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 HON. JOHN W: CHANLER, 
 
 'I 
 
 OP NEW YORK, 
 
 PROPOSITION TO AMEND THE ENROLLMENT ACT, 
 
 CKLIVEBSD 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ON WEDNESDAY AND 
 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22 AND 23, 1866. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. : 
 
 MoGILL & WITIIEKOW, PRINTERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 
 
 18G5. 
 

 *t^>' 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Feb. 22, 1865. 
 
 The House had under consideration House bill No. 
 678, to amend the act entitled " An act further to regulate 
 and provide for the enrolling and calling out the national 
 f rces, and for other purposes," approved July 4, 1864, and 
 the other acts relating to enrollment and draft. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. The time for the considera- 
 tion of this bill is now necessarily limited by 
 the approach of the close of the session ; and 
 yet so great is the desire of the committee 
 which I represent, and my own desire, that this 
 bill shall have a proper consideration, with the 
 opportunity to amend and modify it in the 
 various features it presents to the House, that 
 I will make a proposition to the House which 
 will perhaps tend to accomplish that object, 
 and satisfy gentlemen all around. If I can- 
 not be gratified in this, I shall be compelled to 
 attempt to carry the bill through, under the 
 stringent rules of the House, by the use of the 
 previous question, which I by no means desire 
 to resort to. 
 
 I propose to ask the unanimous consent of 
 the House that this bill shall be considered by 
 the House as in Committee of the Whole on 
 the state of the Union, with the privilege of 
 ten minutes' debate upon the various clauses 
 of the bill ; that the bill be taken up and read 
 as an entire bill — and it is not long — with the 
 amendments now incorporated in it as reported 
 from the Committee on Military Affairs, and 
 discuss it clause by clause. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I must object to any 
 such arrangement. 
 
 Mr. HOLMAN. I hope there will be no 
 objection. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. By request of my friends 
 I withdraw my objection. 
 
 There being no further objection, the prop- 
 osition of Mr. ScHENCK was agreed to. 
 
 Mr. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to op- 
 pose tlie amendment of the gentleman from 
 Wisconsin, [Mr. Sloan.] I do so because I 
 am opposed to amending the section at all. I 
 believe that it will, if adopted, operate very 
 injuriously. I think that any further and more 
 
 stringent legislation with respect to enrollment 
 is unnecessary, and will render the law very 
 unpopular. I have never heard of any dif- 
 ficulty in regard to enrollments. The dif- 
 culty, as I have understood, is that after men 
 are enrolled they escape. It is not that they 
 are not enrolled. 
 
 In my view no change of the law on this 
 subject is necessary. The law which we now 
 have is sufficiently stringent. If the people 
 are allowed to go on as they are doing they 
 will fill up the Army as fast as required. If 
 this section be enacted it will, I believe, be 
 very odious. A subsequent section, the third 
 or the fourth, is, in my judgment, still worse. 
 The whole bill is more tyrannical than any 
 military system ever adopted by Austria ; and 
 I trust, therefore, that it will be rejected. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. Mr. Speaker, I move to 
 amend the amendment by inserting before the 
 word " avoid," the word " willfully." 
 
 I agree with the gentleman from Pennsylva- 
 nia [Mr. Stevens] in regard to the character 
 of this bill. It was my intention to urge upon 
 the House the very point which he has sug- 
 gested, and for that purpose I had prepared 
 what I deemed a suitable argument on the sub- 
 ject. But when, on the motion of the chair- 
 man of the Committee on Military Affairs, de- 
 bate was restricted to ten minutes, that of 
 course precluded the possibility of my arguing 
 the question as I desired. I do not believe 
 that, under this limitation of debate, the real 
 character of this bill can be adequately ex- 
 posed. It is a bill whose provisions touch most 
 nearly the social and military relations of ev- 
 ery citizen in the United States. This very 
 amendment brings that fact to the attention of 
 the House. You cannot consider the subject 
 of willful avoidance of the provisions of such 
 a bill as this without entering into all the ques- 
 tions which arise under the power given to the 
 Government officials to execute such a law. 
 It is utterly impossible that the rights and lib- 
 erties of the citizen can be secured to him so 
 long as he is held amenable, by laws such as 
 
this, to an authority outside of the civil courts, 
 80 long as he is subjected to the arbitrary 
 power of tribunals established for the purpose 
 of carrying out a system utterly hostile to 
 the institutions of this country — military tribu- 
 nals, before which the rights of no man are 
 safe. 
 
