"Mr. Chairman, this plan violates the Constitution of your country. It invades the rights of State governments. It is a direct infringement of their sovereignty. It concentrates all power in the general Government, and deprives the States of their necessary security. . . .

"Much less can I forget that the Governor of New York (Mr. Tompkins), who has lent himself to the administration as the pioneer of conscription, did pardon a horse-thief on condition that he should enlist. . . .

"I have followed four children to the tomb. Under present circumstances ought I repine at their loss? When I see the attempt to fasten this conscription on us ought I to regret that they have gone to heaven? My daughters, had they lived, might have been the mothers of conscripts; my sons might have been conscripts themselves. . . .

"

I have carefully examined this conscription question with all the seriousness and attention required by the solemnity of the occasion. I have exercised that small measure of talent which it has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon me, and I have arrived at this conclusion: the plan of conscription violates the Constitution; it trenches on the rights of the States, and takes from them their necessary security; it destroys all claim to personal freedom; it will poison all the comforts of this people. In this belief I have no hesitation to say that I think it will be resisted, and that it ought to be resisted."

Leading men of the Democratic party have carried into this war the same hostility to the draft that Judge Miller and his Federal associates in Congress carried into the war of 1812. There is this difference, however, and one by no means favorable to the opponents of the draft of the present day: Judge Miller's hostility to it was before it became a law; and his was a legitimate opposition, having for its purpose to prevent the adoption of the measure. On the other hand, those who follow in his footsteps resist the draft with all the moral power they can exert, in order to defeat the execution of a law definitively passed by both Houses of Congress. Judge Miller, as a Member of Congress and a part of the law-making power, had a perfect right to oppose the measure in debate and by his vote. But those who resist it when it has become a law not only violate one of the first duties of citizenship, but array themselves against the war, by attempting to defeat the execution of a measure so essential to success as the recruiting of our armies.

While it is the highest duty of the citizen in time of war to sustain the Government against the public enemy, there has been no epoch in the history of the Republic in which this obligation was more imperative than it is at the present moment. Not

only is our national existence threatened by the Southern insurrection, but our enemies abroad have been busy, while domestic discord has bound our hands, in violating the time-honored policy of the country. Spain has appropriated to herself another of the fertile islands of the Gulf. France has overthrown the authority of a neighboring republic, and is seeking to place an Austrian monarch on an American throne. Great Britain, forgetful of her history and her good faith, and reckless of international obligations, has become a secure base for naval enterprises by rebellious citizens to ravage our commerce and insult our flag. In view of these public wrongs, and of the day of reckoning which must come, it is no time for our citizens to relax their tics of allegiance, or to inculcate theories which strike at the foundation of the military power of the Government. On the contrary, it is the duty of the statesman who loves his country, and would resent her wrongs, to cherish and keep alive that spirit of devotion which will enable us to present against all foes, whether domestic or foreign, an unbroken front; to proclaim and to exemplify in his conduct the only doctrine worthy of a patriot-that in time of war the Government is entitled to the hearty and zealous support of the whole people against the common enemy.

Let me return a moment to the year 1814. Previous to the debates in Congress referred to, important movements were in progress in the State of New York. At a special session of the Legislature, called in the month of September by Governor Tompkins, before Mr. Monroe presented his plan for a draft, Mr. Van Buren, then a young member of the Senate, brought forward several measures to infuse new vigor into the prosecution of the war. The most prominent was a bill to place at the disposal of the general Government twelve thousand men for two years, to be raised by a classification of the militia of the State.

This measure encountered the most violent opposition from the Federal members of the Legislature; but it passed both houses, and became a law on the 24th of October, 1814, nine days after Mr. Monroe's plan was submitted to Congress. Of this bill Colonel Benton, in a letter to the Mississippi Convention in 1840, said that it was "the most energetic war measure ever adopted in this country."

Mr. Niles (see his "Register," vol. vii., Nov. 26, 1814) says:

"The great State of New York has taken a stand that says [to the Hartford Convention], thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And at page 123, same volume: "The Legislature adjourned on the 24th of October, after passing several acts of great importance. Among them is an 'act to raise twelve thousand men, to be paid, fed, and subsisted by the United States.' The men are to be raised by an equal classification, and are intended as a permanent force to relieve the militia," etc.

Thus it will be seen that the draft, which was proposed in Congress and adopted in New York, and which was denounced by the Federalists as a conscription, as unconstitutional, arbitrary, and tyrannical, had the support of Madison, Monroe, Tompkins, Van Buren, and other great men of the Democratic party; and had not the treaty of peace concluded at Ghent in December, 1814, put an end to the war, there is little doubt that this mode of replenishing the army would have been adopted in Congress, as it was in New York.

