The Portland daily press., 1863-07-07
UNION NOMINATION.
FOR GOVERNOR,
SAMUEL CONY


Under the pretence of equalizing the burden
imposed upon the people by the CONSUMPTION
act of the last Congress, systematic ehort
has been made to defeat the purpose oil that
act. We noticed last winter the inception OF
this movement 1t is now tottering into the
pit of infamous oblivion, which awaits it and
its instgators. The unanimous decision of
the Supreme Judges of this State confirms
the general belief, that towns have no authori-
ty to relieve their citizens of the debt of mill
tary service, and that capitalists who advance
money for such purposes will find serious diff
fculty in recovering it.
1t is true, and yesterdays Argus urges the
precedent, that the bounties offered and paid
last year to volunteers were raised by the
towns without authority and their doings We're
afterwards confirmed by special legislative
enactment. But the two cases are unlike in
one important particular. The bounties were
paid last year in furtherance Of the plans that
Government which has higher claims to our
faithful support than under any preceding
administration. The communications are to be
paid for the cypress purpose Of defeating the
plans Of the same Government And this
Government, again-what is it but the repre-
sentative of the people without whose support
it is powerless? The people will hardly per-
init their own Government to be cheated of
the means to carry out their own purposes.
Just now, at least, when good news of vic
tory all along the line from the Mississippi to
the Potomac, comes hourly throbbing along
the Geographic wires, the men who seek to
defraud the nation OF its well earned need of
glory by setting its citizens in an attitude of
cowardly recusance toward the first duty of
citizenship, are certainly not wise as serpents,
though they may be harmless as doves through
sheer impuissance.
Says the Argus,-"The Administration seeks
ito raise men by law. The law is fully COM
1plied with and it gets no men. These results
twill not be the fault of the citizens, but the
"fault of the law" This is lawyers reasoning,
unworthy Of the occasion and the hour. The
case does not merely concern this or that in
diyidnal, who would willingly by some tech
ice which he owes to his country. The ques-
ton is Shall the will of the people be defeated
by such scoundrels? For it is not the Admin
istration, but the people through their repre-
sentatives in Congress assembled, who voted
to submit to this CONSUMPTION and are fully
prepared for it. They mean to raise men by
law, and they will not consent to authorize
after the fact any stretch of town authority
expressly calculated to defeat their intent. If
the law is fully complied with, the men will
be forthcoming. The Communication of the
debt of military service for three hundred dol
lars is merely designed, as the editors of the
Argus well know but many of their readers
do MOTTO prevent an excessive rise in the price
of substitutes and not at all to provide money
for the Government Unless every aqle bodied
man, who is drafted, must go into the army
this restriction upon the demands Of substi-
tutes is, and has everywhere been found to be
a necessity.
One word more. What are we to think ola
sheet, which urges its readers TO adopt course
y which, it admits that the Administration
may get no men, and defends that course by,
falsely alleging that the fault will not be theirs
the Argus desires to make for itself in these
days? While the Democrats of New York and
New Jersey are in arms on the Pennsylva-
mia border, are those who claim the same name
here incapable of any manly emotion? Are
we to have after their hysterical terror at
Lees frantic invasion, nothing better than
pulling sentimentalism about the hardships of
CONSUMPTION?