In seasons of public danger compulsory military service, of which the draft is the mildest and most equitable form, has been resorted to in England, for the army as well as the navy, in nearly every eventful reign, from the time of William the Conqueror down to George the Fourth. It has been enforced by the King's prerogative, and by statute law: it was regulated by the Parliament under Charles the First, and by the Parliament under Oliver Cromwell, after Charles was beheaded. One of their acts elicited an encomium from Hallam, in his "Constitutional History of England." It was adopted in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia under the Colonial regime, and continued after they had thrown off their allegiance to the British crown. It had the leading features of the present draft -substitutes and pecuniary contribution as a commutation for personal service. It was continued by the United States, under the Articles of Confederation, till Congress, under the Constitution, was invested with the unlimited power to "raise and support armies." It is peculiarly and pre-eminently an AngloSaxon method of providing for great public emergencies; but in the heat of party strife men become as untrue to history as they are to the duties of citizenship.

In this State the denunciations hurled against the present draft by the Press, and by men high in position, led to the most disgraceful riot known to the history of the country, in which hundreds of lives were lost, and delayed the execution of the measure for a period which will not fall short of two months. If the law had been cheerfully obeyed, if those who have been busy in denouncing it had been as earnest in their appeals to the patriotism of the people to carry it out, a great public dishonor would probably have been averted, and Lee's army, the last dependence of the insurgents, might ere this have been hopelessly crippled or dispersed.

From the period of the Confederation this mode of replenishing the army has been called a draft, and the men enrolled for service drafted men. The Federalists, in 1814, gave it, in order to render it odious, the name of conscription. The same course is adopted by its enemies now. Some who are supporters of the law have, it is true, with a looseness of expression by no means creditable to them, applied to it the term by which it was stigmatized by the enemies of the Democracy in the war

of 1812; but it is unknown to the law and to the instructions of the Government, and a persistence in the use of a term which suggests the severe French system of compulsion, and keeps out of view the comparatively mild Anglo-Saxon draft, cannot be dictated by a patriotic motive.

In 1814, after the desperate contests on the Niagara frontier, when it became necessary to fill up the ranks of the army, and when volunteering, as now, had become an uncertain reliance, Mr. Monroe, then acting Secretary of State and Secretary of War, and afterward President of the United States, proposed several plans, one of which, and the most prominent, was a draft. Mr. Madison, who was President, referred to it in terms of approval in his Message to Congress.

Mr. Monroe, in his letter to the Committee of the House of Representatives, defended the measure in a clear and unanswerable argument, from which there is room only for the following extracts:

"In proposing a draft, as one of the modes of raising men in case of actual necessity in the present great emergency of the country, I have thought it my duty to examine such objections to it as occurred, particularly those of a constitutional nature. It is from my sacred regard to the principles of our Constitution that I have ventured to trouble the Committee with any remarks on this part of the subject. . . .

"Congress have a right by the Constitution to raise regular armies, and no restraint is imposed in the exercise of it, except in the provisions which are intended to guard generally against the abuse of power, with none of which does this plan interfere. . . .

...

"An unqualified grant of power gives the means necessary to carry it into effect. This is a universal maxim, which admits of no exception. . . . "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 plan proposed is not more compulsive than the militia service."

These extracts indicate the tone of the argument in favor of the constitutionality of the measure, as well as its necessity, its propriety, and its justice.

The measure was immediately assailed as unconstitutional by the leading Federalists in Congress. It was denounced as an odious conscription, and in much the same language as its opponents denounce it now. Jeremiah Mason, of New Hampshire

admitted to have been the ablest Federal Senator in Congress at that time-spoke against it.

Mr. Goldsborough, a Federal Senator from Maryland, said:

"A few years past, and the name of conscription was never uttered but it was coupled with execration. Last year it found its way into a letter from the Secretary at War to the Chairman of the Military Committee, and it was then so odious that it was but little exposed to view. This year we have conscription openly recommended to us by the Secretary at War [Mr. Monroe] in an official paper; and, worst of all, it finds champions and advocates on this floor."

In the House of Representatives, Mr. Cyrus King, a Federal Member from Massachusetts, said:

"James Madison, President of the United States, is the father of this system of conscription for America, as his unfortunate friend Bonaparte was of that of France. This he announced in his Message, before referred to, as follows: 'I earnestly renew, at the same time, a recommendation of such changes in the system of militia as, by classing and disciplining for the most prompt and active service the portions most capable of it, will give to that great resource for the public safety all the requisite energy and efficiency.'

"His plans, therefore, substantially embraced by these conscription bills, were afterward submitted to Congress by his Secretary of War, James Monroe, and by him attempted to be recommended to the American people by the plea of necessity:

'So spake the fiend, and with necessity,

The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.'

"Your President farther says, in the same Message: 'We see the people rushing with enthusiasm to the scenes where danger and duty call. In offering their blood they give the surest pledge that no other tribute will be withheld.' If this be true, Sir, where is the necessity of violating the Constitution to impose on the people a military despotism and French conscription?"

Mr. Morris S. Miller, a distinguised Federal Member from Utica, said:

"The plan which gentlemen wish adopted is conscription. They call it classification and penalty-classification and draft. Sir, there is poison in the dish-garnish it as you please, there is poison still. You call it classification. . . . The times demand that things should be called by their right names-this is conscription, and with features more hideous than are to be found in the exploded system of our unfortunate cousin of Elba. ...

"What are the plans by which you intend to fill your army? I object to them all, as unconstitutional and inexpedient. They all look to force, and you have no right to raise an army except by voluntary enlistment....

"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 ties 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: