States  captured 
in  States  embraced  in  the  proclamation  —  to 
the  executives  of  such  States,  to  be  punished 
for  exciting  servile  insurrection. 
The  Confederate  Congress,  while  responding 
to  the  full  degree  of  the  proposed  retaliation, 
nevertheless  preferred  to  keep  the  power  of 
such  punishment  in  the  hands  of  the  central 
military  authorities,  apparently  as  promising 
a  more  certain  and  summary  execution.  That 
body  passed  a  joint  resolution,  approved  by 
Davis  May  i,  1863,  which  prescribed  that 
white  officers  of  negro  Union  soldiers  "  shall,  if 
captured,  be  put  to  death  or  be  otherwise 
punished  at  the  discretion  of  the  court,"  the 
trial  to  take  place  "  before  the  military  court 
attached  to  the  army  or  corps  "  making  the 
capture,  or  such  other  military  court  as  the 
Confederate  President  should  designate.6 
When  the  Confederate  threats  regarding 
negro  soldiers  were  first  launched  the  experi- 
ment had  not  yet  been  formally  authorized  by 
the  Government ;  and  as  there  was  no  proba- 
bility that  any  early  capture  of  such  persons 
would  be  made  by  the  enemy,  no  attention  was 
paid  to  rebel  orders  and  proclamations  on  the 
subject.  A  year  later,  however,  when  negro 
regiments  were  springing  into  full  organization 
simultaneously  in  many  places,  the  matter  be- 
came one  of  grave  import.  As  a  rule,  the  black 
regiments  were  commanded  by  white  officers, 
often  selected,  as  was  specially  the  case  with 
the  54th  Massachusetts,  from  the  very  best 
material,  whose  bravery  in  incurring  this  ad- 
ditional risk  deserved  the  extra  watchfulness 
and  protection  of  the  Government.  The  most 
elementary  justice  required  that  if  it  called 
the  black  man  to  do  a  soldier's  duty  it  must 
cover  him  with  a  soldier's  right,  and  Northern 
sentiment  was  prompt  in  urging  the  claim. 
Frederick  Douglass  has  related  how  he  pressed 
the  point  upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  the  Presi- 
dent's reply  : 
As  to  the  exchange  and  general  treatment  of 
colored  soldiers  when  taken  prisoners  of  war,  he 
should  insist  on  their  being  entitled  to  all  privileges 
of  such  prisoners.  Mr.  Lincoln  admitted  the  justice 
of  my  demand  for  the  promotion  of  colored  soldiers 
for  good  conduct  in   the   field,  but   on    the   matter 
1   Lee    to    Halleck,    August   2,    1862.     "Rebellion 
rd,"  Vol.  IX.,  p.  246. 
-   funeral  Orders,  Aug.  21,  1862. 
■'•   Davis,  Proclamation,  December  23,  1862.  "Ameri- 
can Annual  Cyclopaedia,"  1862,  p.  738. 
4  Jones,  "A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary,"  Vol.  I.,j 
159- 
•>  Davis,  Annual  Message,  January  12, 1863.  "Amer 
can  Annual  Cyclopaedia,"  1863,  p.  786. 
6  C.  S.  Statutes-at-Large  for  1863,  p.  167.
A    HISTORY. 
9*9 
of  retaliation  he  differed  from  me  entirely.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  benignant  expression  of  his  face,  the 
tearful  look  of  his  eye,  and  the  quiver  in  his  voice 
when  he  deprecated  a  resort  to  retaliatory  measures. 
"  Once  begun,"  said  he,  "  I  do  not  know  where  such 
a  measure  would  stop."  He  said  he  could  not  take 
men  out  and  kill  them  in  cold  blood  for  what  was 
done  by  others.  If  he  could  get  hold  of  the  per- 
sons who  were  guilty  of  killing  the  colored  prison- 
ers in  cold  blood,  the  case  would  be  different,  but  he 
could  not  kill  the  innocent  for  the  guilty.  1 
Nevertheless,  in  view  of  the  great  success 
which  attended  the  enlistment  of  black  recruits, 
it  became  necessary  for  the  Government  to 
adopt  a  settled  policy  on  the  question,  and 
on  July  30,  1863,  the  President  issued  the 
following  comprehensive  order : 
It  is  the  duty  of  every  government  to  give  pro- 
tection to  its  citizens  of  whatever  class,  color,  or 
condition,  and  especially  to  those  who  are  duly  or- 
ganized as  soldiers  in  the  public  service.  The  law 
of  nations,  and  the  usages  and  customs  of  war,  as 
carried  on  by  civilized  powers,  permit  no  distinction 
as  to  color  in  the  treatment  of  prisoners  of  war  as 
public  enemies.  To  sell  or  enslave  any  captured  per- 
son on  account  of  his  color,  and  for  no  offense  against 
the  laws  of  war,  is  a  relapse  into  barbarism  and  a 
crime  against  the  civilization  of  the  age. 
The  Government  of  the  United  States  will  give 
the  same  protection  to  all  its  soldiers,  and  if  the 
enemy  shall  sell  or  enslave  any  one  because  of  his 
color  the  offense  shall  be  punished  by  retaliation 
upon  the  enemy's  prisoners  in  our  possession. 
It  is  therefore  ordered  that  for  every  soldier  of 
the  United  States  killed  in  violation  of  the  laws  of 
war  a  rebel  soldier  shall  be  executed  ;  and  for  every 
one  enslaved  by  the  enemy,  or  sold  into  slavery,  a 
rebel  soldier  shall  be  placed  at  hard  labor  on  the 
public  works,  and  continued  at  such  labor  until  the 
other  shall  be  released  and  receive  the  treatment  due 
to  a  prisoner  of  war.2 
It  is  a  gratification  to  record  that  the  rebel 
Government  did  not  persist  in  the  barbarous 
conduct  it  had  officially  announced,  and  that 
sanguinary  retaliation  did  not  become  neces- 
sary. There  were  indeed  some  unimportant 
instances  of  imprisonment  of  captured  blacks, 
as  hostages  for  which,  a  few  rebel  soldiers  were 
ordered  into  confinement  by  General  Halleck, 
but  the  cases  were  not  pushed  to  extremity 
under  executive  sanction  on  either  side.  Much 
more  serious  excesses,  however,  occurred  under 
the  responsibility  and  conduct  of  individual 
officers  growing  out  of  mistaken  zeal  or  un- 
curbed passion;  it  is  probable  that  most  of 
them   went   unrecorded.    In    October,    [862, 
1  Frederick  Douglass,  Reminiscences,  "  New  York 
Tribune,"  July  5,  1885. 
2  Report  Provost- Marshal  General,  March  17, 1866. 
Mess,  and  Doc.,  1865-66,  Part  III.,  p.  63. 
3  It  is  proper  to  mention  that  this  retaliatory  action 
was  under  the  authority  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  Gen- 
eralCurtis.  commanding  the  Department  of  the  Missouri 
at  that  time,  wrote  under  date  of  December  24,  1862  : 
when  the  guerrilla  outrages  in  Missouri  were 
in  one  of  their  moments  of  fiercest  activity,  a 
Union  citizen  of  Palmyra  was  abducted  and 
murdered  under  circumstances  which  clearly 
marked  it  as  an  instance  of  concerted  and  delib- 
erate partisan  revenge.  In  retaliation  for  this, 
Colonel  John  McNeil,  the  Union  officer  in 
local  command,  having  demanded  the  perpe- 
trators, which  demand  was  not  complied  with, 
ordered  the  execution  of  ten  rebel  guerrillas 
of  the  same  neighborhood,  and  carried  out 
the  order  with  military  publicity  and  formal- 
ity.3 Even  admitting  the  strong  provocation, 
modern  sentiment  cannot  justify  a  punishment 
tenfold  as  severe  as  that  demanded  by  the  Mo- 
saic law.  Less  than  a  month  later  there  was 
brief  mention  in  a  letter  of  the  rebel  Major- Gen- 
eral Holmes  to  the  Confederate  War  Depart- 
ment of  an  analogous  occurrence  in  northern 
Texas.  "  A  secret  organization,"  he  wrote,  "  to 
resist  the  [Confederate]  conscript  act  in  north- 
ern Texas,  has  resulted  in  the  citizens  organ- 
izing a  jury  of  investigation,  and  I  am  informed 
they  have  tried  and  executed  forty  of  those 
convicted,  and  thus  this  summary  procedure 
has  probably  crushed  the  incipient  rebellion."  4 
Even  without  details  the  incident  is  a  convin- 
cing explanation  of  the  seeming  unanimity  for 
rebellion  in  that  region. 
The  most  shocking  occurrence  of  this  char- 
acter, however,  followed  the  employment  of 
negro  soldiers.  We  cannot  in  our  day  ade- 
quately picture  the  vindictive  rage  of  many 
rebel  masters  at  seeing  recent  slaves  uniformed 
and  armed  in  defense  of  a  government  which 
had  set  them  free.  Under  the  barbarous  in- 
stitution, to  perpetuate  which  they  committed 
treason  and  were  ready  to  die,  they  had  pun- 
ished their  human  chattels  with  the  unchecked 
lash,  sold  them  on  the  auction-block,  hunted 
them  with  bloodhounds ;  and  it  is  hardly  to  be 
wondered  at  that  amid  the  license  of  war  indi- 
viduals among  them  now  and  then  thought  to 
restore  their  domination  by  the  aid  of  military 
slaughter.  As  an  evidence  that  such  thoughts 
existed  here  and  there  we  need  only  cite  the 
language  of  Major-General  John  C.  Breck- 
inridge, late  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States.  Writing  under  date  of  August  14.  1S62, 
to  the  Union  commander  at  Baton  Rouge,  he 
recites  in  a  list  of  alleged  "  outrages  that  "  in- 
formation has  reached  these  headquarters  that 
negro  slaves  are  being  organized  and  armed  to 
be  employed  against  us";  and  adds,  "I  am 
"  General  McNeil  is  a  State  general,  and  his  column 
was  mainly  State  troops :  the  matter  has  therefore  never 
come  to  my  official  notice.  .  .  .  When  persons  are 
condemned  to  be  shot  by  Federal  authority,  the  pro- 
ceedings have  to  be  approved  by  the  President,  but  no 
case  of  this  sort  has  arisen  under  mv  command."  — 
War  Records,  Vol.  XXII.  Part  I.,  pp.'  Soo-i. 
4  War  Records,  Vol.  XIII.,  p.  90S.
9^o 
A  BRA  HAM  LINCOLN: 
authorized  by  Major-General  Van  Dorn,  com- 
manding this  department,  to  inform  you  that 
the  above  aets  are  regarded  as  in  violation  of 
the  usage  of  civilized  warfare,  and  that  in  fut- 
ure, upon  any  departure  from  these  usages,  he 
will  rai>e  the  black  tlag  and  neither  give  nor 
ask  quarter."  1 
Mere  official  bravado,  from  however  con- 
spicuous  a  personage,  only  deserves  mention 
when,  as  in  this  instance,  it  illustrates  a  type 
of  feeling  which  in  one  case  at  least  manifested 
itself  in  an  incident  of  shocking  barbarity. 
In  the  spring  of  the  year  1864  President 
Lincoln  went  to  Baltimore  to  attend  the  open- 
ing of  a  large  fair  for  the  benefit  of  the  Sani- 
tary Commission.  In  concluding  the  address 
which  he  was  called  upon  to  make  on  that 
occasion  he  said  : 
A  painful  rumor,  true,  I  fear,  has  reached  us  of 
the  massacre,  by  the  rebel  forces  at  Fort  Pillow,  in 
the  west  end  of  Tennessee,  on  the  Mississippi  River, 
of  some  three  hundred  colored  soldiers  and  white 
officers,  who  had  just  been  overpowered  by  their 
assailants.  There  seems  to  be  some  anxiety  in  the 
public  mind  whether  the  Government  is  doing  its 
duty  to  the  colored  soldier,  and  to  the  service,  at 
this  point.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  for 
some  time,  the  use  of  colored  troops  was  not  con- 
templated ;  and  how  the  change  of  purpose  was 
wrought  I  will  not  now  take  time  to  explain. 
Upon  a  clear  conviction  of  duty,  I  resolved  to  turn 
that  element  of  strength  to  account;  and  I  am 
responsible  for  it  to  the  American  people,  to  the 
Christian  world,  to  history,  and  on  my  final  account 
to  God.  Having  determined  to  use  the  negro  as  a 
soldier,  there  is  no  way  but  to  give  him  all  the 
protection  given  to  any  other  soldier.  The  difficulty 
is  not  in  stating  the  principle,  but  in  practically  ap- 
plying it.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  the  Govern- 
ment is  indifferent  to  this  matter,  or  is  not  doing 
the  best  it  can  in  regard  to  it.  We  do  not  to-day 
kno-x  that  a  colored  soldier,  or  white  officer  com- 
manding colored  soldiers,  has  been  massacred  by 
the  rebels  when  made  a  prisoner.  We  fear  it,  be- 
lieve it,  I  may  say,  but  we  do  not  know  it.  To  take 
the  life  of  one  of  their  prisoners  on  the  assumption 
that  they  murder  ours,  when  it  is  short  of  certainty 
that  they  do  murder  ours,  might  be  too  serious,  too 
cruel,  a  mistake.  We  are  having  the  Fort  Pillow 
affair  thoroughly  investigated  ;  and  such  investiga- 
tion will  probably  show  conclusively  how  the  truth 
is.  If  after  all  that  has  been  said  it  shall  turn  out 
that  there  has  been  no  massacre  at  Fort  Pillow  it 
will  be  almost  safe  to  say  there  has  been  none,  and 
will  be  none,  elsewhere.  If  there  has  been  the  mas- 
sacre of  three  hundred  there,  or  even  the  tenth  part 
of  three  hundred,  it  will  be  conclusively  proven  ;  and, 
being  so  proven,  the  retribution  shall  as  surely  come. 
It  will  be  matter  of  grave  consideration  in  what  ex- 
act course  to  apply  the  retribution  ;  but  in  the  sup- 
posed case  it  must  come.2 
The  investigation  referred  to  by  the  Presi- 
dent was  made  by  the  Committee  on  the  Con- 
1  W.  R.,  Vol.  XV.,  pp.  550  and  551. 
2  Raymond,  "  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  pp.  502-3. 
duct  of  the  War,  and  included  the  sworn  testi- 
mony of  about  eighty  witnesses,  mostly  actual 
participants  in  the  occurrence.  The  committee 
found  that  Fort  Pillow,  Tennessee,  situated  on 
the  Mississippi  River,  and  garrisoned  by  about 
557  Union  troops,  of  whom  262  were  colored, 
was  captured  by  assault,  by  an  overwhelming 
force  of  Confederates  under  General  Forrest, 
on  April  12,  1864,  and  that  "  of  the  men  from 
300  to  400  are  known  to  have  been  killed  at 
Fort  Pillow,  of  whom  at  least  300  were  mur- 
dered in  cold  blood  after  the  post  was  in  pos- 
session of  the  rebels  and  our  men  had  thrown 
down  their  arms  and  ceased  to  offer  resistance." 
It  further  appears  that  this  inhumanity  was 
directed  principally  against  the  colored  soldiers. 
The  rebel  general  and  his  subordinates  stoutly 
denied  the  accusation  of  vindictiveness,  but  their 
explanations  and  later  evidence  failed  to  shake 
the  general  substance  of  the  committee's  allega- 
tion and  proof.  Indeed  it  would  be  difficult  to 
refute  the  conclusiveness  of  the  first  report  of 
General  Forrest  himself.  On  the  third  day  after 
his  exploit  he  telegraphed  to  General  Polk : 
I  attacked  Fort  Pillow  on  the  morning  of  the  12th 
instant  with  a  part  of  Bell's  and  McCulloch's  bri- 
gades, numbering   ,  under  Brigadier-General 
J.  R.  Chalmers.  After  a  short  fight  we  drove  the 
enemy,  seven  hundred  strong,  into  the  fort  under 
cover  of  their  gun-boats,  and  demanded  a  surrender, 
which  was  declined  by  Major  L.  W.  Booth,  com- 
manding United  States  forces.  I  stormed  the  fort, 
and  after  a  contest  of  thirty  minutes  captured  the 
entire  garrison,  killing  five  hundred  and  taking  one 
hundred  prisoners,  and  a  large  amount  of  quarter- 
master's stores.  The  officers  in  the  fort  were  killed, 
including  Major  Booth.  I  sustained  a  loss  of  twenty 
killed  and  sixty  wounded.  The  Confederate  flag 
now  floats  over  the  fort.3 
The  astonishing  result  is  further  explained 
by  the  contemporaneous  threats  made  officially 
by  these  Confederate  officers.  On  the  25th  of 
March  preceding,  in  demanding  the  surrender 
of  Paducah,  Kentucky,  General  Forrest  wrote : 
"  If  you  surrender,  you  shall  be  treated  as  prison- 
ers of  war ;  but  if  I  have  to  storm  your  works, 
you  may  expect  no  quarter."  4 
And  on  the  day  following  the  Fort  Pillow 
massacre,  General  A.  Buford,  one  of  Forrest's 
brigadiers,  said  in  his  demand  for  the  surrender 
of  Columbus,  Kentucky : 
Should  you  surrender,  the  negroes  now  in  arms 
will  be  returned  to  their  masters.  Should  I,  how- 
ever, be  compelled  to  take  the  place,  no  quarter 
will  be  shown  to  the  negro  troops  whatever ;  the 
white  troops  will  be  treated  as  prisoners  of  war. 