 I believe that the pending section should be 
 stricken out. I believe that the whole bill is 
 radically and irreparably wrong. 1 believe it 
 to be the duty of the Committee on Military 
 Affairs to report a bill frae from provisions ol 
 this despotic character, and embracing two or 
 three simple provisions for securing a correct 
 enrollment and preventing desertion. They are 
 now undertaking, by this bill, to establish a 
 system which cannot but end in the destruction 
 of all order in the Army, and eventually bring 
 about popular outbreaks and insurrections. I 
 believe that it wi'l weaken the national arms 
 and tend to deplete the national treasury ; that 
 it will be ineffectual in regard to the object 
 proposed, as well as highly expensive to the 
 local governments. I believe it to be a bill 
 utterly hostile to every principle of a free rep- 
 resentative government. I believe that it can 
 be proven to be so. I believe that the results 
 thus far prove it. I believe it to be a bill that 
 the i-ecords of every provost marshal will show 
 has filled our quotas on paper and has not sent 
 fit men to the Army. The lunatic asylum 
 and the jail have been robbed to fill those 
 quotas. 
 
 It is a well-known fact that from this system 
 have arisen the very evils that this bill attempts 
 to remedy, substitute brokerage, bounty swind- 
 ling, and bounty jumping. A new guild has 
 been created by the system of enrollment and 
 fastened perpetually upon the people of this 
 country. 
 
 Sir, this bill and the nature of this bill have 
 become ingrafted upon the military system of 
 the United States. And in order to meet this 
 measure as it deserves, the whole question 
 should include an examination — and the whole 
 matter reqr.i.:is that examination and scrutiny 
 — into its effect upon the military organization 
 of the United States. I am convinced that it 
 will be found to have been injurious in every 
 military department. I believe that it will be 
 found on examination to have done more to cut 
 off the sympathy between the Government and 
 people of the United States than any other 
 measure which has passed this Congress since 
 the rebellion. 
 
 With regard to this special amendment, I 
 have to say that it will add another feature to 
 the already innumerable contortions of justice 
 ■which have been fastened upon the tribunals 
 of the country by the enrollment acts already 
 passed. For the purpose of correcting a spe- 
 cial evil acknowledged in the body of the bill, 
 even the right of trial by jury is done away 
 with, and the people are forced to submit to a I 
 
 military tribunal for the adjustment of private 
 rights. You cannot by any system, by any 
 fiir opinion of the law of the country, insist on 
 this law. Do as ypu may, the sympathies of 
 the people are agdhist it. The spirit of your 
 institutions is against it. 
 
 [Here the hammer fell.] 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Speaker, the amend- 
 ment proposed by the gentleman from New 
 York [Mr. Chanler] is argued, as I supposed 
 it would be, not on the merit of the particular 
 amendment, but on the ground of hostility to 
 the whole section. He is opposed not only to 
 the first section, but to the whole bill ; and not 
 only to the whole bill, but to any system which 
 provides for bring'ug soldiers into the field. 
 I am not, like my colleague on the committee 
 from Illinois, [Mr. Farnsworte,] disposed to 
 stop debate at the very cutset, for I think this 
 debat?, in some respects, is wholesome. I 
 think at the threshold of discussion on the sub- 
 ject this House should indicate its purpose to 
 sustain or not the Military Committee in an 
 attempt to make a law to procure men by in- 
 creasing the stringency of the power of en- 
 rollment. 
 
 I was prepared to expect opposition to this 
 section of the bill, and to the whole bill, and to 
 the whole system, and I was prepared to expect 
 it from the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. 
 Stevens,] who last addressed the House, and 
 from the gentleman from New York, [Mr. 
 Chanler.] I heard each of the speeches made 
 by these gentlemen last session, when .this 
 measure was before the House. The tyranni- 
 cal course pursued in the draft was then ar- 
 gued at full length by the gentleman from New 
 York, and the bill was then characterized as 
 worse than anything ever done in Austria. I 
 remember the figure. I recollect more than 
 that. I recollect that the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] predicted that if 
 we passed a law repealing the commutation 
 clause, and providing, as we did ultimately, for 
 enforcing the draft with a little more stringen- 
 cy to procure men to fill the depleted ranks of 
 our army, it would result in resistance and 
 bloodshed. I was then, as now, assured that 
 the gentleman was not likely to prove a true 
 prophet, and what was not a true prophecy 
 then has not become history since. I said 
 then that I had no fear of the people, and I re- 
 peat it. I said then, so far from producing riot, 
 confusion, and disorder, that when the peo- 
 ple came to understand what their Represent- 
 atives had done in their endeavor to fill up the 
 thinned ranks of the army, they would sustain 
 them. And I ask every gentleman to bear me 
 out in the assertion that never did a draft go 
 on more quietly, and never were the ranks of 
 the army, to the extent that the draft could do 
 it, so filled up as they were, saving the cam- 
 paign of last year, under that very bill so de- 
 nounced by the gentleman from New York, 
 
