322 



CONGKESS, U. S. 



subject to draft, would be liable to be called 

 upon at the next draft. He would take his 

 chance precisely as his substitute would have 

 done, and that is the way it should be. On 

 the other hand, the $300 commutation clause 

 is retained, so that a man whose business will 

 not allow him to go, or who, for any reason, 

 cannot go, may pay the $300 ; but ho is again 

 to take his place on the roll, and be subject to 

 future draft. "With that $300 a substitute may 

 possibly be employed by the "War Department ; 

 but if not, the "War Department may go on and 

 make another call, and the person should again 

 be subject to military duty." 



Mr. Oollamer, of Vermont, replied : " I sug- 

 gest to the Senator from Ohio, whether it would 

 not better carry out the view which I cannot 

 but think he entertains, to say that if a man is 

 drafted and furnishes a substitute or pays his 

 money, he shall not be subject to draft again 

 until all the persons who are enrolled have 

 been drafted. I would not take his name out. 

 I would leave it in for the purpose of keeping 

 up the whole number, so that the chances 

 should be the same ; but the provision I sug- 

 gest is that such a man, if again drafted, shall 

 not be subject to be called upon to perform 

 duty under that draft until all the persons en- 

 rolled shall have been drafted. That might 

 create something like equality and justice, and 

 would not prevent the taking of such a man 

 when the necessities of the country require it." 



Mr. Sherman answered : " I think there is 

 no injustice, and the Senator will see that there 

 is no difficulty in enforcing my proposition, if 

 he will allow me to illustrate my meaning by a 

 supposable case. Suppose that he and I are 

 subject to draft, and I am first drafted. It is 

 not convenient for me to go, and he would go 

 for $300. I employ him to take my place and 

 go into the service of the country, and pay him 

 $300 ; and I take his place on the enrolment, 

 subject to future draft. "We exchange places, 

 precisely as if his name was drawn and mine 

 remained. Is there any thing wrong in this ? 

 If by the turn of the wheel in a future draft my 

 name should be drawn again, I only stand in 

 his shoes ; I take his place. I purchase a tem- 

 porary and perhaps a permanent exemption for 

 $300, and the United States lose nothing." 



Mr. Oollamer said : " It is not that, but it is 

 the other proposition I am talking about. I 

 am talking about the taking a man's $300 and 

 subjecting him to be drafted again when you 

 do not pay him back his money ; and also about 

 the drafting of a man who has furnished a sub- 

 stitute. 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, said : " The 

 present law has been a good deal considered in 

 my State by the legal profession, and that sec- 

 tion which allowed a man to be exempted for 

 the time for which he was drafted by furnishing 

 a substitute, even though the substitute himself 

 was liable to draft, was always thought to be 

 unjust. But the fair construction of the com- 

 mutation clause, as it is called, was that it 



exempted the person paying it from any draft 

 made to fill that call. The President, in the 

 first place, calls for five hundred thousand men. 

 The wheel is brought out and five hundred 

 thousand men are drawn, or a certain number 

 of men take their chance to be drawn, under 

 that call. Those who are drawn and who do 

 not go into the service pay their $300. That 

 exempts them from being drawn for that call 

 If it should become necessary the next year to 

 raise five hundred thousand other men, the} 

 would still be liable to be drawn again, accord 

 ing to a fair construction of the law ; and I may 

 say this is based upon the construction given 

 to the old law. Under the act of 1795, the act 

 of 1813, and under our act of 1861, the person 

 drawn, in order to escape actual service, if he 

 desired it, was court-martialed and paid a fine. 

 It was not that the Government offered to the 

 drafted man to commute his service for money, 

 but he was punished by a fine for refusing to 

 . appear, when drawn, at the place of rendezvous. 

 By the payment of that fine he was exempted 

 from any further drawing under that call. It 

 was perfectly impossible, indeed, that he could 

 be drawn, or that he could incur any risk of 

 being drawn, under that call, because the call 

 was filled before the court-martial imposed a 

 fine upon him. 



" It was a little unfortunate, perhaps, when we 

 imposed this $300, which is really a fine, and 

 which ought to be considered in the nature of 

 a fine for not appearing when drawn at the 

 rendezvous, that it was also stated that it should 

 be used to procure a substitute. I think that 

 was unfortunate, because it introduced another 

 and a different idea from that which pervaded 

 the old law. It introduced the idea that you 

 might commute your service for money. The 

 old law repudiated that idea and called it a fine, 

 penalty, punishment punishment for not doing 

 a duty which you are obliged to do, and which 

 you and all men owe to the country. I think 

 the idea of a fine or penalty should still be pre- 

 served, and therefore I am in favor of the 

 amendment of the Senator from Ohio, if the 

 word 'draft' in that amendment shall be 

 changed into the word ' call,' or if it be under- 

 stood as it used to be that ' draft ' and ' call ' 

 are synonymous." 



Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, followed in answer 

 to Mr. Lane, of Indiana, saying: "When we 

 have once taken that in as one of the elements 

 of our argument, that the money is paid to 

 procure a substitute and should be enough to 

 do it, and we have said that $300 properly 

 managed would do it, then we take it that that 

 is sufficient, that that will supply a man, and 

 therefore amounts to the same thing as furnish- 

 ing a substitute. 



" Now, with the operation of that clause, the 

 element of draft can never be exhausted. In 

 the older States of the Union, and in the older 

 States of Europe, the number of men subject 

 to and capable of performing military duty ia 

 just about one-fifth of the population. Instead 



