Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-07-16

dangerous attacks.
In the latter part Of May last it was unoficially
announced that the Secretary Of War had decided
would practically ignore of its provisions The
announcement clearly unauthorized, but such
is the dislocation of legal ideas wrought in the
minds Of many by the /" force of events" that
there those who refused to see in this alleged
decision of the Secretary any thing more than an
administrative ruling to be Judged according to
notions of conceived military expediency rather
than by its conformity or want of conformity to
the statutes of the land We protested at the time
against this low utilitarian view of public policy,
and when the Washington correspondent of lead
ing New York journal announced on the 26th of
May that it was then "pretty certain that the en-
rolment act would be carried out according to the
letter OF the law" because prominent gentlemen
from New York and Pennsylvania had made re-
presentations to the President and the War Depart
ment that any thing looking at all like an attempt
to evade plain provision of the act would have
damaging effect among the people," we felt it
timely to express dissent from this mode of treat
ing such questions. We said:
I'VE dislike to see such statements made with regard
to the execution Of the enrolment law any other law
of the land 1t ought to be certain and not pretty
tain that all laws will be carried out according to their
letter, construed and interpreted by the courts. In
the case of statute plain that portion of the enroll
ment law which regulates the procuraon Of substitutes or
the payment OF specified sum in Communication for mill
ary SERVICE there has BEEN we are sure any occa
sion for the representations alleged to have been made
the President the Secretary of War in depreciation Of
any thing looking like attempt to evade plain prov
sion of the act and hope that the correspondent does
not to insinuate that it is pretty certain the
law will be carried out according to it's letter and the in
enon Of it's trainers only because Of the discovery that
contrary would have damaging effect among
the people, The dissemination of such loose ideas with
regard to the functions of the Executive branch of the
Government in administering the laws argues either great
careessness Of speech marks great deterioration in
popular notions of official duty and official RESPONSE
bility under Government of laos"
In view of the maxims habitually enforced by us,
our readers do not need to be informed how we re-
gard the present rotous proceedings in the city of
New York directed against the execution of the
enrolment law. We know the excuses and palia-
tons which will be urged by heated partsans in
explanation if not in defence of such outrages.
We shall be told that the Administration has Justly
forfeited the confidence of the people by its demon
strated incapacity to apply successfully the trea
sures of life and money already placed at its dis
posa, that it has treacherously changed the theory
and object of the war, that 1T has sought to COM
pass the degradation of poor white men by reducing
them in the ranks of the army to an equality with
the negro race, and that the law which prescribes
and regulates the enrolment makes an odious dis
tinction between the rich man who can purchase
his exemption and the poor man who must pay the
dreadful "impost Of blood" We have already
heard these allegations brought forward, not in the
way of that candid and patriotic discussion which
looks to the formation of an enlightened public
opinion as the corrective of policy conceived to
be false, but with passionate invective and words
of railing stimulating of the baser sort to deeds
of violence. 1t is thus that extremes beget ex-
tremes, until in the oscillations of passion, svayng
now in this direction and now in that, the whole
fabric of social order is shaken to its base not only
on the wide area of national polty, but within
the narrow boundaries of municipal law.
Even in time of peace great cities often become,
as Mr. Jefferson called them, "great sores on the
body polite" The morbid humors which infect
society are here brought to the surface and spread
by contagion Popular discontents here easily
come to head, and expose at once their nature
and their viruence. In other parts of the country
there have been desultory attacks on the enrolling
officers of the War Department. 1t is in the city
of New York that the first attempt at organized re-
sistance has been made.
The duty of the Government in this exigency is
plain. The law must be enforced if it is not 10y
ally obeyed. There is no other alternative. In q
government OF aacs there can be no other, and if
nation of freemcn will not submit to be governed
by the arbitrary will of few in public place, just
as little can they submit to be governed by the
caprices of that many-headcd monster, the mob!
Let all those in Office stand by the law which girds
them with strength, and let the people learn that
in this day of giddness and revolt the only stability
of our times is to be found in loyal obedience to
lawful authority. 1t was said many years ago by
that mocker at free government, Thomas Carlyle,
that our political institutions were anarchy, plus
constable" At the present time, when our con-
stabulary force has taken on the form of vast
armies, organized for the enforcement of the laws