[Mr. Chanler,] and the gentleman from Penn- 
 sylvania, [Mr. Stevens ] I say now, at the 
 very threshold of this ci nsideration of this sub- 
 ject, that my thorough conviction is, so far as 
 my own personal observation is concerned in 
 regard to this matter, that the people are 
 ahead of Con.^ress, and the soldiers far ahead 
 of either. Your soldiers call upon you to 
 make your laws strinajent; they call upon you 
 from the field to fill up the ranks ; they say 
 there must be no skulking ; they say that all 
 persons liable to be enrolled must be enrolled ; 
 that persons liable to be drafted should be 
 drafted; and that it is unfair ihat they alone 
 should bear the burdens and be placed in the 
 front of battle while others are shirking from 
 taking their fair share. And the people are 
 not far behind the soldiers in this matter. I 
 have yet to learn that any man upon either 
 floor of Congress is unlikely to be sastained by 
 an intelligent constituency anywhere through- 
 out the land for an attgmpt to pass efficient 
 laws in order to fill up the ranks of the army, 
 to enable us to put down this accursed and 
 damnable rebellion. 
 
 Now, sir, this section opens fairly that dis- 
 cussion, and I expected gentlemen to take 
 position upon the one side or the other. This 
 section is not that oppressive and tyrannical 
 section which it is supposed to be. If the 
 gentleman from New York [Mr. Chanler] 
 thinks that in any of its features it is too harsh, 
 let him offer amendments : but so far, his op- 
 position is to the whole section ; and I insist 
 upon it that that opposition only means, as he 
 and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
 Stevens] frankly avow, opposition to the whole 
 bill and the whole system. It is for the House 
 to determine whether these gentlemen shall be 
 allowed, in their hostility to the whole scheme 
 of filling up our armies by a system of drafting 
 at all, to accomplish that by defeating this sec- 
 tion of the bill. 
 
 I have no objection, so far as the penalty is 
 concerned, that gentlemen should modify the 
 language, so that they leave some substantial 
 means provided in the law for enforcing its 
 provisions. I have no objection to having this 
 number of days of imprisonment reduced, say 
 from thirty to twenty, and perhaps ten ; but 
 twenty days would perhaps be the proper 
 medium. But some penalty, some provision, 
 something to compel a more perfect and com- 
 plete and full enrollment of the citizens liable 
 to draft, and to hold them to their duty to re- 
 port themseves, and not skulk away, I believe 
 essentially necessary as one of the features of 
 a bill which is to be an improvement on the 
 present enrollment law. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I withdraw my amend- 
 ment to the amendment, and move another 
 amendment by inserting the word " intention- 
 ally." My views upon this subject are cer- 
 tainly well known. They have been boldly 
 
 expressed both here and elsewhere ; and the 
 difference between the gentleman from Ohio, 
 tho chairman of the Committee on Military 
 Afifairs, and myself, is exactly this — 
 
 Mr. FAKNS WORTH. As the opinions of 
 the gentleman from New York are so well 
 known, both here and elsewhere, I suggest there 
 is no necessity for repeating them. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. And the courtesy of the 
 gentleman from Illinois is so well known that 
 this impertinency is entirely unnecessary. 
 
 In regard to the position of the chairman of 
 the Committee on Military Afifairs and of my- 
 self, the issue between us is exactly defined : I 
 am in favor of increasing the Army ; so is he. 
 We only differ as to the method. I oppose this 
 bill because I think it is not an effectual means 
 of raising troops ; he advocates it because he 
 thinks it is. We agree upon the fact that the 
 enrollment of the citizens may be necessary ; 
 but we differ as to the means of forcing men 
 into the ranks ; and we will differ very widely 
 as to the character of substitutes which we will 
 permit into the American armies. It is because 
 of bills brought forward by that gentleman 
 upon this floor that the American Army has 
 been made the asylum of drunkards and lu- 
 natics. It is because it has failed as a means 
 cf enrolling and calling out the national forces 
 in a time like this that I oppose this bill. The 
 system has become simply a process of bounty 
 jumping and bounty swindling throughout the 
 country. It demands more than the ingenuity 
 even of the chairman of the Committee on 
 Military Affairs to prevent these creatures from 
 battening upon their fellow-citizens. And yet 
 the gentleman proposes to place this matter in 
 the hands of the men whom I wish to oppose 
 here, because they have exercised the powers 
 conceded to them tyrannically. I believe that 
 the class of men who have been appointed as 
 provost marshals throughout this country, with 
 many exceptions perhaps, but as a general rule, 
 have been the subservient tools of the Secre- 
 tary of War. 
 