The course of those who are denouncing and resisting the measure now, in nearly the same manner and the same language as that in which the Federalists denounced it and its authors, Madison, Monroe, and Tompkins, is in great danger of placing the Democracy of the country in a position of open hostility to the Government and to one of its leading war measures. If this course is persisted in and sustained by the great body of the party, its downfall is certain. The danger can only be averted by an honest and unqualified support of the war. It is not enough to pass patriotic resolutions and declarations of principle. These are a mere deception unless they are followed up by consistent acts, and by putting forward as representative men those who have given evidence in their conduct that their hearts are in the great struggle in which the country is engaged for the preservation of its life. If this be not done, the Democracy will inevitably draw down upon itself the popular distrust which fell upon the Federal party at the close of the war of 1812, and rendered its resuscitation impossible. Into this abyss I will not consent to be dragged down. I have been all my life a member of the Democratic party. Its principles, as proclaimed by Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson, have always been, and ever will be, my guides; and while I do not deem it compatible with my military duties to take an active part in political con

tests, I shall do all in my power to rescue the party from the destruction with which it is menaced by the impolicy, the partisan spirit, and the want of patriotism by which some of its leading men are actuated, and to rally it, so far as my humble efforts avail, to the support of the Government and the preservation of the Union. If it cannot be saved, I will not be an agent in its downfall. But if it is doomed to succumb to the influence of unfaithful leaders and pernicious counsels, my hope still is, that the great body of its members will, before it is too late, reassert its ancient principles, and, combining with the conservative elements of the country, will resume its proper influence in the conduct of public affairs, and guide us, as in the better days of the Republic, under the sacred banner of constitutional liberty and law, in our majestic march to prosperity and power. I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOHN A. Dix.

Messrs. MATT. H. Carpenter, Levi Hubbell, C. D. ROBINSON.

The Hartford Convention and the Draft.

The address and resolutions of the Hartford Convention (referred to at Vol. II., page 92) are dated January 4th, 1814, and the following extract relates to the subject of the draft:

"The power of compelling the militia and other citizens of the United States, by a forcible draft or conscription, to serve in the regular armies, as proposed in a late official letter of the Secretary of War,* is not delegated to Congress by the Consti

*The Report referred to in the text contains the following passage: "The idea that the United States cannot raise a regular army in any other mode than by accepting the voluntary service of individuals, is believed to be repugnant to the uniform construction of all grants of powers, and equally so to the first principles and first objects of the Federal compact. An unqualified grant of power gives the necessary means to carry it into effect. This is a universal maxim, which admits of no exception. Equally true is it that the conservation of the State is a duty paramount to all others. The commonwealth has a right to the service of all its citizens; or, rather, the citizens composing the commonwealth have a right, collectively and individually, to the service of each other to repel any danger which may be menaced. The manner in which the service is to be apportioned among the citizens and rendered by them are objects of legislation."- JAMES MONROE's Report, as Secretary of War, October 17, 1814; Niles's "Annual Register," vol. vii., p. 138.

tution, and the exercise of it would be not less dangerous to their liberties than hostile to the sovereignty of the States. The effort to deduce this power from the right of raising armies is a flagrant attempt to pervert the sense of the clause in the Constitution which confers that right, and is incompatible with other provisions in that instrument. The armies of the United States have always been raised by contract, never by conscription, and nothing more can be wanting to a Government possessing the power thus claimed to enable it to usurp the entire control of the militia, in derogation of the authorities of the State, and to convert it by impressment into a standing army." -NILES'S Annual Register, vol. vii. (1814-'15).

IX.

(Vol. II., page 115.)

New York, December 15, 1864.

MY DEAR GENERAL,-May I ask you for two copies of your General Order No. 97 (I mean the order you issued in consequence of the decision of the Canadian judge releasing the robber-rebels).

Per

I desire to paste your order in my Schedarium Juris Gentium. Let me hope that you will excuse the trouble I give you. haps I ought to add that I desire the copies of your Order only if you have your Orders printed in the usual 8vo form; otherwise I can cut it out of the papers, which is, however, the thing I do not like.

One copy I desire to send to Heffter-the greatest international jurist on the continent of Europe.

With the highest regard, your obedient servant,

FRANCIS LIEBER

(No. 48 East 34th Street).

Major-general Dix, etc., etc., etc., New York.

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