Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1862-09-03
The Conscription Law,


moved on Friday last in the Senate to strike out of
the amendment to the substitute bill the provision
tnat persons owning fifty slaves should alone be
entitled, with certain mechanics, to employ substi
tutes. We agree with Mr.. Dortch and Mr.. Phelan |
that such provision in the law would be exceed
lngy Objectionable and that all legislation on this
and other subjects should be equal and uniform.
We admit that it is difficult to amend the con.
scription law so as to give satisfaction to all but
this difficulty arises mainly out of the fact that the
law itself is not bottomed in justice the Constitu
ton, or the habits Of our people We think it
ought to stand for the most part it is, and that
the Congress should resort to the old american
mode of raising troops. Consumption laws are the
growth of other and despotic soils. They are not
native to our soil They foreign to the habits
of our people, who have always been accustomed
to volunteering and the draft. Our armies must be
maintained at their present number or increased if
necessary; and we will gQsfurther and say, that if
the emergency should require it, eoery man oho
bear arms should be summoned to the ed for if
we are defeated IN this struggle, every thing valua-
BILE to US will be lost and lost rretrevably; but it
is our deliberate opinion that the Confederate Gov
eminent can obtain as many soldiers as it wants,
and better soldiers than conscripts will make, by
volunteering or by draft. Let tho States be called
on for troops to fill up their regiments and let them,
as States respond. Let the right-the Constitu.
tutionat right be restored to them of appointing
their own officers to command their own troops;
and let these troops, when transferred to the COM
mon government be welded and directed by that
government In its own way for the common defence
Let the common government resort to bounties and
pensions to encourage volunteering. A permanent
funded debt of twenty-five or thirty millions incur
red to pay pensions to such of our soldiers as may
lose an arm, or leg or their eyesght, by disease
or battle or whose health may be broken down for
life, would scarcely be felt by our people in the
midst of the prosperity which will follow lasting
peace; and the annual interest on such debt
would be paid by our citizens to the last dollar with
patriotic cheerfu'ness. Such law, too, while it
would greatly facilitate volunteering, would give
assurance to our brave boys that the Republic re-
CARDS them as her children, by providing for them
when disabled in her service; and this assurance
would attach them to the government with renewed
ardor. But whether pensions be granted or not, i:
is the right of the government call on the States
for troops, and it is the duty of the States to re.
spond. We believe this State, if volunteers had
been called for instead of conscripts, would have
had ten thousand more men in the field than she
has now.
| We observe that one of the amendments made by
the Senate to the law, provides that if substitute
deserts the service his principal shall take his place
This strikes us strange enactment. 1t was in
tended to remedy the evil of desertion by substi-
tntes, many of whom are foreigners; but how can
the principal answer for the fidelity of his substi-
tute after ne has passed out O. his hands into the
army, any more than he can for his life in battle?
| He can have more control over his mind than he
can over his body, to shield him from death, and
thus preserve him to the government as his substi
tute. The amendment must have been designed to
abolish entirely the substitute feature for persons
will not be likely to pay their money for substitutes
with the certainty that if they desert they will have
to take their places.
| But while we make these observations it is not
our purpose, by the remotest inference, to justify
resistance to- evasion of, the present law. 1t is
the law of the land and, such it must be obeyed
until repealed or modified