 I believe that the system of centralized mil- 
 itary power organized under this bill would sap 
 the foundations of our Government. I believe 
 that every effort to remedy it would but per- 
 petuate the evil and the error inherent in this 
 bill and the system it establishes. I make no 
 factious opposition here. I court nothing but 
 an open debate and consideration of this sub- 
 ject ; and it seems to me that the chairman of 
 the Military Committee, knowing and anticipa- 
 ting the position of the able chairman of the 
 Committee of Ways and Means, has rather 
 dodged a full debate. I recognize, sir, the 
 apology which he made for limiting debate to 
 ten minutes ; but it was done with a perfect 
 knowledge on his part of the advantage of his 
 position under such an arrangement. 
 
 Sir, a bill of this character, involving as it 
 does the depth and breadth of American liberty 
 
6 
 
 and individual rights of every American citi- 
 zen, cannot be d;scussed section by section 
 ■without the extraordinary acumen possessed 
 bv the chairman of the Committee on Military 
 Affairs who iramed the bill, and whose knowl- 
 edge of tactics has been heretofore manifested 
 in his management of troops in the field. 
 There is a class of distinguished soldiers who 
 have left the field of glory for the cupola of 
 safety, and who now make it a matter of boast 
 that they are no longer soldiers. [Cries of 
 "Name!" "Name!"] Sir, we might have 
 hoped that men of this class, who have carried 
 the rank and file of our army into points of 
 danger, would have better appreciated their 
 position before the country when victory is 
 crowning those who followed after them, and 
 •when the cannon is baying forth the victory of 
 the soldiers they once led. 
 
 Sir, the crying evil of this whole system is 
 based upon the very fact which has been allud- 
 ed to in this debate ; it is owing to the system 
 inaugurated by the partisan leaders of this Ad- 
 ministration, which commissions as brigadiers 
 men who are utterly ignorant of military sci- 
 ence and even unschooled in the knowledge of 
 militia training, and who lead their fellow- 
 citizens to speedy death, to the dishonor of 
 their country. 
 
 The proper and available means of filling 
 the ranks have been neglected, and unfit and 
 incapable officers have been allowed to act in 
 responsible positions. "The confidence of the 
 soldier in his superior and of the citizen in his 
 Government have been lost by the reckless 
 practices and partisan policy of the republican 
 leaders. We have but to take the record of 
 the promotions to high commands from the be- 
 ginning of the war to '.he present. It is not my 
 object to assail individuals. The system is at 
 fault. Let the system bear witness against 
 these who abuse it if it be good, or let the sys- 
 tem be improved if the fault lie at its door. Do 
 not perpetuate error and evil in face of the 
 terrible array of consequences known to every 
 one who reads. 
 
 A clear and good example of the evils of 
 the policy of the Administration exists in the 
 bad results produced by catering to the ambi- 
 tion and kindred virtues peculiai to the politi- 
 cal swashbucklers, Bobadils, Falstaffs, Bar- 
 dolphs, Nyms, and ancient Pistols ; who traf- 
 ficked in the military favor and prejudices of 
 the people to secure for themselves the rank of 
 brigadier, armed and equipped as the law 
 directs, ignorant of tactics, swelled with the 
 afflatus that rises in the rear " of the pomp 
 and circumstance of glorious war." The brig- 
 adier volunteers in embryo, raised, zealously 
 and well, no doubt, regiment upon regiment, 
 which they offered to the Administration in 
 exchange for a commission for themselves. 
 Some, but not all of these, were generals and 
 colonels in buckram, and never led their men 
 
 into battle ; others did lead their commands to 
 distinction and extinction ; or wasted the mili- 
 tary resources of the country in vain, crazy at- 
 tempts to become heroes. Many of those have 
 happily relinquished the sword for the gown, 
 the pen, the plowshare, and politics. They 
 have left the Army for the Army's good, to the 
 true soldiers who learned their duty in the 
 field or rose from the ranks. The intiuence of 
 such men has been injurious to the service, 
 not only among the officers, but among the 
 men, and has been one of the prime causes of 
 a lack of zeal among the people to enter the 
 Army under the different calls for troops. 
 
 Let the regular establishment be filled up to 
 its standard before this cruel system of draft 
 is again and again resorted to. The people 
 look with horror at its injustice. It paralyzes 
 the energies of our mechanical, agricultural, 
 and commercial industry, and almost depopu- 
 lates certain districts of their male inhabitants. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. I wished merely to call 
 attention to the difference in persons. 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, I have offered this amend- 
 ment with the view of perfecting the bill. I 
 find that the position of the gentleman from 
 New Jersey, [Mr. Rogers,] like that of other 
 gentlemen, includiog the gentleman from New 
 York, [Mr. Chanler,] is one of general hos- 
 tility to the bill. The arguments presented are 
 directed against the whole system. 
 
 As to any disposition on my part to preclude 
 proper discussion of this matter, the House 
 will bear me witness that I have invited can- 
 did and thorough discussion, such as our lim- 
 ited time will allow. I have not been disposed 
 to hurry this bill through without allowing the 
 views of members to be heard. I appeal to 
 the House in testimony of the fairness with 
 which I have acted. 
 
 As to the speech of the gentleman from New 
 York [Mr. Chaxlee] — that " soldier of the Re- 
 public," who, forgetting his chivalry, attacks 
 another humble " soldier of the Republic " — 
 I admit that I well understood that he had 
 prepared a speech of an hour's length, for he 
 so admonished the House ; but I did think 
 that it would be easier for us to take it in small 
 doses, and that we might in that way recover 
 sooner from the infliction. Hence I found it 
 rather an argument in favor of the ten min- 
 utes' rule that, under it, that speech would be 
 given to us in six successive charges. [Laugh- 
 ter.] 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. 1 congratulate the gentle- 
 man on the working of the first dose. It 
 seems to have operated very well. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Not much, sir. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I shall supply the gentle- 
 man with a repetition of the same dose. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Having left the tented 
 field to come to the " cupola of safety," I hope 
 to be defended hereafter by my friends, if I am 
 incapable of taking care of myself, from any 
 
further attacks of this nature. I did not ex- 
 pect to get quite so high from any help the 
 gentleman might give me. [Laughter.] 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. In order to meet objections 
 made the other day to my amendment, I desire 
 to modify it that it may meet general accep- 
 tance. I modify the amendment so that it 
 shall read : 
 
 Provided, That in any call for troops, no county, town, 
 towDtbip, ward, precinct, or election district, shall have 
 credit except fur men actually furnished on said call or a 
 preceding call by said county, town, township, w-ard, pre- 
 cinct, or election district, and mustered into the military 
 or naval service on the quota theieof. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. This, as I understand it, 
 is an amendment to the second section, which 
 relates to the question of quotas. Now, I wish 
 to draw the attention of the House to that mat- 
 ter, and to the existing confusion which is 
 consequent upon it in every district in the 
 countty. The whole military system has been 
 thrown into confusion by the way those quotas 
 have been distributed, and it is a question 
 whether the trouble which wi.l follow this ef- 
 fort may not be ruinous and fatal to the mili- 
 tary organization of the country. There have 
 been here from different sections of the coun- 
 try legislative committees seeking for a fair 
 adjustment of these quotas. The matter is in 
 a perfect snarl, and the Provost Marshal Gen- 
 eral seems to be in a muddle, and a fair 
 adjustment of the draft is impossible under the 
 existing system. From time to time I have 
 endeavored to secure, through the action of this 
 House, full and satisfactory information rela- 
 tive to the assignment of these quotas and the 
 basis upon which they are made, but I havo 
 been unable to accomplish my purpose. 
 
 Now, sir, I am opposed to having any 
 amendment made here in ignorance and with- 
 out sufficient and fiill information before this 
 body. I have no doubt that the gentleman 
 who has charge of this bill is perfectly sincere 
 and honest it his efforts. I do not impute to 
 him or to any other member who is acting in 
 defence of this bill, or to those who, in an offi- 
 cial capacity, are trying to carry out the law 
 of Congress, anything but fair motives. My 
 object is net, as some gentlemen would have 
 the House believe, to oppose this bill on all 
 occasions. I am opposed to the bill, but I am 
 ready to modify my action upon fall and just 
 information given by the Department, so that 
 we can act understandicgly. 
 