And  in  a  subsequent  correspondence  Forrest 
wrote,  under  date  of  June  20,  to  the  Union 
general,  C.  C.  Washburn  :  "  I  regard  captured 
'■>  "A  Rebel  War  Clerk's  Diary,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  189. 
4  "  Rebellion  Record,"  Vol.  VIII.,  p.  73.
A   HISTORY. 
negroes  as  I  do  other  captured  property,  and 
not  as  captured  soldiers."  -1  The  language  of 
these  officers  at  Paducah  and  Columbus  is  a 
sufficient  commentary  on  their  achievement  at 
Fort  Pillow. 
President  Lincoln  formally  took  up  the 
consideration  of  the  subject  on  the  3d  of 
May  by  writing  to  the  several  members  of 
his  Cabinet: 
It  is  now  quite  certain  that  a  large  number  of 
our  colored  soldiers,  with  their  white  officers,  were, 
by  the  rebel  force,  massacred  after  they  had  surren- 
dered at  the  recent  capture  of  Fort  Pillow.  So  much 
is  known,  though  the  evidence  is  not  yet  quite 
ready  to  be  laid  before  me.  Meanwhile  I  will  thank 
you  to  prepare,  and  give  me  in  writing,  your  opinion 
as  to  what  course  the  Government  should  take  in 
the  case.2 
The  answers  of  his  advisers  differed  widely. 
Mr.  Seward  affirmed  the  duty  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  vindicate  the  right  of  all  its  soldiers 
to  be  regarded  and  treated  as  prisoners  of  war; 
nevertheless  he  urged  great  caution  in  any  pro- 
ceedings looking  to  retaliation,  and  advised  for 
the  present  only  the  setting  apart  and  rigorous 
confinement  of  an  equal  number  of  Confeder- 
ate prisoners  as  hostages  until  the  rebel  Gov- 
ernment could  be  called  upon  to  explain  or 
disavow  the  cruelties  and  give  pledges  that 
they  should  not  be  repeated.  Mr.  Chase  held 
the  same  view,  except  that  he  advised  that  the 
hostages  should  be  selected  from  rebel  prison- 
ers of  highest  rank,  in  number  equivalent,  ac- 
cording to  the  rules  of  exchange,  to  the  officers 
and  men  murdered  at  Fort  Pillow.  Mr.  Stanton 
also  advised  that  the  hostages  be  selected  from 
rebel  officers ;  that  Forrest,  Chalmers,  and  all 
officers  and  men  concerned  in  the  Fort  Pillow 
massacre  be  excluded  from  the  benefit  of  the 
President's  proclamation  of  amnesty  and  from 
the  privilege  of  exchange,  and  their  delivery 
for  punishment  be  demanded  from  the  Rich- 
mond authorities,  in  default  of  which  delivery 
the  President  should  take  such  measures  against 
the  hostages  as  the  state  of  things  then  existing 
might  make  necessary.  The  advice  of  Mr. 
Welles  was  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  Mr. 
Stanton.  Mr.  Blair,  on  the  contrary,  took  differ- 
ent ground. 
There  are  two  reasons  [he  wrote]  which  would 
prevent  me  from  ordering  the  execution  of  prison- 
ers, man  for  man,  in  retaliation  for  the  massacre  at 
Fort  Pillow.  First.  That  1  do  not  think  the  meas- 
ure would  be  justified  by  the  rules  of  civilized  war- 
fare, even  in  a  contest  between  alien  enemies.  Sec- 
ond. Because  even  if  allowable  in  such  a  contest  it 
would  not  be  just  in  itself  or  expedient  in  the  present 
contest.    .    .    .    And  the  inclination  of  my  mind 
1  "  Rebellion  Record,"  Vol.  X.,  p.  724. 
2  Lincoln  to  the  Cabinet,  May  3,  1864.  Unpub- 
lished MS. 
Vol.  XXXVII.— 122-123. 
is,  to  pursue  the  actual  offenders  alone  in  such  cases 
as  the  present ;  to  order  the  most  energetic  meas- 
ures for  their  capture,  and  the  mo>t  summary  pun- 
ishment when  captured.  ...  A  proclamation  or 
order  that  the  guilty  individuals  arc  to  be  hunted 
down  will  have  far  greater  terror  and  be  far  more 
effectual  to  prevent  the  repetition  of  the  crime  than 
the  punishment  of  parties  not  concerned  in  that 
crime. 
Mr.  Bates  agreed  in  opinion  with  Mr.  Blair. 
He  would  demand  of  the  enemy  a  disavowal 
or  avowal  of  the  act.  If  he  disavow  it,  then 
demand  the  surrender  of  the  generals  guilty 
of  the  Fort  Pillow  massacre  to  be  dealt  with 
at  your  discretion.  If  he  avow  and  justify  the 
act,  then  instruct  your  commanders  to  cause 
instant  execution  upon  any  and  all  partici- 
pants in  the  massacre,  whether  officers  or  pri- 
vates, who  should  fall  into  their  power.  He 
added : 
I  would  have  no  compact  with  the  enemy  for 
mutual  slaughter ;  no  cartel  of  blood  and  murder ; 
no  stipulation  to  the  effect  that  if  you  murder  one 
of  my  men  I  will  murder  one  of  yours  !  Retaliation 
is  not  mere  justice.  It  is  avowedly  revenge  ;  and  it 
is  wholly  unjustifiable,  in  law  and  conscience,  un- 
less adopted  for  the  sole  purpose  of  punishing  past 
crime  and  of  giving  a  salutary  and  blood-saving 
warning  against  its  repetition. 
Mr.  Usher  also  joined  in  the  opinion  that 
punishment  should  not  be  visited  upon  inno- 
cent persons,  but  he  urged 
that  the  Government  should  set  apart  for  execu- 
tion an  equal  number  of  prisoners  who  since  the 
massacre  have  been,  or  may  hereafter  from  time  to 
time  be,  captured  from  Forrest's  command. 
He  also  urged  another  reason : 
We  are  upon  the  eve  of  an  impending  battle. 
Until  the  result  shall  have  been  known  it  seems  to 
me  to  be  inexpedient  to  take  any  extreme  action  in 
the  premises.  If  favorable  to  our  arms,  we  may  re- 
taliate as  far  as  the  laws  of  war  and  humanity  will 
permit.  If  disastrous  and  extreme  measures  should 
have  been  adopted,  we  may  be  placed  in  a  position 
of  great  embarrassment,  and  forced  to  forego  our 
threatened  purpose  in  order  to  avoid  a  worse  ca- 
lamity. 
It  is  probable  that  this  view  took  a  deep 
hold  upon  the  Cabinet.  Grant  was  about  en- 
tering upon  his  Wilderness  campaign,  and  its 
rapid  succession  of  bloody  conflicts  crowded 
out  of  view  and  consideration  a  topic  so  diffi- 
cult and  so  hazardous  as  wholesale  retalia- 
tion for  the  Fort  Pillow  barbarity,  which,  on 
one  hand,  strict  justice  demanded,  and  winch, 
on  the  other,  enlightened  humanity  forbade. 
In  these  opposing  duties  there  could  be  little 
doubt  as  to  which  the  kind  heart  of  the  Presi- 
dent would  incline.  He  had  long  since  laid 
down  for  himself  a  rule  of  conduct  applicable  to
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
this  class  oi  cases.    In  his  annual  message  of    ing  trains,"  and  "  employed  as  a  pioneer  and 
December  3,  1861,  he  had  declared  : 
In  considering  the  policy  to  be  adopted  for  sup- 
pressing the  insurrection,  1  have  been  anxious  and 
careful  that  the  inevitable  conflict  for  this  purpose 
shall  not  degenerate  into  a  violent  and  remorseless 
revolutionary  struggle. 
It  docs  not  appear  that  the  Fort  Pillow  ques- 
tion vn  as  ever  seriously  renewed  in  the  Cabinet 
or  definitely  concluded  by  the  President. 
The  proceedings  relating  to  retaliation  which 
we  have  thus  tar  sketched  bring  us  back  to 
another  and  by  no  means  the  least  interesting 
phase  of  the  general  subject  of  negro  soldiers. 
We  may  here  anticipate  the  course  of  events 
so  far  as  to  say  that  in  the  autumn  and  win- 
ter of  1S64  the  cause  of  the  South  was  already 
lost  and  the  collapse  of  the  Confederate  Gov- 
ernment plainly  foreshadowed  to  all  except 
the  leaders,  whose  infatuation  and  wounded 
vanity  made  them  unwilling  to  acknowledge 
and  accept  defeat.  Yet  this  effort  to  avoid 
confession  of  error  in  one  direction  compelled 
them  to  admit  it  in  another.  They  had  seceded 
for  slavery,  had  made  it  the  corner-stone  of 
their  government,  had  anathematized  President 
Lincoln  for  his  decrees  of  emancipation,  had 
pronounced  the  ban  of  outlawry  and  had  pre- 
scribed the  sentence  of  death  against  every 
white  officer  who  might  dare  to  command  negro 
troops;  but  now  in  their  extremity  some  of  them 
proposed  to  throw  consistency  to  the  winds  and 
themselves  commit  the  acts  upon  which  they 
had  invoked  the  reprobation  of  mankind  and 
for  which  they  had  ordained  extreme  punish- 
ment. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  bene- 
fit they  had  derived  from  the  direct  military 
labor  of  the  slave,  especially  in  building  for- 
tifications. They  now  proposed  not  only  to 
put  arms  in  his  hands  and  make  him  a  soldier 
to  fight  in  the  ranks,  but  also,  as  a  final  step, 
to  emancipate  him  for  the  service.  Even  the 
flexible  political  conscience  of  Jefferson  Davis, 
however,  winced  a  little  at  the  bold  abandon- 
ment of  principle  which  this  policy  involved, 
and  in  his  message  of  November  7,  1864,  to 
the  Confederate  Congress  he  argues  the  ques- 
tion with  the  reluctance  of  a  man  preparing 
to  walk  over  live  coals.  We  have  not  space  to 
abridge  hi 3  hair-splitting  arguments  to  justify 
the  South  in  what  they  had  so  vociferously 
denounced  when  done  by  the  North.  The  sum 
of  his  recommendation  is  thatthe  20,000  slaves 
then  employed  in  various  labors  in  the  Con- 
federate army  should  be  increased  to  40,000, 
be  drilled  in  ;!  encamping,  marching,  and  park- 
1  "American  Annual  Cyclopaedia,"  J%4,  p.  697. 
2  Pollard,  "  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,"  pp.  453-4. 
3  Lee  to  Hunter,  Jan.   11,  1865.    (The  Century, 
engineer  laborer."    He  says  : 
I  must  dissent  from  those  who  advise  a  general 
levy  and  arming  of  the  slaves  for  the  duty  of  sol- 
diers. Until  our  white  population  shall  prove  in- 
sufficient for  the  armies  we  require  and  can  afford 
to  keep  in  the  field,  to  employ  as  a  soldier  the  negro, 
who  has  merely  been  trained  to  labor,  and  as  a  la- 
borer,—  the  white  man  accustomed  from  his  youth  to 
the  use  of  firearms, —  would  scarcely  be  deemed  wise 
or  advantageous  by  any  ;  and  this  is  the  question  now 
before  us.  But  should  the  alternative  ever  be  pre- 
sented of  subjugation  or  of  the  employment  of  the 
slave  as  a  soldier,  there  seems  no  reason  to  doubt 
what  should  then  be  our  decision.1 
While  he  dwells  on  the  "  improbable  con- 
tingency of  our  need  of  resorting  to  this  ele- 
ment of  resistance,"  he  nevertheless  points  out 
that  the  Confederate  Government  might  buy 
the  slave  from  his  master  and  engage  to  lib- 
erate him  as  a  reward  for  faithful  military 
service. 
Mr.  Davis's  hesitating  and  tentative  recom- 
mendation was  seed  sown  on  barren  ground. 
If  the  dose  was  unpalatable  to  him  it  appears 
to  have  been  yet  more  bitter  to  the  members 
of  the  Confederate  Congress,  who  doubtless 
felt,  as  has  been  pithily  expressed  by  a  Con- 
federate writer,  that  it  was  an  admission  of  the 
inherent  injustice  of  slavery;  that  "if  the  ne- 
gro was  fit  to  be  a  soldier  he  was  not  fit  to  be 
a  slave  " ;  that  the  proposition  "cut  under  the 
traditions  and  theories  of  three  generations  in 
the  South  " ;  and  that  "  by  a  few  strokes  of 
the  pen  the  Confederate  Government  had  sub- 
scribed to  the  main  tenet  of  the  abolition  party 
in  the  North  and  all  its  consequences,  stand- 
ing exposed  and  stultified  before  the  world."  2 
They  debated  the  unwelcome  subject  with 
qualms  and  grimaces  through  November,  De- 
cember, January,  and  most  of  February.  On 
the  nth  of  January  and  again  on  the  18th  of 
February  the  proposal  received  a  notable 
championship  in  letters  from  General  Lee,  in 
which  he  declared  the  measure  of  employing 
negro  soldiers  "  not  only  expedient  but  neces- 
sary," and  recommended  that  the  Confederate 
President  be  empowered  "  to  call  upon  in- 
dividuals or  States  for  such  as  they  are  willing 
to  contribute,  with  the  condition  of  emanci- 
pation to  all  enrolled."3  Even  under  this 
pressure,  however,  the  rebel  lawmakers  could 
not  wholly  conquer  their  repugnance.  Nearly 
six  weeks  more  elapsed,  and  the  fall  of  Rich- 
mond was  already  imminent,  when  on  the  30th 
of  March,  1865,4  the  Confederate  Congress 
passed  an  act  upon  the  subject.  The  writer 
already  quoted  sums  up  the  result  as  follows : 
August,  1888),  and  Lee  to  Barksdale,  Feb.   18,  1865 
(McCabe,  "Life  of  Lee,"  p.  574). 
4  Report  of  Provost-Marshal  General  Fry.
A   HISTORY. 
923 
The  law,  as  finally  enacted,  was  merely  to  author- 
ize the  President  to  receive  into  the  military  service 
such  able-bodied  slaves  as  might  be  patriotically 
tendered  by  their  masters,  to  be  employed  in  what- 
ever capacity  he  might  direct  ;  no  change  to  be 
made  in  the  relation  of  owners  of  slaves,  at  least  so 
far  as  it  appeared  in  the  bill.  The  fruits  of  this 
emasculated  measure  were  two  companies  of  blacks, 
organized  from  some  negro  vagabonds  in  Richmond, 
which  were  allowed  to  give  balls  at  the  Libby  Prison 
and  were  exhibited  in  fine  fresh  uniforms  on  Capi- 
tol Square  as  decoys  to  obtain  sable  recruits.  But 
the  mass  of  their  colored  brethren  looked  on  the 
parade  with  unenvious  eyes,  and  little  boys  exhib- 
ited the  early  prejudices  of  race  by  pelting  the  fine 
uniforms  with  mud.1 
THE  ENROLLMENT  AND  THE  DRAFT. 
The  successive  steps  by  which  the  army  of 
the  United  States,  numbering  some  seventeen 
thousand  men  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugu- 
rated, grew  to  the  vast  aggregate  of  a  million 
soldiers  deserve  a  word  of  notice.  We  can  do 
no  more  than  to  summarize  briefly  the  process, 
referring  those  of  our  readers  who  may  wish 
to  study  the  matter  more  in  detail  to  the  ad- 
mirable historical  statement  of  General  Fry 
appended  to  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  War 
to  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress.  The  first  troops 
mustered  into  the  service  were  the  militia  of 
the  District  of  Columbia;  thirty-eight  com- 
panies were  thus  obtained.  On  the  15th  of 
April  was  issued,  under  the  law  of  1803,  the 
President's  proclamation  calling  for  75,000 
troops  for  ninety  days.  Their  work  was  the 
protection  of  the  capital ;  their  service  mainly 
ended  with  the  battle  of  Bull  Run.  On  the 
3d  of  May  the  President  issued  a  call  for 
42,000  volunteers  to  serve  three  years,  unless 
sooner  discharged ;  he  increased  at  the  same 
time  the  regular  army  by  eight  regiments,  and 
directed  the  enlistment  of  1 8,000  seamen.  This 
was  done  without  authority  from  Congress,  but 
the  act  was  legalized  when  that  body  came  to- 
gether. The  volunteers  called  for  were  imme- 
diately raised  and  many  more  were  offered ;  but 
the  recruits  for  the  regular  army  came  in  slowly, 
and  the  new  regiments  were  in  fact  never  fully 
organized  until  the  close  of  the  war.  After  the 
disastrous  battle  of  Bull  Run  the  patriotism 
of  Congress  promptly  rose  to  the  emergency, 
and  within  a  few  days  successive  acts  were 
passed  giving  the  President  authority  to  raise 
an  army  of  a  million  men. 
So  enthusiastic  was  the  response  of  the  people 
in  those  early  days  that  the  chief  embarrassment 
of  the  Government  was  at  first  to  check  and 
repress  the  offers  of  volunteers.  Some  regions 
were  more  liberal  in  their  tenders  of  troops 
than  others;  individuals  and  companies  re- 
jected from  one  State  whose  quota  was  full 
1  Pollard,  "Life  of  Jefferson  Davis,"  p.  456. 
enlisted  from  another;  pious  frauds  were-  : 
ticed  to  get  a  place  under  the  colors.    Much 
confusion  and  annoyance  afterwards  resulted 
from  these  causes.  Under  authority  of  the 
acts  of  Congress  referred  to,  a  foree  of  637,1  26 
men  was  in  the  service  in  the  spring  of  1862. 
This,  it  was  thought,  would  be  adequate  for 
the  work  of  suppressing  the  insurrection  :  the 
expenses  of  the  military  establishment  had  risen 
to  appalling  proportions,  and  the  ill-advised 
resolution  was  taken  of  putting  a  stop  to  volun- 
teer recruiting  on  the  3d  of  April.  As  the  waste 
of  the  armies  went  on  without  corresponding 
successes,  the  error  which  had  been  committed 
was  recognized,  and  recruiting  was  resumed  in 
June ;  but  before  much  progress  was  made,  the 
ill  fortune  of  McClellan2  in  the  Peninsula,  and 
its  unfavorable  effect  on  the  public  mind,  chilled 
and  discouraged  recruitment.  The  necessity 
for  more  troops  was  as  evident  to  the  country 
as  to  the  Government. 
While  General  McClellan  was  on  his  retreat 
to  the  James,  the  governors  of  the  loyal  States 
signed  a  letter  to  the  President  requesting  him 
to  issue  a  call  for  additional  troops,  and  it  was 
in  response  to  this  that  Mr.  Lincoln  issued  his 
call,  on  the  2d  of  July,  1862,  for  300,000  volun- 
teers. The  need  of  troops  continuing  and  be- 
coming more  and  more  pressing,  the  call  for 
300,000  nine  months'  militia  was  issued  on  the 
4th  of  August,  and  in  some  of  the  States  a 
draft  from  the  militia  was  ordered,  the  results 
of  which  were  not  especially  satisfactory.  Only 
about  87,000  of  the  300,000  required  were  re- 
ported as  obtained  in  this  way,  and  this  number 
was  greatly  reduced  by  desertion  before  the 
men  could  be  got  out  of  their  respective  States. 
In  Pennsylvania  a  somewhat  serious  organi- 
zation was  formed  in  several  counties  for  resist- 
ing the  draft.  Governor  Curtin  reported  several 
thousand  recusants  in  arms,  They  would  not 
permit  the  drafted  men  who  were  willing  to  go 
to  their  duty  to  leave  their  homes,  and  even 
forced  them  to  get  out  of  the  railway  trains 
after  they  had  embarked.  By  the  prompt  and 
energetic  action  of  the  State  and  National 
Governments,  working  in  harmony,  this  dis- 
order was  soon  suppressed.  But  there,  as  else- 
where, the  enrollment  was  inefficient  and  the 
results  entirely  inadequate. 
Early  in  the  year  1863  it  became  evident 
that  the  armies  necessary  for  an  effective  prose- 
cution of  the  war  could  not  be  filled  by  volun- 
teering, nor  by  State  action  alone,  and  a  bill 
for  enrolling  and  calling  out  the  national  forces 
was  introduced  in  the  Senate  in  the  beginning 
of  February,  and  at  once  gave  rise  in  that 
body  to  a  hot  discussion.  It  was  attacked  by 
the  Democratic  senators,  who  were  mostly 
from  the  border  States,  with  the  greatest  en- 
2  Report  of  Provost-Marshal  General,  Part  I.,  p.  9.
9-4 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
ergy  and  tooling.  They  contended  that  it  was 
in  direct  violation  o\  the  Constitution,  and,  if 
passed,  would  bo  subversive  of  the  liberties  of 
the  country.  They  wore  joined  by  Mr.  Rich- 
ardson, who  had  succeeded  Mr.  Douglas  as 
senator  from  Illinois,  and  who  warned  his 
colleagues  that  they  wore  plunging  the  country 
into  civil  war.1  The  bill  was  principally  de- 
fended by  Mr.  Wilson  of  Massachusetts  and 
Mr.  Collamer  of  Vermont,  the  former  laying 
most  stress  upon  the  necessities  of  the  country, 
and  the  latter  characteristically  advocating  the 
measure  on  legal  and  constitutional  grounds. 
The  bill  passed  the  Senate,  and  came  up  in  the 
House  on  the  23d  of  February.  Mr.  Olin,  who 
had  charge  of  it,  announced  at  the  beginning, 
witli  a  somewhat  crude  candor,  that  he  pro- 
posed to  permit  discussion  of  the  merits  of  the 
bill  for  a  reasonable  time  and  then  to  demand 
a  vote  upon  it.  He  was  not  willing  to  hazard 
the  loss  of  a  bill  he  deemed  so  important  by 
opening  it  to  propositions  for  amendment. 
But  in  spite  of  this  warning,  perhaps  by  reason 
of  it,  an  animated  discussion  at  once  sprung 
up  and  many  amendments  were  offered,  some 
in  good  faith,  and  some  with  the  purpose  of 
nullifying  the  bill.  The  measure  was  attacked 
with  great  violence.  The  object  and  purpose  of 
the  President  was  proclaimed  by  Democratic 
members  to  be  the  establishment  of  an  irrespon- 
sible despotism,  and  the  destruction  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  was  prophesied  as  certain  in 
case  the  bill  should  pass.  There  was  a  great 
difference  of  tone  between  the  opponents  and 
the  supporters  of  the  Administration;  the  latter, 
confident  in  their  strength,  were  far  more  mod- 
erate in  their  expressions  than  the  former,  but 
there  were  reproaches  and  recriminations  on 
both  sides.  Democrats,  like  Mr.  Cox  of  Ohio, 
Mr.  Biddle  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Messrs.  Mal- 
lory  and  Wickliffe  of  Kentucky,  claimed  that 
the  antislavery  measures  of  the  Administration 
were  the  sole  cause  of  military  failure,  and  that 
if  the  President  would  return  to  constitutional 
ways  the  armies  would  soon  be  filled  by  vol- 
unteering ;  to  which  the  Republicans  answered 
that  the  cessation  of  volunteering  was  due  to 
the  treasonable  speech  and  conduct  of  the  op- 
position. Some  unimportant  amendments  were 
attached  to  the  bill,  which  was  sent  back  to  the 
Senate  for  concurrence,  and  after  another  de- 
bate, scarcely  less  passionate  than  the  first,  the 
amendments  of  the  House  were  adopted,  and 
the  measure  became  a  law  by  the  approval 
of  the  President,  on  the  3d  of  March,  1863.  It 
was  the  first  law  enacted  by  Congress  by  which 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  without 
the  intervention  of  the  authorities  of  the  sev- 
eral States,  appealed  directly  to  the  nation  to 
create  large  armies.  The  act  declared  that,  with 
1  "Congressional  Globe,"  Feb.  4,  1863,  p.  709. 
certain  exceptions  especially  set  forth,  all 
able-bodied  male  citizens,  and  persons  of  for- 
eign birth  who  had  declared  their  intention  to 
become  citizens,  between  the  ages  of  20  and  45, 
should  constitute  the  national  forces,  and  em- 
powered the  President  to  call  them  forth  by 
draft.  All  were  to  be  called  out  if  necessary  : 
the  first  call  was  actually  for  one-fifth,  but  that 
was  a  measure  of  expediency.  The  act  pro- 
vided for  the  appointment  or  detail,  by  the 
President,  of  a  Provost- Marshal  General,  who 
was  to  be  the  head  of  a  bureau  in  the  War 
Department,  and  for  dividing  the  States  into 
districts  coinciding  with  those  for  the  election 
of  congressmen.  The  District  of  Columbia  and 
the  Territories  formed  additional  districts.  A 
provost-marshal  was  authorized  for  each  of 
these  districts,  with  whom  were  associated  a 
commissioner  and  a  surgeon.  The  board  thus 
formed  was  required  to  divide  its  district  into 
as  many  subdistricts  as  might  be  found  neces- 
sary, to  appoint  an  enrolling  officer  for  each,  and 
to  make  an  enrollment  immediately.  Colonel 
James  B.  Fry,  an  assistant  adjutant-general 
of  the  army,  who  had  formerly  been  chief-of- 
stafT  to  General  Buell,  and  who  was  not  only 
an  accomplished  soldier  but  an  executive  offi- 
cer of  extraordinary  tact,  ability,  and  industry, 
was  made  Provost-Marshal  General.  Officers 
of  the  army,  selected  for  their  administrative 
capacity,  were  appointed  provost-marshals  for 
the  several  States.  The  enrollment  began  the 
latter  part  of  May,  and  was  pushed  forward 
with  great  energy,  except  in  the  border  States, 
where  some  difficulty  was  found  in  selecting  the 
proper  boards  of  enrollment.  While  there  was 
more  or  less  opposition,  General  Fry  says  : 
It  could  not  be  said  to  be  serious.  Some  of  the 
officers  were  maltreated,  and  one  or  two  assassinated, 
but  prompt  action  on  the  part  of  the  civil  author- 
ities, aided  when  necessary  by  military  patrols,  se- 
cured the  arrest  of  guilty  parties  and  checked  these 
outrages. 
Those  who  attempted  to  obstruct  enrollment 
officers  were  promptly  punished,  and  orders 
from  the  War  Department  gave  a  clear  defi- 
nition of  what  constituted  impediments  to  the 
drafts.  Not  only  the  assaulting  or  obstructing 
of  officers  was  cause  for  punishment,  but  even 
standing  mute  and  the  giving  of  false  names 
subjected  the  offender  to  summary  arrest. 
In  addition  to  the  duties  of  enrolling  all 
citizens  capable  of  bearing  arms,  of  drafting 
from  these  the  numbers  required  for  military 
service,  and  of  arresting  deserters  and  return- 
ing them  to  the  army,  the  Provost-Marshal 
General  was  also  charged  with  the  entire  work 
of  recruiting  volunteers.  This  insured  harmony 
and  systematic  action  in  the  two  methods  of 
raising  troops,  and  the  work  was  carried  on
A   HISTORY. 
with  constantly  increasing  efficiency  and  suc- 
cess. A  comparatively  small  number  of  men 
was  obtained  strictly  by  the  draft,  but  the 
draft  powerfully  stimulated  enlistments,  and 
the  money  obtained  by  commutation  furnished 
an  ample  fund  for  all  the  expenses  of  the  bu- 
reaus of  recruitment.  Improvements  in  the  law 
and  the  modes  of  executing  it  were  constantly 
made,  until  at  the  close  of  the  war  the  system 
was  probably  as  perfect  as  human  ingenuity 
could  make  it  under  the  peculiar  conditions 
of  American  life.  The  result  proved  the  vast 
military  resources  of  the  nation.  In  April,  1865, 
with  a  million  soldiers  in  the  field,  the  enroll- 
ment showed  that  the  national  forces  not  called 
out  consisted  of  2,245,000  more.  We  need  not 
cumber  these  pages  with  the  figures  of  the  suc- 
cessive calls  and  their  results;  we  quote  the 
aggregates  from  General  Fry's  final  report  (p. 
46).  The  quotas  charged  against  the  States, 
under  all  calls  made  by  the  President  during 
the  four  years  from  the  15th  of  April,  1861, 
when  his  first  proclamation  echoed  the  guns 
at  Sumter,  to  the  14th  of  April,  1865,  when 
Lincoln  died  and  recruiting  ceased,  amounted 
to  2,759,049,  the  terms  of  service  varying  from 
three  months  to  three  years.  The  aggregate 
number  of  men  credited  on  the  several  calls, 
and  put  into  service  in  the  army,  navy,  and 
marines,  was  2,690,401.  This  left  a  deficiency 
of  68,648,  which  would  have  been  readily  filled 
if  the  war  had  not  closed.  In  addition  to  these 
some  70,000  "  emergency  men  "  were  from 
first  to  last  called  into  service.1 
During  the  progress  of  the  work  an  infinite 
variety  of  questions  arose  as  to  the  quotas  and 
the  credits  of  the  several  States,  and  the  Presi- 
dent was  overwhelmed  by  complaints  and 
reclamations  from  various  governors  in  the 
North.  Even  the  most  loyal  supporters  of  the 
Administration  exerted  themselves  to  the  ut- 
most to  have  the  demands  upon  them  reduced 
and  their  credits  for  troops  furnished  raised 
to  the  highest  possible  figure;  while  in  ' 
States  which  were  politically  under  the  control 
of  the  opposition  these  natural  importunities 
were  aggravated  by  what  seemed  a  deliberate 
intention  to  frustrate  so  far  as  possible  the 
efforts  of  the  Government  to  fill  its  depleted 
armies.2  The  most  serious  controversy  that 
arose  during  the  progress  of  the  enrollment  was 
that  begun  and  carried  on  by  Governor  Sey- 
mour of  New  York. 
So  long  as  the  administration  of  Governor  E. 
D.  Morgan  lasted,  the  Government  received 
most  zealous  and  efficient  support  from  the 
State  of  New  York.  It  is  true  that  at  the  close 
of  Governor  Morgan's  term,  the  last  day  of 
1862,  the  Adjutant-General  reported  the  State- 
deficient  some  28,000  men  in  volunteers  under 
the  various  calls  of  the  Government,  18,000  of 
which  deficiency  belonged  to  the  city  of  New 
York.  But  in  spite  of  this  deficiency  there  had 
never  been  any  lack  of  cordial  cooperation  on 
the  part  of  the  State  government  with  that  of 
the  nation.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year,  how- 
ever, in  the  period  of  doubt  and  discourage- 
ment which  generally  prevailed  throughout  the 
Union,  General  Wadsworth,  the  Republican 
candidate  for  governor,  had  been  defeated  after 
a  most  acrimonious  contest  by  Horatio  Sey- 
mour, then,  and  until  his  death,  the  most  hon- 
ored and  prominent  Democratic  politician  of 
the  State.  He  came  into  power  upon  a  plat- 
form denouncing  almost  every  measure  which 
the  Government  had  found  it  necessary  to  adopt 
for  the  suppression  of  the  rebellion ;  and  upon 
his  inauguration,  on  the  first  day  of  1863,  he 
clearly  intimated  that  his  principal  duty  would 
be  "to  maintain  and  defend  the  sovereignty 
and  jurisdiction  of  his  State." 
