CONGRESS, U. S. 



285 



drafted may be exempt from service either by 

 furnishing a substitute or by paying a sum of 

 money not exceeding $300. Now I think it 

 very necessary that the amount to be paid shall 

 be fixed by law. I know that in my district, 

 at the last draft, men who, from conscientious 

 scruples, could not and would not go, who 

 would rather become martyrs than serve, were 

 so imposed upon by substitute brokers, that 

 some of them were compelled to pay as high 

 as $1,500 for substitutes. I am informed that 

 some of these substitute brokers in my own 

 and adjacent counties cleared as high as $10,- 

 000 each by trafficking in this business of hir- 

 ing substitutes for their neighbors. It is wrong 

 that men who are entitled to exemption at all 

 should be subjected to these impositions and 

 these extortions. I do not know whether the 

 sum fixed upon is high enough or not. I sup- 

 pose it is, but it is very important that some 

 limitation should be fixed. 



"But there is a portion of this provision 

 which I do not and cannot assent to. By this 

 law, every man,, whether he has any conscien- 

 tious scruples or not, who chooses to raise 

 $300, and pay it into the Treasury, may refuse 

 to serve his country. I do not recognize the 

 propriety of conferring such a right. There 

 are in all countries exemptions for conscience, 

 sake, and it is right that there should be. In my 

 own county, a very large number of our best 

 citizens, our most loyal men, are conscientious- 

 ly opposed to bearing arms. They are willing 

 to pay their taxes. They would be willing to 

 pay this amount to procure substitutes, but I 

 do not believe that they should be forced to 

 violate their conscientious and religious scru- 

 ples, which have existed from their birth, and 

 which have descended to them from their an- 

 cestors." 



Mr. Thomas, of Massachusetts, was in favor 

 of the passage of the bill, saying : " Now, sir, a 

 word or two as to the necessity of this bill. 

 "VVe have been asked over and over again what 

 is the necessity for it, and what has caused that 

 necessity. Well, sir, I think I could give some 

 reasons for its necessity. I do not think that 

 you can at this moment obtain volunteers to 

 fill up your army. The clamor of this House, 

 and the clamor of the Democratic party out of 

 the House, have so frightened a timid Senate 

 that it has not dared to pass the bill which this 

 House sent to it, which would have supplied 

 the deficiency and given us half a million of 

 recruits. We must, therefore, do without that 

 bill, and the passage of this bill is now the only 

 remedy that I see for the evil. There are 

 reasons why we cannot procure volunteers. 

 Had we been united in wishing honestly to put 

 down this rebellion, had the Whigs, the Ee- 

 publicans, and the Democrats of the Free States 

 acted with an honest instead of a pretended 

 desire to crush this rebellion, and united in 

 urging on the people the necessity, propriety, 

 and duty of sustaining the Government, there 

 would have been no more necessity for this 



bill now than there was when the first call was 

 made. 



" But, sir, it is a fact not to be disputed, that 

 for the last six or nine months a whole party, 

 a strong party, has deliberately entered into 

 a combination to discourage, to prevent, and, 

 as far as in it lay, to prohibit the volunteering 

 of the people of the country as soldiers in our 

 army. Members of that party have gone from 

 house to house, from town to town, and from 

 city to city, urging their brethren not to enlist 

 in the armies of the nation, and giving them 

 all sorts of reasons for that advice. One of 

 these reasons is that it was an abolition war ; 

 that it was ' a war for the nigger,' as the slang 

 phrase is. 



" Mr. Speaker, this is a terrible bill ; terrible 

 in the powers it confers upon the executive, 

 terrible in the duty and burden it imposes upon 

 the citizen. I meet the suggestion by one as 

 obvious and cogent, and that is that the exigen- 

 cy is a terrible one, and calls for all the powers 

 with which the Government is invested. Some 

 of the features of the bill my judgment con- 

 demns, unhesitatingly condemns. 



" The period for which the service is required 

 is unreasonably long. I think the enrollment 

 should'not include judges of the State courts, or 

 ministers of the gospel of peace, or members of 

 Congress of either branch, though .the inclu- 

 sion of members of Congress would be, I think, 

 simply void. I earnestly object, also, to the 

 provision of the bill for the arrest of civilians 

 by the military power ; but I understand that 

 gentlemen upon my right will consent to an 

 amendment which will strike that feature from 

 the bill. But excepting these objections, I 

 think the bill is within the scope of the Consti- 

 tution, and necessary. 



"I do not rest the power of Congress to 

 pass this bill upon the provisions of the Con- 

 stitution in relation to the militia. I put it up- 

 on the simple and clear provision which gives 

 to Congress the 'power to raise and support 

 armies,' and upon the absence of any provision 

 of the Constitution which limits or restricts 

 that power. In the nature of things, there 

 can be no such limitation. The powers of 

 Congress, within the scope of the Constitution, 

 are supreme, and strike directly to the subject 

 and hold him in its firm, its iron grasp. I re- 

 peat what at an early day I asserted upon this 

 floor, that there is not a human being within 

 the territory of the United States, black or 

 white, bond or free, whom this Government 

 is not capable of taking in its right hand and 

 using for its military service whenever the de- 

 fence of the country requires, and of this Con- 

 gress alone must judge. The question of use 

 is a question of policy only. 



" Having the power to raise and support 

 armies, and the exigency existing in which the 

 use of that power is necessary, the question 

 arises whether the powers given to Congress 

 with respect to the militia, qualify and restrain 

 the power to raise and support armies. Very 