 This section should be amended so as to meet 
 two difficulties which arise under it. The par- 
 ties having no residence are, as I understand 
 it, aliens or freedmea. Now, sir, there exists 
 in the Army to day a great source of weakness, 
 and a great depreciation of the value and dig- 
 nity of your soldiers. By the introduction of 
 aliens into the Army you have depreciated the 
 value of your volunteers. And then you de- 
 grade the American soldier by placing him 
 side by side with the slave just set free, men 
 
 without historical association, and up to that 
 time without rights. Now, sir, I maintain that 
 such a policy is bad, and that this section is 
 inherently bad from that stand-point. 
 
 A substitute is a luxury for the rich. The 
 draft must fall, like death and taxation, at last 
 on the poor man. By the enrollment act we 
 have called out a gigantic standing Army ; but 
 for some cause, only known at the War Office, 
 if even known there, it has never been consol- 
 idated and organized into a thorough and har- 
 monious force. We have made " I will " wait 
 upon " I would." We have delayed so long 
 and changed so often that improvement of this 
 law seems impossible. The Administration 
 raised troops and money too easily to stop and 
 think on consequences. As if not content 
 with the evils we had, our discreet rulers flew 
 to those they knew not of. We bought and 
 bribed the slave from his master and turned 
 him into a military machine, commanded by 
 ofacers holding commissions directly from the 
 President, and then we put these colored 
 troops by that course next in rank to the reg- 
 ulars, reducing the white volunteer force to a 
 third rank, and the doomed conscripts to a 
 fourth rank in the service. We raised the negro 
 to an equality with the white by statute, but 
 put the white below the negro in arms. It was 
 degradation to the white race to put arms into 
 the hands of the negro, but it is putting the 
 ruling race beneath degradation to subordinate 
 them to the black freedman. The result has 
 become apparent in the difficulty of filling the 
 quota?, when the regular Army recruiting offi- 
 cer comes in competition with the volunteer 
 recruiting committee. The enlistnr^nis are 
 more in favor of the regular Army recruiting 
 offices and the colored troops, notwithstanding 
 the smaller bounty offered by the Government. 
 The white substitute is being driven from the 
 Army by the lower-priced negro, invited to 
 take his place in the van in the onward march 
 to glory. 
 
 Thus far the effect has only been seen in the 
 volunteer force. But if this war continues 
 much longer, and the black man is the hero 
 some members claim that he is, the same re- 
 sult must eventually follow in the regular Ar- 
 my. The rapid changes of revolution, the 
 demand for labor, the scarcity of money, or ra- 
 ther the excessive expansion of the currency, 
 the demand for troops to supply the waste of 
 war and disease, the cheapness of the black 
 compared with the white" soldier, must tend to 
 increase the enlistment of colored troops, and 
 finally will force this Administration or its 
 successors to hold its own at the back of an 
 Army of freedmen. The standing Army will 
 then, indeed, be compact and serviceable for 
 the most despotic uses. Servile in its nature, 
 it will become the ready tool of tyranny as soon 
 as the future military dictator, for whom all 
 these things seem to have been prepared, shall 
 
summon the people of this Union to surrender 
 to his genius and his arms. 
 
 Further than this, owing to the same causes 
 just enumerated, suppose the Army be recruit- 
 ed, not from the negro, but from the foreign 
 substitute just landed on our shores, brave, 
 hardy, full of adventure, with the world before 
 him, and no cares or kin to check his onward 
 course of fearless enterprise. How long will he 
 remain a mere soldier in our ranks ? What 
 does he know of or care for the Constitution, or 
 the time-honored institutions of any State, or of 
 the Union ? He will exclaim, " The world is 
 my field and its wealth my prize." 
 
 In a collision with Europe, should such oc- 
 cur, having driven the American citizen from 
 our Army by underbidding him, having cut off 
 all sympathy of the great mass of the people 
 with this Government by trampling on their 
 most sacred and most cherished riglits, how do 
 you calculate to again arouse the volunteer 
 spirit in the nation ? We have insulted a free 
 and courageous people by this conscription. 
 We reduce the volunteer to a mercenary by the 
 bounty. We have depreciated the alien mer- 
 cenary by enrolling the slave, and the slave has 
 degraded the career of the soldier. Such is the 
 promise held out by our present policy for the 
 future condition of the Army when the ex- 
 isting force of veterans is disbanded or de- 
 stroyed. 
 