The  President,  anxious  to  work  in  harmony 
1  The  following  details  of  the  several  calls  and  their 
results  are  taken  from  the  report  made  to  Congress  by 
the  Secretary  of  War  in  the  session  of  1865-66: 
Number  Term  of 
of  Men.  Service. 
Call  of  April  15,  1861,  for  75,000  men,  pro- 
duced          98,235  3months 
(      2,715  6months 
Calls  of  May  3,   July  22  and  25,   1861,   for  J       9,056  1  year 
500,000      ]     30,952  2  years 
[657,863  3  years 
Call  of  July  2,  1862,  for  500,000         419,627  3  years 
Call  of  August  4,  1862,  for  300,000           86,960  9  months 
Proclamation   of  June  15,    1863,  for  militia 
(100,000)           16,361  6months 
Calls  of  October  15,  1863,  and  February  1, 
1864,  for  500,000        374,807  3  years 
Call  of  March  14,  1864,  for  200,000        284,021  3  years 
Militia  mustered  in  the  spring  of  1864          83,612  ioodays 
("149,356  i&2yrs. 
Call  of  July  18,  1864,  for  500,000   
■?  234,798  3years 
{         72 8  4 years 
(  151,105  1  year 
Call  of  December  19,  1864,  for  300,000   {      5,076    2years 
y>        t>         j     >  I     48,065    3  years 
{         312    4  years 
The  aggregate  shows  a  great  many  more  soldiers  than 
ever  served,  as  a  large  number  enlisted  more  than  once. 
Veteran  volunteers  to  the  number  of  150,000  reenlisted 
in  1863-64.  Deserters  and  bounty-jumpers  must  also 
be  deducted. 
2  Though  the  President  knew  that  fairness  and  ac- 
curacy prevailed  in  the  demands  made  upon  the  differ- 
ent localities  for  their  proportion  of  troops,  he  was  so 
much  embarrassed  by  complaints  that  he  found  it  nec- 
essary at  last  to  constitute  aboard,  consisting  of  Attor- 
ney-General Speed,  General  Delafield,  Chief  of  Engi- 
neers, and  Colonel  Foster,  Assistant  Adjutant-General, 
to  examine  into  the  proper  quotas  and  credits,  and  to 
report  errors  if  they  found  any  therein,  and  he  an- 
nounced in  the  order  constituting  the  board  that  its 
determination  should  be  final  and  conclusive.  The 
board  went  carefully  over  the  whole  subject,  explained 
the  mode  of  proceeding  adopted  by  the  Provost-Marshal 
General,  and  said,  "  The  rule  is  in  conformity  to  the 
requirements  of  the  laws  of  Congress  and  is  just  and 
equitable ;  we  have  carefully  examined  and  proved  the 
work  done  under  this  rule  by  the  Provost-Marshal 
General  and  find  it  has  been  done  with  fairness."  This 
report  was  formally  approved  by  the  President.
0  2  6 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 
with  the  governors  of  all  the  loyal  States,  and 
especially  desirous  on  public  grounds  to  secure 
the  cordial  cooperation  in  war  matters  of  the 
State  administration  in  New  York,  had  written 
to  Mr.  Seymour  soon  after  his  inauguration  as 
governor,  inviting  his  confidence  and  friend- 
ship. 
You  and  I  [he  said]  are  substantially  strangers, 
and  1  write  this  chiefly  that  we  may  become  better 
acquainted.  I.  for  the  time  being,  am  at  the  head  of 
a  nation  which  is  in  great  peril,  and  you  are  at  the 
head  oi  the  greatest  State  of  that  nation.  As  to 
maintaining  the  nation's  life  and  integrity,  I  assume 
and  believe  there  cannot  be  a  difference  of  purpose 
between  you  and  me.  If  we  should  differ  as  to  the 
means  it  is  important  that  such  difference  should 
be  as  small  as  possible  ;  that  it  should  not  be  en- 
hanced by  unjust  suspicions  on  one  side  or  the 
other.  In  the  performance  of  my  duty  the  coopera- 
tion of  your  State,  as  that  of  others,  is  needed  — 
in  fact,  is  indispensable.  This  alone  is  sufficient 
reason  why  I  should  wish  to  be  at  a  good  under- 
standing with  you.  Please  write  me  at  least  as  long 
a  letter  as  this,  of  course  saying  in  it  just  what 
you  think  fit.1 
The  governor  waited  three  weeks  and  then 
made  a  cold  and  guarded  reply,  retaining  in 
this  private  communication  the  attitude  of  re- 
serve and  distrust  he  had  publicly  assumed. 
I  have  delayed  [he  said]  answering  your  letter  for 
some  days  with  a  view  of  preparing  a  paper  in  which 
I  wished  to  state  clearly  the  aspect  of  public  affairs 
from  the  standpoint  I  occupy.  I  do  not  claim  any 
superior  wisdom,  but  I  am  confident  the  opinions 
I  hold  are  entertained  by  one-half  of  the  popu- 
lation of  the  Northern  States.  I  have  been  pre- 
vented from  giving  my  views  in  the  manner  I  in- 
tended by  a  pressure  of  official  duties,  which  at  the 
present  stage  of  the  legislative  session  of  this  State 
confines  me  to  the  executive  chamber  until  each 
midnight. 
After  the  adjournment,  which  will  soon  take  place, 
I  will  give  you  without  reserve  my  opinion  and  pur- 
pose with  regard  to  the  condition  of  our  unhappy 
country.  In  the  meanwhile  I  assure  you  that  no 
political  resentments  or  no  personal  objects  will  turn 
me  nside  from  the  pathway  I  have  marked  out  for  my- 
self. I  intend  to  show  to  those  charged  with  the 
administration  of  public  affairs  a  due  deference  and 
re  p  ct,  and  to  yield  them  a  just  and  generous  sup- 
port in  all  measures  they  may  adopt  within  the 
scope  of  their  constitutional  powers.  For  the  preser- 
vation of  this  Union  I  am  ready  to  make  any  sacri- 
fice of  interest,  passion,  or  prejudice.2 
This  closed  the  personal  correspondence 
between  them.  The  governor  never  wrote  the 
promised  letter;  he  did  not  desire  to  commit 
himself  to  any  friendly  relations  with  the  Presi- 
dent. With  the  narrowness  of  a  bitterly  preju- 
diced mind  he  had  given  an  interpretation  to 
the  President's  cordial  overture  as  false  as  it 
was  unfavorable.  In  an  article,3  published  with 
his  sanction  many  years  afterwards,  he  is  rep- 
resented as  expressing  his  conviction  that  at 
the  time  of  this  correspondence  there  was  a 
conspiracy  of  prominent  Republicans  to  force 
Lincoln  out  of  the  White  House;  that  the 
President  was  aware  of  it,  and  that  this  was 
"  the  cause  of  the  anxiety  which  he  displayed 
to  be  on  intimate  friendly  terms  with  Mr.  Sey- 
mour." There  could  be  no  intimate  under- 
standing between  two  such  men.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln could  no  more  comprehend  the  partisan 
bitterness  and  suspicion  which  lay  at  the  basis 
of  Mr.  Seymour's  character  than  the  latter 
could  appreciate  the  motives  which  induced 
Lincoln  to  seek  his  cordial  cooperation  in  pub- 
lic work  for  the  general  welfare.  He  gave  the 
same  base  interpretation  to  a  complimentary 
message  which  Stanton  sent  him  in  June, 
1863,  thanking  him  for  the  energy  with  which 
he  had  sent  forward  troops  for  the  defense  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  when,  a  year  later,  Stanton 
invited  him  to  Washington  for  a  consultation,3 
he  refused  either  to  go  or  to  reply  to  the  invi- 
tation. 
Mr.  Thurlow  Weed  is  quoted  as  saying  in 
his  later  years  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  Seymour's 
election  and  before  his  inauguration,  author- 
ized Mr.  Weed  to  say  to  him  that  holding  his 
position  he  could  wheel  the  Democratic  party 
into  line  and  put  down  the  rebellion ;  and  that 
if  he  would  render  this  great  service  to  the 
country  Mr.  Lincoln  would  cheerfully  make 
way  for  him  as  his  successor.4  Mr.  Weed  says 
he  made  this  suggestion  to  Seymour ;  but  that 
he  preferred  to  administer  his  office  as  an  ir- 
reconcilable and  conscientious  partisan.  It  is 
probable  that  Mr.  Weed,  as  is  customary  with 
elderly  men,  exaggerated  the  defmiteness  of  the 
proposition ;  but  these  letters  show  how  anx- 
ious Lincoln  was  that  Seymour  should  give 
a  loyal  support  to  the  Government,  and  in  how 
friendly  and  self-effacing  a  spirit  he  would  have 
met  him. 
In  what  must  be  said  in  regard  to  the  con- 
troversy in  which  Governor  Seymour  soon 
found  himself  engaged  with  the  National  Gov- 
ernment there  is  no  question  of  his  personal 
integrity  or  his  patriotism.  He  doubtless  con- 
sidered that  he  was  only  doing  his  duty  to  his 
State  and  his  party  in  opposing  almost  every 
specific  act  of  the  National  Government.  The 
key  to  all  his  actions  in  respect  to  the  draft  is 
to  be  found  in  his  own  words  :  "  It  is  believed," ' 
he  said,  "  by  at  least  one-half  of  the  people  of 
the  loyal  States  that  the  conscription  act  is  in 
itself  a  violation  of  the  supreme  constitutional 
1  Lincoln  to  Seymour,  March  23,  1863.    MS. 
2  Seymour  to  Lincoln,  April  14,  1863.   MS. 
3  "  New  York  Times,"  Aug.  18,  1879. 
4  Memoir  by  T.  W.  Barnes,  p.  428.
A    HISTORY. 
927 
law."  l  This  belief  he  heartily  shared,  and  no 
moral  blame  attaches  to  him  for  trying  to  give 
it  effect  in  his  official  action.  His  conduct  led 
to  disastrous  results;  his  views  of  government 
were  shown  to  be  mistaken  and  unsound.  The 
nation  went  on  its  triumphant  way  over  all  the 
obstacles  interposed  by  him  and  those  who  be- 
lieved with  him,  and  during  the  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury which  elapsed  before  his  death  his  chief 
concern  was  to  throw  upon  the  Government 
the  blame  of  his  own  factious  proceedings.  He 
constantly  accused  the  Administration  of  Mr. 
Lincoln  of  an  unfair  and  partisan  execution  of 
the  law,  which  he  regarded  in  itself  as  uncon- 
stitutional. He  assumed  that  because  the  en- 
rollment of  the  arms-bearing  population  of  New 
York  City,  which  had  given  a  majority  for  him, 
showed  an  excess  over  the  enrollment  in  the 
rural  districts,  which  had  given  a  large  ma- 
jority for  Wadsworth,  the  city  was  to  be  pun- 
ished for  being  Democratic  and  the  country 
rewarded  for  being  Republican ;  to  which  the 
most  natural  reply  was  that  the  volunteering 
had  been  far  more  active  in  the  Republican 
districts  than  it  had  been  in  the  Democratic. 
He  attacked  all  the  proceedings  of  the  pro- 
vost-marshals. He  accused  them  of  neglect 
and  contumacy  towards  himself.  All  these 
accusations  were  wholly  unfounded.  General 
Fry  was  a  man  as  nearly  without  politics  as  a 
patriotic  American  can  be.  He  came  of  a 
distinguished  Democratic  family,  and  during 
a  life  passed  in  the  military  service  his  only 
preoccupation  had  been  the  punctual  fulfill- 
ment of  every  duty  confided  to  him.  The  dis- 
trict provost-marshals  for  the  city  of  New  York 
were  selected  with  especial  care  from  those 
recommended  by  citizens  of  the  highest  char- 
acter in  the  place.  Three  provost-marshal 
generals  were  appointed  for  New  York,  and 
great  pains  were  taken  to  choose  "  those  who 
would  be  likely  to  secure  the  favor  and  cooper- 
ation of  the  authorities  and  the  people  of  New 
York." 2  They  were  Major  Townsend,  Colonel 
Nugent,  and  Major  Diven.  Nugent  and  Diven 
were  war  Democrats,  and  the  last "  an  intimate 
acquaintance  and  personal  friend  of  Governor 
Seymour."  Townsend  was  a  well-known  resi- 
dent of  Albany.  They  were  specially  charged 
to  put  themselves  in  communication  with  the 
1  The  attacks  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the  en- 
rollment act  were  mainly  political.  Several  attempts 
were  made  to  have  it  declared  invalid  by  the  courts, 
but  these  were  generally  unsuccessful.  In  the  United 
States  circuit  courts  of  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  two 
important  decisions  were  rendered,  the  one  by  Judge 
Cadwalader  and  the  other  by  Judge  Treat  (Judge  Davis 
concurring),  affirming  the  constitutionality  of  the  law. 
Only  one  important  decision  in  the  contrary  sense  was 
obtained,  and  that  was  in  the  supreme  court  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Chief-Justice  Lowrie  and  Justices  Woodward 
and  Thompson  concurring  in  the  decision  that  the 
law  was  unconstitutional,  Justices  Strong  and  Read 
Governor,  to  acquaint  themselves  with  his 
views  and  wishes,  and  to  give  them  due  weight 
in  determining  the  best  interests  of  the  Gov- 
ernment; and  to  endeavor,  by  all  means  in 
their  power,  to  secure  for  the  execution  of  the 
enrollment  act  the  aid  and  hearty  cooperation 
of  the  Governor,  the  State  officers,  and  the  peo- 
ple. A  letter  was  at  the  same  time  written  to  the 
Governor  by  the  Provost- Marshal  General  com- 
mending these  officers  to  him  and  asking  for 
them  his  cooperation.  A  similar  letter  was  sent 
to  the  mayor  of  New  York  City.  The  Gov- 
ernment exhausted  all  its  powers  in  endeavor- 
ing to  commend  the  enrollment  to  the  favorable 
consideration  of  the  civil  officers  of  the  State. 
"  But  Governor  Seymour,"  says  General  Pry, 
"  gave  no  assistance  ;  in  fact,  so  far  as  the  Gov- 
ernment officers  engaged  in  the  enrollment 
could  learn,  he  gave  the  subject  no  attention." 
Without  the  aid  or  countenance  of  the  Gov- 
ernor, in  face  of  his  quiet  hostility,  the  enroll- 
ment was  carried  forward  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
The  work  was  impeded  by  numerous  and  im- 
portant obstacles ;  the  large  floating  popula- 
tion of  the  city  threw  great  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  the  enrollment;  opposition  was  encoun- 
tered in  almost  every  house  that  the  enrolling 
officers  entered.  Where  artifice  did  not  succeed 
violence  was  sometimes  attempted.  In  some 
places  organized  bodies  of  men  opposed  the 
enrollment,  in  others  secret  societies  waged  a 
furtive  warfare  against  the  officers.  But  in  spite 
of  all  these  drawbacks  the  enrollment  was  made 
with  remarkable  fairness  and  substantial  suc- 
cess. It  was  no  more  imperfect  than  was  in- 
evitable, and  the  draft  which  followed  it  was 
conducted  in  such  a  manner  as  to  neutralize  to 
a  great  extent  the  irregularities  and  hardship 
that  might  have  resulted  from  the  errors  it  con- 
tained.3 The  enrollment  having  been  com- 
pleted, orders  for  the  draft  in  the  State  of  New 
York  were  issued  on  the  ist  of  July.  At  that 
date  drafting  had  been  going  on  for  some  time 
in  New  England.  Colonel  Nugent  was  left  at 
liberty,  if  thought  expedient,  to  execute  the 
draft  in  New  York  City  by  districts,  and  in  one 
or  more  at  a  given  time,  rather  than  all  at  once, 
throughout  the  city.  Governor  Seymour  was 
notified  in  almost  daily  letters,  from  the  ist  to 
the  13th  of  July,  of  the  drafts  which  had  been 
dissenting.  This  decision  was  afterwards  reversed. 
Chief-Justice  Lowrie  was  a  candidate  for  reelection 
and  Justice  Woodward  ran  for  governor  the  next  year. 
The  main  issue  in  the  canvass  was  this  decision.  They 
were  both  defeated  by  large  majorities,  A.  G.  Curtin 
being  reelected  governor,  and  Daniel  Agnew  taking 
the  place  of  Lowrie  on  the  bench.  The  court,  thus  re- 
constituted, reversed  the  former  decision,  Woodward 
and  Thompson  dissenting. 
2  General  J.  B.  Fry,  "  Xew  York  and  the  Conscrip- 
tion of  1S63." 
3  Official  Report  of  Provost-Marshal  General.
o:> 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
ordered  in  the  several  districts.  The  Provost- 
Marshal  General  begged  him  to  do  all  in  his 
power  to  enable  the  officers  to  complete  the 
drafts  promptly,  effectually,  fairly,  and  success- 
fully.1 He  paid  no  attention  to  these  requests 
further  than  to  send  his  adjutant-general  to 
Washington  on  the  i  ith  of  July  for  the  purpose 
of  urging  the  suspension  of  the  draft.  But  while 
this  officer  was  away  upon  his  mission  the 
evil  passions  excited  in  the  breasts  of  the  low- 
est  class  of  Democrats  in  New  York  City  by 
the  denunciations  of  the  enrollment  act  and 
of  the  legally  constituted  authorities  who  were 
endeavoring  to  enforce  it,  broke  out  in  the 
most  terrible  riot  which  this  Western  Continent 
has  ever  witnessed. 
The  state  of  popular  distrust  and  excitement 
which  naturally  arose  from  the  discussion  of 
the  enrollment  was  greatly  increased  by  the 
vehement  utterances  of  the  more  violent  Dem- 
ocratic politicians  and  newspapers.  Governor 
Seymour,  in  a  speech  delivered  on  the  Fourth 
of  Jul}',  which  was  filled  with  denunciations 
of  the  party  in  power,  said : 
The  Democratic  organization  look  upon  this  Ad- 
ministration as  hostile  to  their  rights  and  liberties; 
they  look  upon  their  opponents  as  men  who  would 
do  them  wrong  in  regard  to  their  most  sacred  fran- 
chises. 
The  "  Journal  of  Commerce  "  accused  the 
Administration  of  prolonging  the  war  for  its 
own  purposes,  and  added,  "Such  men  are 
neither  more  nor  less  than  murderers."  "  The 
World,"  denouncing  "  the  weak  and  reckless 
men  who  temporarily  administer  the  Federal 
Government,"  attacked  especially  the  enroll- 
ment bill  as  an  illegal  and  despotic  measure. 
The  "  Daily  News,"  which  reached  a  larger 
number  of  the  masses  of  New  York  than  any 
other  journal,  quoted  Governor  Seymour  as 
saying  that  neither  the  President  nor  Congress, 
without  the  consent  of  the  State  authorities,  had 
the  right  to  force  a  single  individual  against  his 
will ,;  to  take  part  in  the  ungodly  conflict  which 
is  distracting  the  land."  It  condemned  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  draft  was  being  executed  as 
"  an  outrage  on  all  decency  and  fairness,"  the 
'  t  of  it  being  to  "  kill  off  Democrats  and 
stuff  the  ballot-boxes  with  bogus  soldier  votes." 
Incendiary  hand-bills  in  the  same  sense  were 
distributed  through  the  northern  districts  of 
1  Genera]  J.  B.  Fry,  "  New  York  and  the  Conscrip- 
tion of  1863." 
2  "American  Annual  Cyclopaedia,"  1863,  p.  811. 
'■'>  General  Fry,  in  his  valuable  treatise,  ""Sew  York 
and  the  Conscription  of  1^63,"  gives  the  following  as 
reasons  why  no  large  military  force  was  assembled  to 
preserve  the  public  peace  in  New  York :  "On  the  oc- 
casion of  the  first  draft  these  questions  were  carefully 
weighed  by  the  President  and  the  War  Department. 
The  conclusions  were  that  no  exception  in  the  applica- 
ble city,  thickly  populated  with  laboring  men 
of  foreign  birth. 
Although  there  had  been  for  several  days 
mutterings  of  discontent  in  the  streets  and  even 
threats  uttered  against  the  enrolling  officers, 
these  demonstrations  had  been  mostly  confined 
to  the  drinking-saloons,  and  no  apprehensions 
of  popular  tumult  were  entertained.  Even  on 
Saturday  morning,  the  nth  of  July,  when  the 
draft  was  to  begin  at  the  corner  of  Forty-third 
street  and  Third  Avenue,  there  was  no  symptom 
of  disturbance.  The  day  passed  pleasantly  away, 
the  draft  was  carried  on  regularly  and  good- 
humoredly,  and  at  night  the  superintendent  of 
police,  as  he  left  the  office,  said  "  the  Rubicon 
was  passed  and  all  would  go  well."  2  But  the 
next  day,  being  Sunday,  afforded  leisure  for 
the  ferment  of  suspicion  and  anger.  Every 
foreigner  who  was  drafted  became  a  center  of 
sympathy  and  excitement.  There  were  secret 
meetings  in  many  places  on  Sunday  night,  and 
on  the  next  morning  parties  of  men  went  from 
shop  to  shop  compelling  workmen  to  join  them 
and  swell  the  processions  which  were  moving 
to  the  offices  of  the  enrollment  board.  The 
commissioner  proceeded  quietly  with  his  work, 
the  wheel  was  beginning  to  turn,  a  few  names 
were  called  and  recorded,  when  suddenly  a 
large  paving-stone  came  crashing  through  the 
window  and  landed  upon  the  reporters'  table, 
shivering  the  inkstands  and  knocking  over 
one  or  two  bystanders ;  and  with  hardly  a  mo- 
ment's interval  a  volley  of  stones  flew  through 
the  windows,  putting  a  stop  to  the  proceed- 
ings. The  crowd,  kindled  into  fury  by  its 
own  act,  speedily  became  a  howling  mob;  the 
rioters  burst  through  the  doors  and  windows, 
smashed  the  furniture  of  the  office  into  splinters, 
sprinkled  camphene  upon  the  floor,  and  set 
the  building  on  fire.  When  the  fire  depart- 
ment arrived  they  found  the  mob  in  possession 
of  the  hydrants,  and  the  building  was  soon  re- 
duced to  ashes.  This  furious  outburst  took  the 
authorities  completely  by  surprise.3  The  most 
trustworthy  portion  of  the  organized  militia  had 
been  ordered  to  Pennsylvania  to  resist  the  inva- 
sion of  General  Lee.  There  was  only  a  handful 
of  troops  in  the  harbor,  and  the  mob,  having 
possession  of  the  street  railways,  prevented  for 
a  time  the  rapid  concentration  of  these,  while 
the  police,  who  were  admirable  in  organization 
and  efficiency,  being  at  the  time  under  Repub- 
tion  of  the  law  should  be  made  in  New  York,  that  no 
presumption  that  the  State  or  city  authorities  would 
fail  to  cooperate  with  the  Government  should  be  ad- 
mitted, that  a  Federal  military  force  ought  not  to  be 
assembled  in  New  York  City  on  the  mere  assumption 
that  a  law  of  the  United  States  would  be  violently  and 
extensively  resisted,  and  that  if  it  were  thought  best  to 
assemble  such  a  force  there  was  none  to  be  had  with- 
out losing  campaigns  then  going  on  or  battles  then 
impending."
A    HISTORY. 
9*9 
lican  control,1  were  of  course  inadequate,  during 
the  first  hours  of  the  outbreak,  to  deal  with  an 
army  of  excited  and  ignorant  men,  recruited  in 
an  instant  from  hundreds  of  workshops  and 
excited  by  drink  and  passionate  declamation. 
The  agitation  and  disorder  spread  so  rapidly 
that  the  upper  part  of  the  city  was  in  a  few 
hours  in  full  possession  of  the  maddened  crowd, 
the  majority  of  them  filled  with  that  aimless 
thirst  for  destruction  which  rises  so  naturally 
in  a  mob  when  the  restraints  of  order  are  with- 
drawn. They  were  led  by  wild  zealots,  excited 
by  political  hates  and  fears,  or  by  common 
thieves,  who  found  in  the  tumult  their  oppor- 
tunity for  plunder.  By  3  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon the  body  of  rioters  in  the  upper  part  of 
the  city  numbered  several  thousand.  Their 
first  fury  was  naturally  directed  against  the  en- 
rolling offices.  After  the  destruction  of  the 
building  in  the  Ninth  District  they  attacked 
the  block  of  stores  in  which  the  enrolling  office 
of  the  Eighth  District  stood.2  The  adjoining 
shops  were  filled  with  jewelry  and  other 
costly  goods,  and  were  speedily  swept  clean 
by  the  thievish  hands  of  the  rioters,  and  then 
set  on  fire ;  here,  as  before,  the  firemen  were 
not  permitted  to  play  on  the  flames.  But  the 
political  animus  of  the  mob  was  shown  most 
clearly  by  the  brutal  and  cowardly  outrages 
inflicted  upon  negroes.  They  dashed  with  the 
merriment  of  fiends  at  every  colored  face  they 
saw,  taking  special  delight  in  the  maiming  and 
murdering  of  women  and  children.  Late  in 
the  afternoon  of  the  13th  the  mob  made  a  rush 
for  the  fine  building  of  the  Colored  Orphan 
Asylum.3  This  estimable  charity  was  founded 
and  carried  on  by  a  society  of  kind-hearted 
ladies ;  it  gave  not  only  shelter  but  instruction 
and  Christian  training  to  several  hundred  col- 
ored orphans.  A  force  of  policemen  was  hastily 
gathered  together,  but  could  defend  the  asylum 
for  a  few  minutes  only,  giving  time  for  most 
of  the  inmates  to  escape.  The  policemen  were 
then  disabled  by  the  brutal  mob,  who  rushed 
into  the  building,  stealing  everything  which 
was  portable,  and  setting  the  house  on  fire. 
They  burned  the  residences  of  several  Gov- 
ernment officers,  and  a  large  hotel  which  refused 
them  liquor. 
For  three  days  these  horrible  scenes  of  un- 
chained fury  and  hatred  lasted.  An  attack 
upon  the  "  New  York  Tribune  "  office  was  a 
further  evidence  of  the  political  passion  of  the 
1  Several  years  afterwards  Governor  Seymour  said : 
"  The  draft  riots  of  1863  were  put  down  mainly  by  the 
energy,  boldness,  and  skill  of  the  police  department. 
In  saying  this  I  am  certainly  not  influenced  by  preju- 
dice, for  the  force  was  politically  and  in  some  degree 
personally  unfriendly  to  myself." 
2  Broadway,  near  Twenty-eighth  street. 
3  Fifth  Avenue  and  Forty-fourth  street. 
4  Trial  of  J.  H.  Whittier,  Aug.  12,  1863. 
mob,4  headed  at  this  point  by  a  lame  ie 
sionist  barber  who  had  just  before  been  heard 
to  express  the  hope  that  he  "  might  soon  shave 
Jeff.  Davis  in  New  York,"  and  who  led  on  the 
rioters  with  loud  cheers  for  General  McClel- 
lan;  but  after  dismantling  the  counting-room 
they  were  attacked  and  driven  away  by  the 
police.  From  beginning  to  end  they  showed 
little  courage;  they  were  composed,  in  great 
number,  of  the  most  degraded  class  of  for- 
eigners, and  as  a  rule  they  made  no  stand  when 
attacked  in  any  number  by  either  the  police  or 
the  military.  The  only  exception  to  this  rule- 
was  in  the  case  of  a  squad  of  marines  who  fool- 
ishly fired  into  the  air  when  confronting  the 
rioters.  Colonel  O'Brien,  having  sprained  hi- 
ankle  while  gallantly  resisting  the  mob,  stepped 
into  a  drug  store  for  assistance  while  his  detach- 
ment passed  on.  The  druggist,  fearing  the  riot- 
ers, begged  O'Brien  to  leave  his  shop,  and  the 
brave  soldier  went  out  among  the  howling  mob. 
In  a  moment  they  were  upon  him  and  beat  and 
trampled  him  into  unconsciousness.  For  sev- 
eral hours  the  savages  dragged  the  still  breath- 
ing body  of  their  own  countryman  up  and  down 
the  streets,  inflicting  every  indignity  upon  his 
helpless  form,  and  then,  shouting  and  yelling, 
conveyed  him  to  his  own  door.  There  a  cou- 
rageous priest  sought  to  subdue  their  savagery 
by  reading  the  last  offices  for  the  dying  over 
the  unfortunate  officer;  then  the  climax  of  horror 
was  reached  by  the  brutal  ruffians  jostling  the 
priest  aside  and  closing  the  ceremonies  by  dan- 
cing upon  the  corpse.  But  a  squad  of  fifty  regu- 
lars was  able  to  work  its  will  against  thousands 
of  them.  The  city  government,  the  trusty  and 
courageous  police  force,  and  the  troops  in  the 
harbor  at  last  came  into  harmonious  action 
and  gradually  established  order  throughout  the 
city. 
The  State  government  was  of  little  avail 
from  beginning  to  end  of  the  disturbance. 
Governor  Seymour,  having  done  all  he  could 
to  embarrass  the  Government  and  rouse  the 
people  against  it,  had  left  the  city  on  the  nth 
and  gone  to  Long  Branch  in  New  Jersey.  On 
the  receipt  of  the  frightful  news  of  the  13th 
he  returned  to  the  city  a  prey  to  the  most 
terrible  agitation.  He  was  hurried  by  his 
friends  to  the  City  Hall,  where  a  great  crowd 
soon  gathered,  and  there,  in  sight  of  the  be- 
sieged "Tribune"  office,  he  made  the  memo- 
rable address  the  discredit  of  which  justly  clung 
to  him  all  his  days.  His  terror  and  his  sym- 
pathy with  the  mob,  in  conflict  with  his  convic- 
tions of  public  duty,  completely  unmanned  him. 
He  addressed  the  rioters  in  affectionate  tones 
as  his  "  friends,"  and  assured  them  that  he  had 
"  come  to  show  them  a  test  of  his  friendship." 
He  informed  them  that  he  had  sent  his  adju- 
tant to  Washington  to  confer  with  the  authorities
93< 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
there    and    to    have    the    draft    suspended. 
rhis  assurance  was  received  with  the  most 
vociferous  cheers.  He  urged  them  to  act  as 
good  citizens,  leaving  their  interests  to  him. 
••  Wait  until  my  adjutant  returns  from  "Wash- 
ington." he  said..  "  and  you  shall  be  satisfied." 
The  words  in  this  extraordinary  speech  for 
which  the  governor  was  most  blamed  were 
those  in  which  he  addressed  the  mob  as  his 
friends  ;  but  this  was  a  venial  fault,  pardonable 
in  view  of  his  extreme  agitation.  The  serious 
matter  was  his  intimation  that  the  draft  justi- 
fied the  riot,  and  that  if  the  rioters  would  cease 
from  their  violence  the  draft  would  be  stopped.1 
He  issued  two  proclamations  on  the  14th,  the 
one  mildly  condemning  the  riot  and  calling 
upon  the  persons  engaged  in  it  to  retire  to  their 
homes  and  employments,  and  the  other,  some- 
what sterner  in  rone,  declaring  the  city  and 
county  of  New  York  to  be  in  a  state  of  insur- 
rection, and  warning  all  who  might  resist  the 
State  authorities  of  their  liability  to  the  penal- 
ties prescribed  by  law.  It  is  questionable  if  the 
rioters  ever  heard  of  the  proclamations,  and  if 
the}-  did  the  effect  of  these  official  utterances 
was  entirely  nullified  by  the  governor's  sympa- 
thetic speeches.  The  riots  came  to  a  bloody 
close  on  the  night  of  Thursday,  the  fourth  day. 
A  small  detachment  of  soldiers  2  met  the  princi- 
pal body  of  rioters  at  Third  Avenue  and  Twenty- 
first  street,  killed  thirteen  and  wounded  eighteen 
more,  taking  some  dozens  of  prisoners.  The 
fire  of  passion  had  burned  itself  out  by  this  time, 
and  the  tired  mob,  now  thoroughly  dominated, 
slunk  away  to  its  hiding-places.  During  that 
night  and  the  next  day  the  militia  were  return- 
ing from  Pennsylvania,  several  regiments  of 
veterans  arrived  from  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
and  the  peace  of  the  city  was  once  more  secured. 
The  rioters  had  kept  the  city  in  terror  for  four 
days  and  had  destroyed  two  millions  of  prop- 
erty. For  several  days  afterwards  arrests  went 
on,  and  many  of  the  wounded  lawT -breakers  died 
in  their  retreats,  afraid  to  call  for  assistance. 
