The Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1859-1865, 1865-02-16
The Consumption LaHs---Let-
ter from Governor Curtin to
President Lincoln.

The following is Governor Curtin s
letter to the President, complaining Of
the injustice done Pennsylvania in the
matter of the quota assigned her under
the draft. AS State paper, involving a
discussion of the law, the examination OF
practical question, and "a plain state
ment of facts, it IS unrivalled =
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, HARRIsBURG, I
January 26, 1865.
To The President
SIR The act of the Sd of March,
1868, commonly called the Enrolment
Act, provided (sec.ion - that for the
purposes of the act, each Congressional
district of the respective States should
form district, and (seetion ID that all
persons enrolled should be subject to be
called into the military service of the Uni
ted States, and to continue In service
during the present rebellion, not, however,
exceeding the term of three years, and
further, (section 12,) that in assigning to
the districts the number of men to be fur
nished therefrom, the President should
take into consideration the number of vol
unteers and militia by ard from the sew
eral States in which said districts were
situated, and the period of their service
since the commencement of the rebellion,
and should so make said assignments as
to equaize the numbers among the dis
tricts of the several States, considering q
and allowing for the numbers already fur
nished as aforesaid, and the time of their
service.
The time of actual service which by this
act you were directed to consider aud al
low for could not, without impracticable
labor, Cor indeed at all, be fixed with
exactitude for each district, but it could
have easily been SO approximated by av-
erages that little, if any, practical injustice
would have been done. The commence
ment Of the third year of the war was
close at hand at the passage of the act.
1t would not have been difficult to ascer-
tain, of one thousand men enlisted for
three years, what was the average num-
Der that remained actually in the service
at the end of the first and second years
respectively, and thus the act could have
been substantially complied with. For
instance, suppose it to have been found
that of one thousand men enlisted for
tEree years, there remained In the service
an average of forty per cent. at the close
of the first year, and twenty per cent. at
the close of the second year. The result
would have been, under the provisions of
the act, that sixteen hundred one-year's
men would have been taken as the equiv
alent of one thousand three-years' men.
Unfortunately, the heads of bureaus, to
whom the matter seems to have been Ell
trusted, began by falling into strange
misconstruction OF the act. They did, in
effect, strike from the twelfth section the
phrases "period of their service" and
"time of their service" and insert in lieu
thereof the phrase "term Of their enlist
ment," and then proceeded to apportion
credits by multiplying the number of men
furnished from district by the number
of years for which they were enlisted
Calculations made on this basis were, Of
course, most cxtravagant, and the people
everywhere felt that somehow injustice
was being done. La the attempt to soften
this, numerous and contradictory orders
bave been issued from the Provost Mar
shall Generals Office, and long essays by
himself and others have been in vain pub
lished to explain and justify their action.
In fact, as soon as they get beyond the
morally certain limit of the actual service
of the man, their calculation has no lon
ger practical basis Its principle, car
ried to Legitimate extreme, would justify
the enlistment of one man for fifty thous-
and years, and crediting him as the whole
quota of the State, with small excess.
Surely every reasonable man can say
for himself whether he has found that
getting one pair of boots for three years
is practically equivalent to getting three
pair of boots for one year.
The visionary character of the system
on which they have proceeded cannot be
better illustrated than by the result at
which they have arrived on the present
occasion. The quota Of Pennsylvania on
the last call was announced to DE sixty-one
seven hundred her quota to
make up deficiencies under that call was
to be sixty-six thousand nine
hundred and ninety-nine. On the 24th
instant, it was announced that the quota
of tie Western Division had, on revision,
been fixed at twenty-five thousand five
hundred and forty-three, which would
make that of the whole State about forty
four thousand; and late on the same day
u was further announced that the quota
Of the Western Division was twenty-five
five hundred and twelve, and