 Again the policy pursued invites either, first, 
 a collision between the white and black races, 
 with banfthment or annihilation of the latter ; 
 or, second, a surrender of the bayonet to the 
 black mdn while the white race holds the 
 sword. This experiment has been tried by 
 England in India, we know with what fearful 
 consequences. It has been practically the sys- 
 tem in Mexico until the Spanish Creoles were all 
 officers, and the private soldiers of a feeble, 
 mixed race, forming an army weak in time of 
 war, and turbulent and mercenary in time of 
 peace. The bayonets and artillery of France, 
 wielded by Frenchmen, commanded by French- 
 men, will soon fix the fate of that military 
 organization. 
 
 The tendency of the policy of putting one 
 race over another is to make the officer despise 
 his men and the men hate their officers. Bona- 
 parte crushed the power of the old French 
 nobility in the armies of France at a single 
 blow when he declared that every soldier of the 
 great nation carried the baton of a marshal of 
 France iritis knapsack. Can we bestow such 
 a boon on the private soldiers in our armies as 
 now constituted ? Have you not, in fact, es- 
 tablished a military aristocracy in the heart of 
 our Army. We exclude the black recruit from 
 .the honors of his career, and declare he shall 
 die that another may attain them. Sir, the 
 policy of the Administration is logically driv- 
 ing the Army to discord and revolt. The party 
 in power must take one horn of the dilemma 
 
 their conduct creates, and commission our 
 black soldiers as officers, or they must follow 
 the consequences of the opposite, and while 
 declaring all men free and equal, and uttering 
 promises of freedom to the negro slave, they 
 must hold him in the more miserable plight of 
 an armed serf, doomed to the toil of battle, the 
 sufferings and sickness which a soldier's liCe 
 entails, and finally to die in military shackles, 
 the victim of a hope raised by a false fanati- 
 cism for a political advantage, created by this 
 Administration to avoid the dangers it forces 
 him to meet in its defence. 
 
 I am opposed to the establishment of black 
 military serfs in American armies. I am op- 
 posed to the degradation of our white soldier by 
 the policy of this Administration. I am op- 
 posed to promoting the black freedman, how- 
 ever brave he may be, to the rank of an officer 
 in the United States Army. 
 
 But there is a project on foot in that direc- 
 tion, and finally must succeed if the present 
 policy continues, and the Republican party re- 
 mains in power. European Governments may 
 do this thing with impunity, because an aris- 
 tocracy, social, legal, and supreme, controls all 
 the avenues to power, rank, and honor. In my 
 opinion, if the negro is admitted as a soldier 
 into our armies, he will be subdued by the su- 
 perior race and become the base of a military 
 aristocracy in fact if not in law ; and the same 
 result that followed slavery in the South will 
 be seen wherever the negro is introduced as a 
 prevailing and permanent element of society, 
 namely, a white aristocracy of superior caste, 
 rising on the shoulders of the negro to the mas- 
 tery of the poor whites around them. It is 
 fixed in the law of race, and is immutable. I 
 have no fear for the superior race, I only fear 
 lest the liberties of the people may be sub- 
 verted by a military aristocracy or an aristoc- 
 racy of caste. The conflict is upon us, and we 
 must meet it openly and frankly. And in the 
 same spirit of frankness it must be admitted 
 that had the Administration adhered to the 
 practice established in the Constitution, of 
 leaving the manner of raising quotas to the 
 States themselves, then no collision as to the 
 relative claims or rights of soldiers of the 
 United States would have arisen. Each State 
 would have regulated that for itself. The con- 
 flict of races would have been kept from our 
 national Congress, and the agitation of the 
 public mind by so absorbing and deep a sub- 
 ject have remained locked up in the precincts 
 of the several States, like fire, or steam, or 
 gunpowder, controlled, useful and beneficial. 
 
 A new danger seems to hang over us in the 
 gathering storm of foreign war. It may be far 
 off, or at this moment a secret council of the 
 crowned heads of Europe may be partitioning 
 this Union among themselves or their assigns, 
 as they did once for unhappy Poland ; as they 
 have just done for subjugated Mexico, and the 
 
