CONGEESS, U. S. 



321 



discrimination against the poor and in favor of 

 the rich. I believe that the people of the 

 country, by an uncounted majority, are against 

 striking out that provision of the law. That 

 is my conviction ; and I believe we ought not 

 at this time to do it. I do not see any neces- 

 sity for doing it. 



"Instead of striking out this $300 provision, 

 which was at one time so misunderstood and 

 so misrepresented, but which in its practical 

 workings has proved so favorable to the poor 

 and toiling men of the country, so much so 

 that it enabled forty-seven thousand of them 

 to pay commutation instead of repealing that 

 clause, I would amend this bill and decrease 

 the time of service from three years to eighteen 

 months. I believe we ought to do it." 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, said: "I hope, 

 sir, that the present pending amendment will 

 not be adopted. I have become satisfied in my 

 own mind from every thing I have seen and 

 heard in relation to the draft, that the law is 

 now in this respect just about as well as we 

 can make it, and what is better, the people 

 now understand it and its operation. That is 

 a great deal in any law, if it is once under- 

 stood and accepted by the people. 



l ' I agree with the honorable Senator from 

 Massachusetts, that the time for which the 

 President calls for these men is too long. 

 Three years is too long a term ; and that was 

 really the main objection on the part of the 

 people to serve under the late draft. If it had 

 been one year, or, if it had been eighteen 

 months, I think the response would have been 

 such a one as would have gratified the country ; 

 but to ask a man to serve for three years in the 

 army is about equivalent to asking him to go 

 for a lifetime ; because, in three years the 

 chances are very much against his returning 

 safely in life and limb." 



On the 12th, the bill coming before the Sen- 

 ate, Mr. Sumner again modified his amendment, 

 saying : 



" The single proposition upon which the 

 Senate will now vote, will be whether they 

 will make the rich man who is drafted, pay 

 more than the poor man, or whether the two 

 shall be treated on an equality." 



Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, replied : " The 

 amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts 

 proposes to establish a new income tax, to be 

 imposed only upon those who are drafted. In 

 this view of the subject, it is an unjust and 

 unequal tax, which makes the burden of the 

 draft more severe than before. If the Senator 

 desires to impose an income tax for the pur- 

 pose of raising a special fund to hire substitutes, 

 that tax ought to be imposed not only upon 

 the man who is drafted, but upon all wealthy 

 citizens. 



" It is, Mr. President, impossible to mingle 

 these two systems. Every man holds his prop- 

 erty subject to the right of Congress to levy 

 taxes ; and the power of Congress extends to 

 seizing the whole of all the property of all the 

 VOL. rv. 21 A 



citizens. There is no doubt about that. Everj 

 man, also, who is able to render physical service, 

 is bound to render that service whenever called 

 upon by Congress. Congress has the unlimited 

 power to raise armies, and Congress may by 

 law prescribe that every man able to render 

 service shall enter the Army of the United 

 States. These are two distinct duties, one to 

 render physical service, and the other to pay 

 taxes. You cannot blend these two together. 

 They operate upon different classes of indi- 

 viduals. 



" There is no subject that ought to be more 

 carefully considered by Congress before it is 

 finally acted upon, than the amendment of the 

 enrolment act. There are difficulties in the 

 way. If you retain the commutation clause, 

 you meet the objection made so ably by the 

 Senator from Indiana. If you allow a man on 

 paying $300 to relieve himself for three years 

 from the operation of the draft, you may leave 

 yourself without the basis of future drafts ; you 

 may, by enforcing the conscription law, be able 

 to raise one army of three hundred thousand 

 men ; but in doing so, you exhaust the basis of 

 all future drafts and all future reinforcements. 

 "We dare not do that, we must not do it, because 

 we do not know what the exigencies of the 

 country may demand of us. It may be neces- 

 sary for us to have a broader and more general 

 levy. The argument of the Senator from In- 

 diana satisfies me that the present commutation 

 clause ought to be modified to some extent. 



" But, on the other hand, if you make your 

 draft arbitrary, and allow no man to be ex- 

 empted, and require every one to render mili- 

 tary service, you will incite resistance to the 

 draft. You will not justify it, because nothing 

 will justify resistance ; but you may excite it. 

 If you make your draft arbitrary, so that the 

 citizen must in all cases be seized and forced 

 into your ranks, compelled to hire substitutes 

 or to render military service, you make the 

 difficulties in the way of enforcing the draft 

 very great." 



Mr. Sherman then proposed an amendment, 

 the effect of which, if adopted, he said would 

 be " that every person drafted would have the 

 right to hire a substitute. If he hired a sub- 

 stitute from among those not subject to draft, 

 as unnaturalized foreigners, persons under 

 twenty years of age, or men who, by having 

 already served are exempt from the draft, in 

 such case the substitute operates to exempt the 

 drafted person from the entire draft for three 

 years; but if the drafted person hires a man 

 who is himself subject to draft, they then just 

 change places, the drafted man again takes his 

 place on the roll where his substitute stands, 

 and the substitute renders military service to 

 the Government. In this way the Government 

 loses nothing. The number of persons enrolled 

 and subject to military duty continues the same. 

 There can be no exhausting the roll until every 

 man has rendered military service. The person 

 who has employed a substitute who is himself 



