The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-07-25

into the vortex of Rebellion. To ma,nta;,,
that the Federal Government has mo ofba-
| resource than dependence on the State an
thorities is to arm those authorities with
power to destroy the Union. 1t ia to ena.
bic the authorities Of each State to repnI;-
ate at will the Federal obligations of said
State, and thus impose on part of the
Union duties, lsbors, sacrifices, that Justly
devolve on the whole. 1t is to paralyze
and imperil the Union with the fatal yices
OF a mere alliance or confederacy.
All the quibbles and cavils with regard
| to the COnsoription act Of the late Congress
| amount TO nothing ifyou admit the right of
! the imperiled country to the best services
fall her citizens.
And, indeed VIII en- you probe these cavils
to the bottom, you find that they all have
their source and impulsein sympathy with
Rebels, and repugnance to their utter de-
| feat and downfall. You never saw a man
raving about the Draft, who was a hearty,
thorough, outspoken enemy OF the Slave
holders Rebellion. Cure a man of all
liking for that, and you have vanquished
his prejudice against the Conscription
"Ah but the $500 exemptioni" say the
Copperheads; 1--WE could stand the Draft if
| it We're not for the exemption
! Why, Sirs! when Secretary Stanton a
few weeks since, undertook TO set this ex-
emption aside, your organs at once chang
| ed their tune and protested against any
overrullng OF that exemption. Right or
wrong" they screamed in chorus ''that is
| port Of the law, and must be respected as
such. SO Secretary Stanton had to give
way. .ss
| 1t may have been unwise 10 adopt pe-
cunlary payment instead of military SER
! vice, but that clause can in no case inyaii-
| date the law. If it did, you might assert
| that fining man who had committed an
| assault was authorizing men OF means to
| commit assaults with perfect impunity.
But 1t was not unWise If YOU consider
only the requirements of the exigency.
The Government needs soldiers, and makes
| a draft to supply its want. All men who
come within the preseri bed conditions,
| take their chances Of being drafted. Some
are drafted whose absence il the field
| would throw a hundred times their num-
! Der out of work, and derange the whole in
dustrial machinery OF their respective
communities. Many are drafted whom
the Government itself cannot spare from
the cannon-casting, gunboat-buil &C.,
&C., wherein they are now rendering it far
| greater and more indispensable service
than they could in the field. Al all times,
IN all times, our Government like most if
not all others, has allowed men drafted to
serve it in the field to send substitutes in
their own stead. And this they would
have done under the present draft had
there been no $500 exemption.
rms exemption, then, amounts to just
thlS-IHe Government choose 10 hire and
pack substitutes for ftSetj, t7aStectG Of Ledviag
the choice TO those Ua0 pay the money. For
their interest in the matter is directed to
getting the cheapest substitute whom the
government will take, while the Govern
ment naturally wishes to secure the best
substitutes whose services the money will
buy. In other words: the Government
proposes to secure trained, veteran soldiers
as substitutes so far as it can, and good
men at all events; while the drafted mans
interest lies in quite another direction.
But the $500 clause is right and wise in
that it stops all brokerage or speculation
IN substitutes, and fixes the cost of exemp-
ton within the means of al whose services
are indispensable 10 the business or indus
try of the country. We shall have better
soldiers than if there were no such clause:
while fewer men viii be drawn away to
tight who can be more serviceabie to the
country in their spheres of peaceful labor
than they could be in the camp.
Wise or unwise, laws are laws and must
be obeyed. And it is u monstrous assump-
ton that this law is to be defied and set at
| nauSht until a case involving it's constitu-
tionality can be carried through all the
lower Courts up to the Supreme Bench at
| Washington. That we have one-horse
Judges who will pronounce this or any
| other law unconstitutional that darkens
the prospects of their friend JEFF. Davis, is
notorious; bat their GictG, whether pro-
nOunced in cOurt-roOmS, in bar-rooms, or
| on the steps of houses which their "frinds''
| are sacking and firing, are not conclusive.
They indicate the current OF their sympa-
| thies, and that is all.
Fellow-citizens! stand 10y the lawsi-N.
| Y. Tribune.