There  were  unimportant  disturbances  in 
other  places  which  were  speedily  put  down  by 
the  local  authorities,  but,  as  Mr.  Greeley  says : 
"  in  no  single  instance  was  there  a  riot  in- 
cited by  drafting  wherein  Americans  by  birth 
bore  any  considerable  part,  nor  in  which  the 
great  body  of  the  actors  were  not  born  Euro- 
peans, and  generally  of  recent  importation." 
The  part  taken  by  Archbishop  Hughes  in  this 
rrence  gave  rise  to  various  comments. 
He   placarded  about  the  city  on  the  16th  of 
1  While  the  riot  was  going  on,  Governor  Seymour  had 
an  interview  with  Colonel  Nugent,  the  acting  Provost- 
Marshal  General  of  New  York  City,  and  insisted  on  the 
colonel's  announcing  a  suspension  of  the  draft.  The 
draft  had  already  been  stopped  by  violence.  The  an- 
nouncement was  urged  by  the  governor  no  doubt  be- 
cause he  thought  it  would  allay  the  excitement;  but  this 
July  an  address  "  to  the  men  of  New  York  wrho 
are  now  called  in  many  papers  rioters,"  inviting 
them  to  come  to  his  house  and  let  him  talk  to 
them,  assuring  them  of  immunity  from  the 
police  in  going  and  coming.  "  You  who  are 
Catholics,"  the  address  concluded,  "or  as 
many  of  you  as  are,  have  a  right  to  visit  your 
bishop  without  molestation."  On  the  17th,  at 
2  o'clock,  a  crowd  of  four  or  five  thousand 
persons  assembled  in  front  of  the  Archbishop's 
residence,3  and  the  venerable  prelate,  clad  in 
his  purple  robes  and  full  canonical  attire,  ap- 
peared at  the  window  and  made  a  strange 
speech  to  the  mob,  half  jocular  and  half  ear- 
nest, alternately  pleading,  cajoling,  and  warn- 
ing them.  He  told  them  that  he  "  did  not 
see  a  riotous  face  among  them."  He  did  not 
accuse  them  of  having  done  anything  wrong. 
He  said  that  every  man  had  the  right  to  defend 
his  house  or  his  shanty  at  the  risk  of  his  life ; 
that  they  had  no  cause  to  complain,  "  as  Irish- 
men and  Catholics,"  against  the  Government; 
and  affectionately  suggested  whether  it  might 
not  be  better  for  them  to  retire  to  their  homes 
and  keep  out  of  danger.  .  He  begged  them  to 
be  quiet  in  the  name  of  Ireland  — "  Ireland, 
that  never  committed  a  single  act  of  cruelty 
until  she  was  oppressed ;  Ireland,  that  has  been 
the  mother  of  heroes  and  of  poets,  but  never 
the  mother  of  cowards."  The  crowd  greeted 
his  speech  with  uproarious  applause  and  quietly 
dispersed. 
The  number  of  those  who  lost  their  lives 
during  the  riots  has  never  been  ascertained. 
The  mortality  statistics  for  that  week  and  the 
week  succeeding  show  an  increase  of  five  or 
six  hundred  over  the  average.  Governor  Sey- 
mour estimated  the  number  of  killed  and 
wounded  at  one  thousand. 
Naturally,  in  such  days  of  terror  and  anger, 
there  were  not  wanting  those  who  asserted 
that  the  riots- were  the  result  and  the  manifes- 
tation of  a  widespread  treasonable  conspiracy 
involving  leading  Democrats  at  the  North. 
The  President  received  many  letters  to  this 
effect,  one  relating  the  alleged  confession  of  a 
well-known  politician,  who,  overcome  with  agi- 
tation and  remorse,  had  in  the  presence  of  the 
editors  of  the  "  Tribune  "  divulged  the  com- 
plicity of  Seymour  and  others  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  the  emeute.4  But  he  placed  no  reliance 
upon  the  story,  and  there  was  in  fact  no  foun- 
dation for  it.  With  all  his  desire  to  injure  the 
Administration,  Governor  Seymour  had  not  the 
material  of  an  insurrectionist  in  his  composi- 
was,  under  the  circumstances,  making  a  concession  to 
the  mob,  and  endangering  the  successful  enforcement 
of  the  law  of  the  land.  [General  J.  B.  Fry,  "  New  York 
and  the  Conscription  of  1863."] 
2  Of  the  1 2th  Regulars,  under  Captain  Putman. 
3  Corner  of  Madison  Avenue  and  Thirty-sixth  street. 
4  J.  R.  Gilmore  to  Lincoln,  July  17,  1863.    MS.
A    HISTORY. 
931 
tion,  and  when  the  riot  came  his  excitement 
and  horror  was  the  best  proof  that  he  had  not 
expected  it. 
The  scenes  of  violence  in  New  York  were 
not  repeated  anywhere  else,  if  we  except  a 
slight  disturbance  in  Boston,  but  the  ferment 
of  opposition  was  so  general  as  to  give  great 
disquietude  to  many  friends  of  the  Government 
throughout  the  country.  Leading  Unionists  in 
Philadelphia,  fearing  a  riot  there,  besought  the 
President  by  mail  and  telegraph  to  stop  the 
draft. '  In  Chicago  a  similar  appeal  was  made, 
and  by  recruitment  and  volunteering  the  ne- 
cessity for  a  draft  was  avoided  in  Illinois  until 
the  next  year. 
No  provision  of  the  enrollment  law  excited 
such  ardent  opposition  as  that  which  was  intro- 
duced for  the  purpose  of  mitigating  its  rigors  — 
the  provision  exempting  drafted  men  from  ser- 
vice upon  payment  of  three  hundred  dollars. 
"  The  rich  man's  money  against  the  poor  man's 
blood"  was  a  cry  from  which  no  demagogue 
could  refrain,  and  it  was  this  which  contributed 
most  powerfully  to  rouse  the  unthinking  masses 
against  the  draft.  The  money  paid  for  exemp- 
tions was  used,  under  the  direction  of  the  Pro- 
vost-Marshal General,  for  the  raising  of  recruits 
and  the  payment  of  the  expenses  of  the  draft. 
It  amounted  to  a  very  large  sum — twenty-six 
millions  of  dollars.  After  all  expenses  were  paid 
there  was  a  balance  of  nine  millions  left  to  the 
credit  of  the  Bureau  in  the  Treasury  of  the 
United  States.  The  exemption  fund  was  swelled 
by  the  action  of  county  and  municipal  author- 
ities, especially  by  those  of  New  York,  who  in 
the  flurry  succeeding  the  riots  passed  in  great 
haste  an  ordinance  to  pay  the  commutation 
for  drafted  men  of  the  poorer  class.  A  certain 
impetus  was  given  to  volunteering  also,  but 
the  money  came  in  faster  than  the  men ;  and 
in  June,  1864,  the  Provost-Marshal  General 
reported  that  out  of  some  14,000  drafted  men 
7000  were  exempted  for  various  reasons  and 
5000  paid  money  commutation.  This  state- 
ment was  sent  to  Congress  by  the  President 
with  the  recommendation  that  the  commuta- 
tion clause  be  repealed.  This  was  done1  after 
a  hot  discussion  which  exhibited  a  curious 
change  of  front  on  the  question,  Messrs.  Sauls- 
bury,  Richardson,  and  other  Democrats  ener- 
getically opposing  the  repeal,  and  making  it 
the  occasion  for  as  bitter  attacks  on  the  Admin- 
istration as  those  which  had  been  for  a  year 
directed  against  the  law.2 
It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  look  for  a 
moment  at  the  measures  pursued  by  the  Con- 
federate authorities  to  raise  and  maintain  their 
army.  There  is  a  striking  contrast  between 
methods  and  results  on  either  side  of  the  line. 
1  Law  approved  July  4,  1864. 
2  "  Congressional  Globe,"  June  23,  1S64. 
The  methods  of  the  Confederates  were  farmore 
prompt  and  more  rigorous  than  those  of  the 
National  Government,  while  the  results  attained 
were  so  much  less  satisfactory  that  their  failure 
in  this  respect  brought  about  the  final  catas- 
trophe of  their  enterprise.  They  began  the  war 
with  forces  greatly  superior  in  numbers  to  1 1 
of  the  Nation.  Before  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter 
their  Congress  had  authorized  the  raising  of  an 
army  of  100,000  men  and  Mr.  Davis  had  called 
into  service  36,900  men,  more  than  twice  the 
army  of  the  United  States ;  and  immediately 
after  beginning  hostilities  he  called  for  32,000 
more.  On  the  8th  of  May  the  Confederate 
Congress  gave  Mr.  Davis  almost  unlimited 
power  to  accept  the  services  of  volunteers  with- 
out regard  to  place  of  enlistment,  and  a  few 
days  later  he  was  relieved  by  statute  of  the 
delays  and  limitations  of  formal  calls,  and  all 
power  of  appointments  to  commissions  was 
placed  in  his  hands.  So  that,  while  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  the  most  punctilious  re- 
spect was  paid  by  the  National  executive  and 
legislature  to  the  rights  of  the  loyal  States  in 
the  matter  of  recruitment,  the  States  which 
had  seceded,  on  the  pretext  of  preserving  their 
autonomy,  speedily  gave  themselves  into  the 
hands  of  a  military  dictator.  In  December, 
1 86 1,  the  term  of  enlistment  was  changed  from 
one  to  three  years,  the  pitiful  bounty  of  fifty 
dollars  being  given  as  compensation.  D  uring  all 
that  winter  recruiting  languished,  and  several 
statutes  continually  increasing  in  severity  were 
passed  with  little  effect;  and  on  the  16th  of 
April,  1862,  the  Confederate  Congress  passed 
a  sweeping  measure  of  universal  conscription, 
authorizing  the  President  to  call  and  place  in 
the  military  service  for  three  years,  unless  the 
war  should  end  sooner,  "  all  white  men  who 
are  residents  of  the  Confederate  States,  between 
the  ages  of  18  and  35  years,"  not  legally  exempt 
from  service;  and  arbitrarily  lengthening  to 
three  years  the  terms  of  those  already  enlisted.  A 
law  so  stringent  was  of  course  impossible  of  per- 
fect execution.  Under  the  clamor  and  panic  of 
their  constituencies  the  Confederate  Congress 
passed,  repealed,  and  modified  various  schemes 
of  exemption  intended  to  permit  the  ordinary 
routine  of  civil  life  to  pursue  its  course,  but 
great  confusion  and  heart-burnings  arose  from 
every  effort  which  was  made  to  ease  the  work- 
ings of  the  inexorable  machine.  The  question 
of  overseers  of  plantations  was  one  especially 
difficult  to  treat.  The  law  of  the  1  ith-of  Octo- 
ber, 1862,  exempted  one  man  for  every  planta- 
tion of  twenty  negroes.  This  system  was  further 
extended  from  time  to  time,  but  owners  of  slaves 
were  obliged  to  pay  five  hundred  dollars  a  year 
for  each  exemption.  By  one  statute  it  was  pro- 
vided that  on  plantations  where  these  exemp- 
tions were  granted  the  exempt  should  pay  two
95- 
A   JEST  OF  FATE. 
hundred  pounds  of  meat  for  every  able-bodied 
slave  on  the  plantation.  Gradually  all  exemp- 
tions as  of  right  were  legislated  away  and  the 
whole  subject  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
executive,  which  vastly  increased  his  power  and 
his  unpopularity.  It  finally  rested  upon  him  to 
say  how  many  editors,  ministers,  railroad  en- 
gineers, and  expressmen  were  absolutely  re- 
quired to  keep  up  the  current  of  life  in  the 
business  oi  the  country. 
The  limit  of  age  was  constantly  extended. 
In  September,  1862,  an  act  of  the  Confederate 
Congress  authorized  the  President  to  call  into 
service  all  white  men  resident  in  the  Confed- 
erate States,  between  the  ages  of  18  and  45; 
and  in  February,  1864,  another  law  included 
all  between  17  and  50,  which  gave  occasion 
to  Grant  for  his  celebrated  mot  —  afterwards 
credited  by  him  to  General  Butler — that  the 
Confederates  were  robbing  the  cradle  and  the 
grave  to  fill  their  armies. 
Severe  and  drastic  as  were  these  laws,  and 
unrelenting  as  was  the  insurrectionary  Govern- 
ment in  their  execution,  they  were  not  carried 
out  with  anything  like  the  system  and  thor- 
oughness which  characterized  the  action  of  the 
National  authorities.  The  Confederate  generals 
were  constantly  complaining  that  they  got  no 
recruits,  or  not  enough  to  supply  the  waste  of 
campaigns.  On  the  30th  of  April,  1864,  the 
chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Conscription  at  Rich- 
mond made  a  report  to  the  Secretary  of  War, 
painting  in  the  darkest  colors  the  difficulties 
encountered  by  him  in  getting  soldiers  into  the 
ranks,  though  he  had  all  the  laws  and  regula- 
tions he  needed  and  there  were  men  enough  in 
the  country.  He  said,  and  in  these  words  con- 
fessed that  the  system  had  failed  and  that  the  de- 
feat of  the  revolt  was  now  but  a  question  of  time  : 
The  results  indicate  this  grave  consideration  for 
the  Government,  that  fresh  material  for  the  armies 
can  no  longer  be  estimated  as  an  element  of  future 
calculation  for  their  increase,  and  that  necessity 
demands  the  invention  of  devices  for  keeping  in  the 
ranks  the  men  now  borne  on  the  rolls.  The  stern 
revocation  of  all  details,  an  appeal  to  the  patriotism 
of  the  State  claiming  large  bodies  of  able-bodied  men, 
and  the  accretions  by  age  are  now  almost  the  only 
unexhausted sourcesof  supply.  For  conscription  from 
the  general  population  the  functions  of  this  bureau 
may  cease  with  the  termination  of  the  year  1864. 
by-^L  [fj<j 
A    JEST    OF    FATE. 
I 
"T  was  eight 
o'clock  on  a 
clean.  -  washed, 
clear-cut,  sun-bathed 
October  morning  when 
my  mother  and  I  climbed  into 
the  second-best  buggy  behind 
old  white  Telly  for  a  twenty- 
mile  drive  "  up  the  country." 
The  Judge  waved  us  a  courtly 
adieu;  little  Tom  and  his  sister 
hooked  themselves  on  behind 
to  go  with  us  to  the  big  gate, 
the  opening  of  which  furnished 
them  with  a  reason  for  being ; 
Aunt  Sally  called  out  from  the 
back  gallery  last  messages  to 
Cousin  Nancy;  the  negroes 
collected  at  doors  and  windows  to  see  us  off, 
and  we  rolled  gently  away  into  the  fairyland 
of  unfamiliar  road-,. 
Our  route  wound  here  and  there  past  fod- 
der-stacked corn-fields,  brier- grown  old  pas- 
tures, irregular  old  farm-houses  sleeping  in 
the  sunshine,  populous  negro  cabins,  and,  last 
and  best,  through  vine-tangled,  enchanting, 
enchanted  woods.    The  country  we  traversed 
had  for  our  aesthetic  interests  the  advantage  of 
being  poor  and  sparsely  settled ;  as  we  went 
on  it  became  still  rougher  and  lonelier.  When 
the  sun  set  behind  us  we  were  at  a  fork  in  the 
road,  in  the  fullest  uncertainty  as  to  our  proper 
route,  and  with  the  last  house  three  miles  be- 
hind us. 
Our  last  instruction  had  been  to  "  Jes  keep 
the  plain,  big  road  right  on  to  Squire  Clay- 
more's." 
One  road,  so  far  as  we  could  see,  was  as  big 
as  the  other.  One  led  down  into  a  swampy 
wood  that  looked  in  the  failing  light  as  if  it 
might  be  all  too  fruitful  of  adventure.  The 
other  took  its  way  over  a  high,  open  country 
and  seemed  safer  and  pleasanter,  and  on  this 
ground  we  logically  chose  it.  Soon  the  open 
country  ended  and  we  found  ourselves  in 
something  worth  calling  a  forest;  it  grew 
denser  and  darker  as  we  advanced ;  the  night 
was  settling  down  upon  us. 
"  There  are  immense  tracts  like  this  up  here 
in  the  barrens,"  said  my  mother  in  a  voice  that 
assumed  the  tone  of  a  philosophical  statement, 
but  which  rebelliously  vibrated  with  a  growing 
uneasiness.  "  I  thought  back  there  when  we 
first  got  into  the  woods  that  the  road  looked
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN:    A    HISTORY.1 
THE    PRESIDENT    AND    THE    DRAFT— VALLANDIGH AM— THE    PE 
PARTY    AT    THE    POLLS. 
BY   JOHN    G.    NICOLAY   AND   JOHN    HAY,    PRIVATE    SECRETARIES    TO    THE    PRESIDENT. 
THE    PRESIDENT    AND    THE    DRAFT. 
URING  the  entire  summer  and 
autumn  of  1863,  Governor  Sey- 
mour and  his  friends  made  the 
proceedings  of  the  Government 
in  relation  to  the  enrollment 
law  the  object  of  special  and 
vehement  attack.2  On  the  ijih  of  October  the 
President  made  a  call  for  300,000  volunteers, 
and  at  the  same  time  ordered  that  the  draft 
should  be  made  for  all  deficiencies  which  might 
exist  on  the  5th  of  January  following,  on  the 
quotas  assigned  to  districts  by  the  War  Depart- 
ment.3 Shortly  after  this  the  Democratic  State 
committee  issued  a  circular  making  the  mili- 
tary administration  of  the  Government,  and 
especially  the  law  calling  for  troops,  the  object 
of  violent  attack,  greatly  exaggerating  the  de- 
mands of  the  Government,  claiming  that  no 
credits  would  be  allowed  for  those  who  had 
paid  commutation,  and  basing  these  charges 
upon  a  pretended  proclamation  of  the  27th  of 
October  which  had  never  been  issued.  The 
President,  with  the  painstaking  care  which  dis- 
tinguished him,  prepared  with  his  own  hand  the 
following  contradiction  of  this  misleading  cir- 
cular : 4 
The  Provost-Marshal  General  has  issued  no  proc- 
lamation at  all.  He  has,  in  no  form,  announced 
anything  recently  in  regard  to  troops  in  New  York, 
except  in  his  letter  to  Governor  Seymour  of  October 
21,  which  has  been  published  in  the  newspapers  of 
that  State.  It  has  not  been  announced  nor  decided 
in  any  form  by  the  Provost-Marshal  General,  or 
any  one  else  in  authority  of  the  Government,  that 
every  citizen  who  has  paid  his  three  hundred 
dollars'  commutation  is  liable  to  be  immediately 
drafted  again,  or  that  towns  that  have  just  raised 
the  money  to  pay  their  quotas  will  have  again  to  be 
subject  to  similar  taxation  or  suffer  the  operation 
of  the  new  conscription,  nor  is  it  probable  that  the 
like  of  this  ever  will  be  announced  or  decided. 
The  circular  we  have  referred  to  went  on 
to  claim  that  the  State  had  been  thoroughly 
canvassed,  and  that  the  victory  of  the  Demo- 
2  See  also  The  Century  Magazine  for  last 
month.— Editor. 
3  General  J.  B.  Fry,  "  New  York  and  the  Con- 
scription of  1863,"  P-  49- 
4  Dated,  Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  Oct.  31, 
1863.     MS. 
cratic  ticket  was  assured.  But  the  result  showed 
that  the  Democratic  leaders  were  as  far  wrong 
in  their  prophecy  as  in  their  history.  The  Repub- 
lican State  ticket  was  elected  by  a  majority  of 
30,000  over  the  Democratic,  and  the  principal 
Stateofthe  Union  decided  in  favor  of  the  Presi- 
dent the  vehement  controversy  which  had  raged 
all  the  year  between  Seymour  and  Lincoln  — 
a  verdict  which  was  repeated  in  the  following 
year  when  Governor  Seymour  was  a  candidate 
for  reelection. 
In  the  early  part  of  December  the  President, 
anxious  in  every  way  to  do  justice  and  to  sat- 
isfy, if  possible,  the  claims  of  Governor  Sey- 
mour, consented  to  the  appointment  of  a 
commission  to  inquire  into  the  whole  subject 
of  the  enrollment  in  New  York.  The  principal 
member  of  the  commission,  chosen  by  Governor 
Seymour,  wTas  William  F.  Allen,  his  intimate 
friend  and  an  ardent  Democrat  in  politics ;  of 
the  other  members,  General  Love  of  Indiana 
was  also  a  Democrat;  Chauncey  Smith  of 
Massachusetts  was  a  lawyer,  not  prominently 
identified  with  either  political  party.  Judge 
Allen  clearly  dominated  the  commission,  and 
they  agreed  with  him  in  condemning  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  the  enrollment  and  the  draft  were 
conducted.  They  reported  that,  instead  of  num- 
bering the  men  of  a  given  district  capable  of 
bearing  arms  and  making  that  number  the  basis 
of  the  draft, —  which  was  the  course  the  enroll- 
ing officers,  in  direct  obedience  to  the  law  of 
Congress,  had  pursued, —  the  quotas  should  be 
adjusted  upon  the  basis  of  proportion  to  the 
entire  population.  They  did  not  indorse  the 
injurious  attacks  made  by  the  governor  upon 
the  enrolling  officers  and  agents,  but  distinctly 
stated  that  their  fidelity  and  integrity  were  un- 
impeached.  The  essential  point  of  their  report 
was  simply  that  the  quota  should  be  in  pro- 
portion to  the  total  population  of  the  district, 
and  not  according  to  the  number  of  valid  men 
to  be  found  in  it.  When  the  President  required 
from  the  Provost-Marshal  General  his  opinion 
upon  the  report,  General  Fry  made  this  reason- 
able criticism: 
The  commission  has  evidently  been  absorbed  by 
the  conviction  that  the  raising  of  men  is,  and  will 
necessarily  continue  to  be,  equivalent  to  levying 
special  taxes  and  raising  money,  and  they  would 
therefore  require  the  same  proceeds,  under  the  en- 
1  Copyright  by  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  18S6.     All  rights  reserved.
124 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
rollment  act,  from  a  district  of  rich  women  which 
they  would  from  :i  district  with  the  same  number 
of  men  of  equal  means.  I  assume  that  we  are  look- 
ing for  personal  military  service  from  those  able  to 
perform  it,  that  we  make  no  calls  for  volunteers  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  commission  understand  it, 
but  that  we  assign  to  the  districts  under  the  enroll- 
ment act  fair  quotas  of  themen  we  have  found  them 
lo  contain. 
The  President  entirely  agreed  with  the  Prov- 
ost-Marshal General  that  it  was  manifestly  un- 
just  to  require  as  many  drafted  men  from  a 
distriet  that  had  been  depleted  of  its  young  men 
by  the  patriotic  impulse  which  filled  the  army 
at  the  beginning  of  the  war  as  were  justly  called 
for  from  one  that  had  contributed  nothing  to 
the  field,  a  course  which  would  have  been  the 
logical  result  of  yielding  to  the  demands  of 
Governor  Seymour  and  the  recommendation 
of  the  commission.  But,  wishing  to  make  all 
possible  concessions  to  the  State  authorities, 
he  resolved  once  more  to  reduce  the  quota  of 
New  York,  and  explained  his  action  in  a  letter  to 
the  Secretary  of  War  dated  February  27,  1864. 
So  long  as  Governor  Seymour  remained  in 
office  he  continued  his  warfare  upon  the  en- 
rollment act  and  the  officers  charged  with  its 
execution.  On  the  18th  of  July,  1864,  the 
President  made  a  third  call  for  troops  under 
the  act,  and  the  governor  promptly  renewed 
his  charges  and  complaints.  At  this  time,  how- 
ever, both  he  and  Mr.  Lincoln  were  candidates 
before  the  people  —  the  one  for  the  Presidency, 
and  the  other  for  the  Governorship  of  New 
York ;  and  it  was  probably  for  this  reason  that 
Mr.  Seymour's  correspondence  was  carried  on 
at  this  time  with  the  Secretary  of  War  instead 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  But  it  afforded  no  new  features; 
there  were  the  same  complaints  of  excessive 
quotas,  of  unfair,  unequal,  and  oppressive 
action,  as  before.  He  said  again  that  there 
had  been  no  opportunity  given  to  correct  the 
enrollment,  upon  which  the  Provost- Marshal 
General  reported  that  the  governor  had  been 
duly  informed  of  the  opportunities  to  make 
corrections,  and  that  an  order  had  been 
issued  from  his  own  headquarters  in  reference 
to  the  matter.  No  efforts  were  spared  by  the 
Government  to  insure  a  rigid  revision  of  the 
lists.  The  governor  spoke  with  great  vehe- 
mence of  the  disparity  between  the  demand 
made  upon  New  York  and  Boston,  saying  that 
in  one  of  the  cities  26  percent,  of  the  popula- 
tion was  enrolled,  and  in  the  other  only  12^ 
per  cent.  General  Fry  replied  to  this  that  the 
proportion  of  enrollment  to  population  in  Bos- 
ton was  not  12^  but  16.92  percent. ;  that  less 
than  17  per  cent,  in  New  York  and  Brooklyn 
were  enrolled,  and  that,  in  fine,  the  enrollment 
was  a  mere  question  of  fact — it  was  the  ascer- 
tainment of  the  number  of  men  of  a  certain  de- 
scription in  defined  areas ;  that  the  enrollments 
were  continuously  open  to  revision,  and  that 
any  name  erroneously  on  them  would  be  stricken 
off  as  soon  as  the  error  was  pointed  out  by  any- 
body to  the  Board  of  Enrollment.  He  then 
showed  that  the  quotas  throughout  New  York 
were  in  fact  smaller  than  in  many  other  States 
where  the  proportion  of  men  was  large,  and 
closed  his  report  by  saying  that  he  "  saw  no 
reason  why  the  law  should  not  be  applied  to 
New  York  as  well  as  to  other  States."  This  re- 
port Mr.  Stanton1  transmitted  to  the  governor, 
expressing  the  somewhat  sanguine  trust  that  it 
would  satisfy  him  that  his  objections  against  the 
quotas  assigned  to  New  York  were  not  well 
founded.  He  recalled  the  fact  that  a  commission 
had  been  appointed  the  year  before  with  a  view 
to  ascertain  whether  any  mistake  or  errors  had 
been  made  by  the  enrolling  officers,  but  that  the 
commissioners  bore  their  testimony  to  the  fidel- 
ity with  which  the  work  was  done ;  that  with 
a  view  to  harmony  the  President  had  directed 
a  reduction  in  some  districts,  but  without  the 
increase  of  others  recommended  by  the  com- 
missioners •  and  that  a  basis  for  the  assignment 
being  now  absolutely  fixed  by  act  of  Congress, 
the  War  Department  had  no  power  to  change  it. 
The  voters  of  New  York  in  the  autumn 
election  decided  to  retire  Governor  Seymour 
to  private  life,  and  his  successor,  Governor  Fen- 
ton,  gave  to  the  Government,  during  the  rest 
of  the  war,  a  hearty  and  loyal  support. 
While  the  controversy  between  the  Govern- 
ment and  its  opponents  in  regard  to  the  enroll- 
ment and  the  draft  was  going  on,  the  President, 
disappointed  and  grieved  at  the  persistent 
misrepresentations  of  his  views  and  his  inten- 
tions by  those  of  whom  he  had  expected  bet- 
ter things,  and  feeling  that  he  was  unable,  by 
any  power  of  logic  or  persuasion,  to  induce 
the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party  to  do 
him  justice  or  to  cooperate  with  him  in  the 
measures  which  he  was  convinced  were  for  the 
public  good,  thought  for  a  time  of  appealing 
directly  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  in 
defense  of  the  conduct  of  the  Government. 
Lie  prepared  a  long  and  elaborate  address, 
which  he  intended  more  especially  for  the  con- 
sideration of  the  honest  and  patriotic  Demo- 
crats of  the  North,  setting  forth,  with  his  inimit- 
able clearness  of  statement,  the  necessity  for  the 
draft,  the  substantial  fairness  of  the  provisions 
of  the  law,  and  the  honesty  and  equity  with 
which,  as  he  claimed,  the  Government  had 
attempted  to  carry  it  out.  But,  after  he  had 
finished  it,  doubts  arose  in  his  mind  as  to  the 
propriety  or  the  expediency  of  addressing  the 
public  directly  in  that  manner,  and  it  was  never 
published.  It  is  here,  for  the  first  time,  printed, 
from  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  manuscript,  and  it  is 
1  Aug.  11,  1864.
THE  PRESIDENT  AND    THE    DRAFT. 
a  question  whether  the  reader  will  more  admire 
the  lucidity  and  the  fairness  with  which  the 
President  sets  forth  his  views,  or  the  reserve 
and  abnegation  with  which,  after  writing  it, 
he  resolved  to  suppress  so  admirable  a  paper  : 
"  It  is  at  all  times  proper  that  misunderstand- 
ing between  the  public  and  the  public  servant 
should  be  avoided  ;  and  this  is  far  more  impor- 
tant now  than  in  times  of  peace  and  tranquil- 
lity. I  therefore  address  you  without  searching 
for  a  precedent  upon  which  to  do  so.  Some 
of  you  are  sincerely  devoted  to  the  republican 
institutions  and  territorial  integrity  of  our  coun- 
try, and  yet  are  opposed  to  what  is  called  the 
draft,  or  conscription. 
"At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  ever 
since,  a  variety  of  motives,  pressing,  some  in 
one  direction  and  some  in  the  other,  would  be 
presented  to  the  mind  of  each  man  physically 
fit  for  a  soldier,  upon  the  combined  effect  of 
which  motives  he  would,  or  would  not,  volun- 
tarily enter  the  service.  Among  these  motives 
would  be  patriotism,  political  bias,  ambition, 
personal  courage,  love  of  adventure,  want  of 
employment,  and  convenience,  or  the  oppo- 
site of  some  of  these.  We  already  have,  and 
have  had  in  the  service,  as  appears,  substan- 
tially all  that  can  be  obtained  upon  this  vol- 
untary weighing  of  motives.  And  yet  we  must 
somehow  obtain  more,  or  relinquish  the  original 
object  of  the  contest,  together  with  all  the  blood 
and  treasure  already  expended  in  the  effort  to 
secure  it.  To  meet  this  necessity  the  law  for 
the  draft  has  been  enacted.  You  who  do  not 
wish  to  be  soldiers  do  not  like  this  law.  This 
is  natural ;  nor  does  it  imply  want  of  patriot- 
ism. Nothing  can  be  so  just  and  necessary 
as  to  make  us  like  it  if  it  is  disagreeable  to  us. 
We  are  prone,  too,  to  find  false  arguments  with 
which  to  excuse  ourselves  for  opposing  such 
disagreeable  things.  In  this  case,  those  who 
desire  the  rebellion  to  succeed,  and  others  who 
seek  reward  in  a  different  way,  are  very  active 
in  accommodating  us  with  this  class  of  argu- 
ment. They  tell  us  the  law  is  unconstitutional. 
It  is  the  first  instance,  I  believe,  in  which  the 
power  of  Congress  to  do  a  thing  has  ever  been 
questioned  in  a  case  when  the  power  is  given 
by  the  Constitution  in  express  terms.  Whether 
a  power  can  be  implied,  when  it  is  not  ex- 
pressed, has  often  been  the  subject  of  contro- 
versy ;  but  this  is  the  first  case  in  which  the 
degree  of  effrontery  has  been  ventured  upon, 
of  denying  a  power  which  is  plainly  and  dis- 
tinctly written  down  in  the  Constitution.  The 
Constitution  declares  that  '  the  Congress  shall 
have  power  ...  to  raise  and  support  ar- 
mies ;  but  no  appropriation  of  money  to  that 
use  shall  be  for  a  longer  term  than  two  years.' 
