CONGRESS, F. S. 



319 



organized and armed to fight the battles of our 

 country/' 



Several sections of the bill relating to boun- 

 ties, were thus disposed of, and the bill itself 

 was laid on the table. Subsequently a joint 

 resolution was passed to continue the bounties. 



The Senate, on January 8th, proceeded to 

 consider the bill to amend the " Act for enrol- 

 ling and calling out the national forces." Sev- 

 eral amendments were considered, one of which 

 was the following, reported by the Committee 

 on Military Atfairs : 



And be it furtlier enacted; That so much of the act 

 entitled "An act for enrolling and calling out the 

 national forces and for other purposes," approved on 

 the 3d day of March, ISoS, as authorizes the dis- 

 charge of persons drafted into the service of the 

 United States under the authority of that act, upon 

 the payment of a sum of money not exceeding $300, 

 be, and the same is hereby repealed. 



Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, offered an 

 amendment to this amendment, which he thus 

 explained: "This proposition, as I have said, 

 contains three different elements : first, that no 

 person shall be allowed to furnish a substitute ; 

 secondly, fixing the minimum commutation ab- 

 solutely at $300 ; and, thirdly, adding to that 

 commutation money of $300 a ratable sum ac- 

 cording to the income of the person drafted, 

 yet the single object of the whole proposition 

 is to establish a ratable contribution according 

 to income, which every drafted man shall pay. 

 That is not only the central idea of the propo- 

 sition, but it is the single object of the proposi- 

 tion, to which all the other parts of it are 

 subordinate. 



"It will be observed that it will be practi- 

 cally impossible to require this ratable contri- 

 bution, unless you declare that no person shall 

 be allowed to furnish a substitute, and there 

 will also be a practical difficulty in the way of 

 it if you do not fix the standing sum at $300, 

 not leaving it to be varied in the discretion of 

 the Secretary. I have, therefore, in preparing 

 this proposition, introduced these two other 

 elements as simply subordinate to the main 

 proposition, the object being, in one word, to 

 equalize the burden of this commutation where 

 a person is drafted, that it may at least seem to 

 be more equal even if it be not really more 

 equal, and that, in one word, it may be popular- 

 ized to the country. 



" Some persons have said to me that I pro- 

 posed to require a very large sum from certain 

 persons who may be drafted, but I ask Senators 

 whether any sum which is reasonable can be 

 too large for a man of wealth to contribute if 

 he should be drafted. Take, for instance, a 

 man who has an income of $5,000, or of 

 $10,000 if you will, what is the commutation 

 money of $300 to him ? It is nothing. What 

 is an additional sum of ten per cent., or twenty 

 per cent., on that income? I say again, it is 

 absolutely nothing as a commutation for the 

 Bervice which the country has a right to ex- 



pect from him. He escapes from the hazard 

 of wounds, of disease, and of death, and he 

 also secures to himself the full employment of 

 his time during the period of one, two, or three 

 years for which he may be drafted. Is there 

 any thing that he can reasonably pay which 

 can be considered as too much ? " 



Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, said: "I 

 think the amendment of the Senator from Mas- 

 sachusetts goes upon a wrong theory. The 

 Government asked for men, and we passed the 

 enrolment law, and we inserted the commuta- 

 tion clause to relieve some people and enable 

 them to get substitutes ; but the idea was that 

 the men should be furnished to the Govern- 

 ment ; that a man should either go himself or 

 furnish a substitute, or give the Government 

 money enough to obtain a substitute for him. 

 The Senator's amendment strikes at all idea of 

 a man's getting a substitute for himself, and 

 puts it entirely into the hands of the Govern- 

 ment. The idea of the bill was that a man 

 should pay. not a percentage of his income, be 

 he rich or be he poor, but should pay the Gov- 

 ernment enough to get a substitute, not exceed- 

 ing $300. The bill declares that the money is 

 to be applied for the purpose of getting a sub- 

 stitute. If the Senator's amendment be adopt- 

 ed, you take from every individual the chance 

 of getting a substitute for himself, and leave it 

 entirely for the Government. 



"The operation of the bill in my section of 

 the country was that a great many men who 

 were drafted felt an inclination to go, or to 

 furnish somebody for the service where they 

 could not well go themselves. They said, ' We 

 will not pay this $300 ; we do not want to shirk 

 it ; it is not the money we care for ; but we 

 will put something else to the $300, and get a 

 substitute, and put him into the army for us, so 

 that the Government shah 1 have a man.' The 

 result was, in my State, that we furnished 

 more men under the draft than any other State 

 in the Union; we furnished fifty per cent, of 

 the call." 



Mr. Sumner subsequently modified his amend- 

 ment so as to allow a dratted" man to obtain a 

 substitute. 



Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, followed, saying : 

 " I believe it was very generally understood in 

 the Senate, that the great object of putting in 

 that limitation for commutation was for the 

 benefit of men of moderate circumstances, to 

 enable them if they pleased to pay a sum of 

 money for which we believed substitutes might 

 be procured. Further, it was with a view to 

 fix a limit to the price of substitutes in the 

 market, that it should not go above that, be- 

 cause if the Government would take $300 to 

 procure substitutes with, nobody would give 

 any more in the market, and the Government 

 could give no more, but would get them for 

 that. That was the object. 



" Xow it is suggested that that provision has 

 in some measure defeated or prevented our 

 obtaining by the draft the number of men 



