Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1863-12-02
The Abuse of the 1npres.iag Power.

The Abuse of the Impressing Power.
The Act TO regulate impressments authorizes q
resort to that mode Of raising supplies for the army
only when they "cannot be otherwise procured"
1t is the evident design of the act to invest the mil
itary authorities, including the Secretary Of War,
with this power solely as . last resort All other
means of raising supplies to be tried and exhaus-
ted before is lawful to exercise this harsh power
of compulsion &
One means ofraisng supplies contemplated by the
act is the gathering in of its tithes by the Govern
ment In the natural order of things, this is the
first method of furnishing the army that is to be
avsied of by the authorities. 1t was thought, when
the law was passed. that these tithes would nearly
or quite supply the army. The estimate seemed
onetenth of the population and could not therefore
be expected to consume more than one-tenth OF the
production of the country But in the event of this
resource falling short Of the demands of the army
it contemplated by the act that the deficiency
would be made up by purchase-and it was sniy in
the event that both the thes and the ability to purs
chase had failed that the power to Impress accrued
We do not misstate the law. The officer who i'm
presses is required to certify over his official sigma
ture--that is, on his honor as an oficer-that, the
property impressed "could not be otherwise pro.
cured )" and the Secretary of War; before he can
authorize impressments to be made, has to be salts
/ fled that the article needed cannot be procured by
/ purchase" These two prerequisites having been
complied with, and it being apparent that neither
by the collection of its ttbes nor bv its efforts to
purchase can the Government supply itself with what
is necessary for the support of the army, the power
to impress may be lawfully resorted to. Before
these two resources exhausted, there is no au
thorty to use this power, and any resort to it can
not be otherwise than arbitrary and illegal
Have the Secretary of War and his subordinates
acted up to the requirements of the law in this par
ticular? Have they tried and exhausted all means
of raising supplies before resortng to impressment?
Have they gathered their tthes and ascer:aned that
they inadequate? Have they offered to purchase
in all cases before mpressingY Did Mr.. Taylor Ber-
~ first visit every farmer in amherst and offer to
buy his produce, and did each and every one of
these farmers refuse to SELL before he served his lm
| pressing order on them? Was this the course and
this the experience of the impressing agents IN
! Buckingham and Albenlarle in which counties, we
have the assurance of the Sentinel the Government
officials have locked up everything, just as Mr. Ber.
| ry did in Amherstf
Unless such offers to purchase were made and re.
fused, we undertake to say that the law has been
violated. If there in either of these counties
single farmer who did not refuse to sell, and he
was embraced in the general notification of impress
ment, we undertake to say that as to him the law
| was violated-and the law a6ixes penalty to any
single violation. Is it conceivable that these far
mers, than whom there none more public.
spirited in the State all refused to sell for the
of the army articles necessary its subsistence p
No population in Virginia has contributed more
largely of its numbers to swell the ranks of the
army than these counties Many of the noblest
regiments that bear the victorious banners of Gen.
eral Lee have gone from the red hills q QAmherst,
Albemarle and Buckingham. Is itimaginable that
their fathers and brothers and friends at home have
| L. Al E. IL f.
thersupports The Secretary of War may think
so, DR.. Northrop (if he ever thnks) may think So
we do not! So far from being justifedzn so derog
atory and unnatural suppositlon, we have public
evidence tothe contrary In each of these countless
the citizens had, in general meeting, by formal re-
solutions, made known to the Secretary of War
their willingness to sell everything not needed for
their own consumption, at the prices fixed by the
/ Government Commissioners. They were not only
bound by patriotism and by ties of blood, but also
by voluntary and solemn commttal to sell to the
Government all that they could part with, that was
needed for the army. They stood ready to meet
their obligation. How. then, can the impressing
agents in these counties certify, on their honor as
officers and gentlemen that the supplies held there
"could not be procured otherwise" than by i'm
pressment? And how can the Secretary of War,
in view OF his responsibility to the country and to
his own conscience, say that the taking of this
private property was rendered necessary "by rea-
son of the impracticability of procuring the same
by purchase"
We repeat either the farmers of the counties
named (and they are not aD ave refused to sell to
the Government--or these inpressments are arbi.
trary and violatiye of law. We leave to the proper
authorities to ascertain where the responsibility lies
and to enforce the proper penalty.-Rich. Whig.
Extract from letter to the Editor of the Stand
ard dated
CAMP NEAR ORANGE G. H., Nov. IA, '63.
"a majority of the members Of this, the 22d
regiment, are with you in every respect The
great meeting held in this regiment for the pur-
pose Of suppressing your paper, was one of the
grandest humbuss ever gotten up. Not more than
dozen soldiers had any thing to do with it; and
while the meeting was progressing certain Cap
tain said if there were any men in the regiment
who endorsed W. W. Holden, he wanted to know
who they were, when suddenly some one knocked
out the light, and more than hundred men hur-
rahed for Holden and the Standard. The late
election in the army prooes that we are with you.
That magnificent Army Convention now stands
exposed in its true colors A majority of the sol
diers and people have placed upon it the seal Of
condemnation. Its President, Col. Bryan Grimes,
announced himself candidate for Congress in an
ultra Destructive District and the reception he met
from the people and the soldiers was so cold that
he retired from the contest and did not risk poll
"Truth crushed to earth will rise again,
The eternal years IF God are hers
But Error, wounded writhes in pain,
20 And dies amid her worshipers."
PRINTERS AND THE WAR--No class of men is
more fully represented, and none have displayed