The  whole  scope  of  the  conscription  act  is  '  to 
raise  and  support  armies.'    There  U  nothing 
else  in  it.    It  makes  no  appropriation  of  money, 
and  hence  the  money  clause  just  quoted  i 
touched  by  it.  The  case  simply  i 
tution  provides  that  the  Congress  shall  have 
power  to  raise  and  support  arn  d  by 
this  act  the  Congress  lias  exercised  the  j/ 
to  raise  and  support  armies.  '1  his  IS  the  whole 
of  it.  It  is  a  law  marie  in  literal  pursuant 
this  part  of  the  United  States  Constitution; 
and  another  part  of  the  same  Constitution  de- 
clares that  '  this  Constitution,  and  the  laws 
made  in  pursuance  thereof,  .  .  .  shall  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  the  judges  in 
every  State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything 
in  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding.'  Do  you  admit  that 
the  power  is  given  to  raise  and  support  armies, 
and  yet  insist  that  by  this  act  Congress  has 
not  exercised  the  power  in  a  constitutional 
mode  ?  —  has  not  done  the  thing,  in  the  right 
way  ?  Who  is  to  judge  of  this  ?  The  Consti- 
tution gives  Congress  the  power,  but  it  does 
not  prescribe  the  mode,  or  expressly  declare 
who  shall  prescribe  it.  In  such  case  Congress 
must  prescribe  the  mode,  or  relinquish  the 
power.  There  is  no  alternative.  Congress 
could  not  exercise  the  power  to  do  the  thing 
if  it  had  not  the  power  of  providing  a  way  to 
do  it,  when  no  way  is  provided  by  the  Consti- 
tution for  doing  it.  In  fact,  Congress  would 
not  have  the  power  to  raise  and  support  ar- 
mies, if  even  by  the  Constitution  it  were  left 
to  the  option  of  any  other,  or  others,  to  give 
or  withhold  the  only  mode  of  doing  it.  If  the 
Constitution  has  prescribed  a  mode.  Congress 
could  and  must  follow  that  mode  ;  but,  as  it  is. 
the  mode  necessarily  goes  to  Congress,  with 
the  power  expressly  given.  The  power  is  given 
fully,  completely,  unconditionally.  It  is  not  a 
power  to  raise  armies  if  State  authorities  con- 
sent; nor  if  the  men  to  compose  the  armies 
are  entirely  willing ;  but  it  is  a  po#er  to  raise 
and  support  armies  given  to  Congress  by  the 
Constitution,  without  an  if. 
"  It  is  clear  that  a  constitutional  law  may 
not  be  expedient  or  proper.  Such  would  be  a 
law  to  raise  armies  when  no  armies  were  needed. 
But  this  is  not  such.  The  republican  insti- 
tutions and  territorial  integrity  of  our  country 
cannot  be  maintained  without  the  further 
raising  and  supporting  of  armies.  There  can 
be  no  army  without  men.  Men  can  be  had  only 
voluntarily  or  involuntarily.  We  have  ceased 
to  obtain  them  voluntarily,  and  to  obtain  them 
involuntarily  is  the  draft  —  the  conscription. 
If  you  dispute  the  fact,  and  declare  that  men 
can  still  be  had  voluntarily  in  sufficient  num- 
bers, prove  the  assertion  by  yourselves  volun- 
teering in  such  numbers,  and  I  shall  gladly  give 
up  the  draft.    Or  if  not  a  sufficient  number,  but
126 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
any  one  of  you  will  volunteer,  he  for  his  single 
self  will  escape  all  the  horrors  of  the  draft,  and 
will  thereby  do  only  what  each  one  of  at  least 
a  million  of  his  manly  brethren  have  already 
done.  Their  toil  and  blood  have  been  given  as 
much  for  you  as  for  themselves.  Shall  it  all  be 
lost  rather  than  that  you.  too, will  bearyourpart  ? 
"  1  do  not  say  that  all  who  would  avoid  serv- 
ing- in  the  war  are  unpatriotic ;  but  I  do  think 
every  patriot  should  willingly  take  his  chance 
under  a  law.  made  with  great  care,  in  order  to 
secure  entire  fairness.  This  law  was  considered, 
discussed,  modified,  and  amended  by  Congress 
at  great  length,  and  with  much  labor;  and  was 
finally  passed,  by  both  branches,  with  a  near 
approach  to  unanimity.  At  last,  it  may  not  be 
exactly  such  as  any  one  man  out  of  Congress, 
or  even  in  Congress,  would  have  made  it.  It 
has  been  said,  and  I  believe  truly,  that  the 
Constitution  itself  is  not  altogether  such  as  any 
one  of  its  framers  would  have  preferred.  It  wras 
the  joint  work  of  all,  and  certainly  the  better 
that  it  was  so. 
"  Much  complaint  is  made  of  that  provision 
of  the  conscription  law  which  allows  a  drafted 
man  to  substitute  three  hundred  dollars  for 
himself;  while,  as  I  believe,  none  is  made  of 
that  provision  which  allows  him  to  substitute 
another  man  for  himself.  Nor  is  the  three  hun- 
dred dollar  provision  objected  to  for  unconsti- 
tutionality; but  for  inequality,  for  favoring  the 
rich  against  the  poor.  The  substitution  of  men 
is  the  provision,  if  any,  which  favors  the  rich 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  poor.  But  this  being 
a  provision  in  accordance  with  an  old  and  well- 
known  practice,  in  the  raising  of  armies,  is  not 
objected  to.  There  would  have  been  great 
objection  if  that  provision  had  been  omitted. 
And  yet  being  in,  the  money  provision  really 
modifies  the  inequality  which  the  other  intro- 
duces. It  allows  men  to  escape  the  service 
who  are  too  poor  to  escape  but  for  it.  Without 
the  money,  provision,  competition  among  the 
more  wealthy  might,  and  probably  would,  raise 
the  price  of  substitutes  above  three  hundred 
dollars,  thus  leaving  the  man  who  could  raise 
only  three  hundred  dollars  no  escape  from 
personal  service.  True,  by  the  law  as  it  is,  the 
man  who  cannot  raise  so  much  as  three  hun- 
dred dollars,  nor  obtain  a  personal  substitute 
for  less,  cannot  escape ;  but  he  can  come  quite 
as  near  escaping  as  he  could  if  the  money  pro- 
vision were  not  in  the  law.  To  put  it  another 
way:  is  an  unobjectionable  law  which  allows 
only  the  man  to  escape  who  can  pay  a  thousand 
dollars,  made  objectionable  by  adding  a  pro- 
vision that  any  one  may  escape  who  can  pay 
the  smaller  sum  of  three  hundred  dollars  ?  This 
is  the  exact  difference  at  this  point  between 
the  present  law  and  all  former  draft  laws.  It 
is   true  that  by  this  law  a  somewhat  larger 
number  will  escape  than  could  under  the  law 
allowing  personal  substitutes  only;  but  each 
additional  man  thus  escaping  will  be  a  poorer 
man  than  could  have  escaped  by  the  law  in 
the  other  form.  The  money  provision  enlarges 
the  class  of  exempts  from  actual  service  simply 
by  admitting  poorer  men  into  it.  How  then 
can  the  money  provision  be  a  wrong  to  the 
poor  man  ?  The  inequality  complained  of 
pertains  in  greater  degree  to  the  substitution 
of  men,  and  is  really  modified  and  lessened  by 
the  money  provision.  The  inequality  could  only 
be  perfectly  cured  by  sweeping  both  provisions 
away.  This,  being  a  great  innovation,  would 
probably  leave  the  law  more  distasteful  than 
it  now  is. 
"  The  principle  of  the  draft,  which  simply  is 
involuntary  or  enforced  service,  is  not  new. 
It  has  been  practiced  in  all  ages  of  the  world. 
It  wras  well  known  to  the  framers  of  our  Con- 
stitution as  one  of  the  modes  of  raising  armies, 
at  the  time  they  placed  in  that  instrument  the 
provision  that  '  the  Congress  shall  have  power 
to  raise  and  support  armies.'  It  had  been  used 
just  before,  in  establishing  our  independence, 
and  it  was  also  used  under  the  Constitution  in 
1812.  Wherein  is  the  peculiar  hardship  now  ? 
Shall  we  shrink  from  the  necessary  means  to 
maintain  our  free  government,  which  our  grand- 
fathers employed  to  establish  it  and  our  own 
fathers  have  already  employed  once  to  maintain 
it  ?  Are  we  degenerated  ?  Has  the  manhood 
of  our  race  run  out  ? 
"  Again,  a  law  may  be  both  constitutional 
and  expedient,  and  yet  may  be  administered 
in  an  unjust  and  unfair  way.  This  law  belongs 
to  a  class,  which  class  is  composed  of  those 
laws  whose  object  is  to  distribute  burthens  or 
benefits  on  the  principle  of  equality.  No  one 
of  these  laws  can  ever  be  practically  adminis- 
tered with  that  exactness  which  can  be  con- 
ceived of  in  the  mind.  A  tax  law,  the  principle 
of  which  is  that  each  owner  shall  pay  in  pro- 
portion to  the  value  of  his  property,  will  be  a 
dead  letter,  if  no  one  can  be  compelled  to  pay 
until  it  can  be  shown  that  every  other  man 
will  pay  in  precisely  the  same  proportion,  ac- 
cording to  value ;  nay,  even,  it  will  be  a  dead 
letter,  if  no  one  can  be  compelled  to  pay  until 
it  is  certain  that  every  other  one  will  pay  at 
all  —  even  in  unequal  proportion.  Again,  the 
United  States  House  of  Representatives  is 
constituted  on  the  principle  that  each  member 
is  sent  by  the  same  number  of  people  that  each 
other  one  is  sent  by;  and  yet,  in  practice,  no 
two  of  the  whole  number,  much  less  the  whole 
number,  are  ever  sent  by  precisely  the  same 
number  of  constituents.  The  districts  can- 
not be  made  precisely  equal  in  population  at 
first,  and  if  they  could,  they  would  become 
unequal  in  a  single  day,  and  much  more  so  in
VA  LLANDIG/fAM. 
the  ten  years,  which  the  districts,  once  made, 
are  to  continue.  They  cannot  be  remodeled 
every  day ;  nor,  without  too  much  expense  and 
labor,  even  every  year. 
"  This  sort  of  difficulty  applies  in  full  force 
to  the  practical  administration  of  the  draft  law. 
In  fact,  the  difficulty  is  greater  in  the  case  of 
the  draft  law.  First,  it  starts  with  all  the  in- 
equality of  the  congressional  districts;  but 
these  are  based  on  entire  population,  while  the 
draft  is  based  on  those  only  who  are  fit  for 
soldiers,  and  such  may  not  bear  the  same  pro- 
portion to  the  whole  in  one  district  that  they 
do  in  another.  Again,  the  facts  must  be  as- 
certained, and  credit  given,  for  the  unequal 
numbers  of  soldiers  which  have  already  gone 
from  the  several  districts.  In  all  these  points 
errors  will  occur  in  spite  of  the  utmost  fidelity. 
The  Government  is  bound  to  administer  the 
law  with  such  an  approach  to  exactness  as  is 
usual  in  analogous  cases,  and  as  entire  good 
faith  and  fidelity  will  reach.  If  so  great  de- 
partures as  to  be  inconsistent  with  such  good 
faith  and  fidelity,  or  great  departures  occur- 
ring in  any  way,  be  pointed  out  they  shall  be 
corrected;  and  any  agent  shown  to  have 
caused  such  departures  intentionally  shall  be 
dismissed. 
"  With  these  views,  and  on  these  principles, 
I  feel  bound  to  tell  you  it  is  my  purpose  to  see 
the  draft  law  faithfully  executed." 
VALLANDIGHAM. 
General  Burnside  took  command  of  the 
Department  of  the  Ohio  (March  26,  1863) 
with  a  zeal  against  the  insurgents  only  height- 
ened by  his  defeat  at  Fredericksburg.  He 
found  his  department  infested  with  a  peculiarly 
bitter  opposition  to  the  Government  and  to 
the  prosecution  of  the  war,  amounting,  in  his 
opinion,  to  positive  aid  and  comfort  to  the 
enemy,  and  he  determined  to  use  all  the  pow- 
ers confided  to  him  to  put  an  end  to  these 
manifestations,  which  he  considered  treason- 
1  One  of  Burnside's  own  staff-officers,  Colonel  J.  M. 
Cutts,  wrote  to  the  President  July  30  :  "  Order  38  has 
kindled  the  fires  of  hatred  and  contention.  Burnside  is 
foolishly  and  unwisely  excited,  and  if  continued  in  com- 
mand will  disgrace  himself,  you,  and  the  country,  as 
he  did  at  Fredericksburg." 
2  \t  the  first  threat  of  civil  war  Vallandigham  made 
haste  to  declare  himself  opposed  to  any  forcible  execu- 
tion of  the  laws.  He  declared  the  States  of  the  Union 
the  only  judges  of  the  sufficiency  and  justice  of  seces- 
sion, and  declared  he  would  never  vote  one  dollar  of 
money  whereby  one  drop  of  American  blood  should 
be  shed  in  civil  war;  and  in  February  preceding  the 
inauguration  of  Mr.  Lincoln  he  proposed  to  amend  the 
Constitution  by  dividing  the  Union  into  four  sections, 
giving  each  section  a  veto  on  the  passage  of  any  law 
or  the  election  of  Presidents  or  Vice-Presidents,  and 
allowing  to  each  State  the  right  of  secession  on  certain 
specified  terms.    Having  thus  early  taken  his  stand,  he 
able;  and  in  the  execution  of  this  purpose  he 
gave  great  latitude  to  the  exercise  onus  author- 
ity. He  was  of  a  zealous  and  impulsive  char- 
acter, and  weighed  too  little  the  consequi 
of  his  acts  where  his  feelings  were  Btro 
enlisted.  He  issued,  on  the  13th  of  April,  an 
order  which  obtained  wide  celebrity  under  the 
name  of  (General  Order  No.  38,  announcing 
that  "  all  persons  found  within  our  lines,  who 
commit  acts  for  the  benefit  of  the  enemi' 
our  country,  will  be  tried  as  spies  and  trail 
and,  if  convicted,  will  suffer  death."  lie  enu- 
merated, as  among  the  acts  which  came  within 
the  viewofthi.;  order,  the  writing  and  carrying 
of  secret  letters;  passing  the  lines  for  trea 
able  purposes;  recruiting  for  the  Confederate 
service ;  harboring,  concealing,  or  feeding  pub- 
lic enemies  within  our  lines;  and  parsing  beyond 
this  reasonable  category  of  offenses,  he  declared 
that  "  the  habit  of  declaring  sympathies  for  the 
enemy  will  no  longer  be  tolerated  in  this  de- 
partment, and  persons  committing  such  offenses 
will  at  once  be  arrested,  with  a  view  to  being 
tried,  as  above  stated,  or  sent  beyond  our  lines 
into  the  lines  of  their  friends."  And  in  con- 
clusion he  added  a  clause  which  may  be  made 
to  embrace,  in  its  ample  sweep,  any  demonstra- 
tion not  to  the  taste  of  the  general  in  com- 
mand :  "  It  must  be  distinctly  understood  that 
treason,  expressed  or  implied,  will  not  be  toler- 
ated in  this  department." 
This  order  at  once  excited  a  most  furious  de- 
nunciation on  the  part  of  those  who,  either  on 
account  of  their  acts,  or  their  secret  sympathies, 
felt  themselves  threatened  by  it,  and  many  even 
of  those  opponents  of  the  Administration  who 
were  entirely  loyal  to  the  Union l  criticised  the 
order  as  illegal  in  itself  and  liable  to  lead  to 
dangerous  abuses.  The  most  energetic  and 
eloquent  of  General  Burnside's  assailants  was 
Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  who  had  been  for 
several  years  a  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio, 
whose  intemperate  denunciation  of  the  Gov- 
ernment had  caused  him  the  loss  of  his  seat.- 
and  whose  defeat  had  only  heightened  the  acerb- 
retained  his  position  with  more  consistency  than  was 
shown  by  any  other  member  of  his  party.  After  his 
defeat  by  General  R.  C.  Schenck,  in  his  canvass  for 
reelection  to  Congress,  he  renewed  his  attacks  upon  the 
Government  and  its  war  policy  with  exaggerated  ve- 
hemence. 
In  a  speech  delivered  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives on  the  14th  of  January,  iSo3.he  boasted  that  he 
was  of  that  number  who  had  opposed  abolitionism  or 
the  political  development  of  the  antislavery  sentiment 
of  the  North  and  West  from  the  beginning.  He  called 
it  the  development  of  the  spirit  of  intermeddling,  whose 
children  are  strife  and  murder.  He  said  :  u  On  the  14th 
of  April  I  believed  that  coercion  would  bring  on  war, 
and  war  disunion.  More  than  that,  I  believed,  what 
you  all  in  your  hearts  believe  to-day.  that  the  South 
could  never  be  conquered  —  never.  And  not  that  only, 
but  I  was  satisfied  .  .  .  that  the  secret  but  real  pur- 
pose of  the  war  was  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States,