9 
 
 republic of St. Domingo. The course of 
 France, Spain, and England in regard to those 
 distracted and betrayed republics has roused 
 our people and this House to an attitude of 
 watchful defiance. The Monroe doctrine in 
 its first and highest sense has been reasserted 
 here and accepted by the whole country as a 
 pledge of our future policy. We have de- 
 clared that no monarchy can be established 
 and upheld here with our consent. Under 
 such circumstances, with our knowledge of the 
 facility with which the negro is induced, by 
 flattering promises, to desert his home and the 
 associations of his life, is it not well to be 
 guarded in the trust we put in him after our 
 failure to fulfil the fond hope of his ignorant 
 nature, and our selfish use of his race ? With 
 Europe, rich in the resources of war and di- 
 plomacy, with everything to gain by tamper- 
 ing with and protecting the black race as an 
 element of discord in our midst, we may find 
 ourselves in the relation to our freedmen that 
 the rebel States now hold to U3 in the treat- 
 ment of their slaves, with this disadvantage to 
 the United States, that we have armed the 
 slave and trained him to a freedom which he 
 will never relinquish, while the unarmed slaves 
 of the South dare not turn upon their masters 
 in arms. The Administration, by the conscrip- 
 tion, seems likely to force the white laboring 
 classes out of the Army to give place to an 
 element which would prove hostile in foreign 
 war to the very system which liberated and 
 armed them. 
 
 But there is another point of view I would 
 present in this connection. If the conscrip- 
 tion has been a failure in the war against the 
 rebels, what have we to hope from it in con- 
 flict with Europe ? Substitutes fresh from the 
 Old World may or may not become merce- 
 nary. They might be true to our flag, which 
 they never saw until enlisted, through all the 
 fortunes of war; or they might, after a pro- 
 tracted contest, take our cause into their own 
 hands and go over to the enemy ; or, like their 
 Vandal ancestors, put the price of the Repub- 
 lic in a scale and kick the beam ; or, like the 
 Huns, treat first with the enemies of the Re- 
 public, and coolly betray the cause they rushed 
 so wildly to defend. As the representative of 
 a large foreign population, I can testify, did 
 the history of the war not make it useless, to 
 the love the adopted citizen bears to our com- 
 mon country, to our free institutions, and to 
 her flag. But every battle-field is a glorious 
 witness to their zeal, bravery, and patriotism. 
 I deem our cause sate in such hands ; but the 
 high bounty and the general system introduced 
 by the enrollment act tend to drive all our 
 citizens, native and foreign-born, from the ser- 
 vice, and have caused to be imported direct 
 from abroad an alien and perhaps dangerous 
 population, in every degree diff'erent from the 
 immigrant who formerly brought the simple 
 
 virtues and sterling habits of the laboring 
 classes of the Old World from the field, the 
 workshop, and the mine. 
 
 Mr. BLAINE. I move, pro forma, to strike 
 out the last word of the amendment. I wish 
 to say to the gentleman from New York that I 
 do not understand him as opposing my amend- 
 ment. He has not spoken in reference to it 
 at all. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I spoke to the section. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Speaker, to remove 
 the objection made by the gentleman from 
 New York, [Mr. Chanler,] I move to amend 
 the second section by inserting after the word 
 •' residence " the words " within the United 
 States ;" so that it will read, "if such persons 
 have an actual residence within the United 
 States." 
 
 The amendment was agreed to. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. Mr. Speaker, I will join 
 most cordially in every effort which the chair- 
 man of the Committee on Military Affairs may 
 make to do away with this system of bounty- 
 jumping and substitute brokerage. There has 
 never been in the history of this or any other 
 country a more corrupt or detestable organiza- 
 zatiou of men than those who centre around 
 the recruiting offices under the name of sub- 
 stitute brokers. And this circumstance fur- 
 nishes a peculiar illustration of the argument 
 which I have heretofore urged and will con- 
 tinue to urge against the whole system of 
 drafting. Commend it as you may, " the trail 
 of the serpent " is over it still. It is corrupt- 
 ing the army and demoralizing the whole 
 country. 
 
 All the evils resulting from this law seem to 
 grow and look more dangerous in presence of 
 the power which it confers upon the Execu- 
 tive. There is not a stronger government ex- 
 tant than this. It is useless and unnecess'ary 
 to discuss the course which leads to the grant 
 of powera to the President. The bald fact 
 shines out on every page of our annals during 
 this rebellion. No czar, emperor, king, or po- 
 tentate, has a greater revenue, troops organ- 
 ized in larger armies, or more extensive na- 
 vies, than those which obey the undisputed will 
 of the President of the United States at this 
 moment. Billions of money fill his cofi'ers ; 
 millions of slaves, just set free or soon to be, 
 bow in servile admiration of his august name. 
 Millions of free men depend on his will for life, 
 liberty, and happiness ; and his will is law. 
 No constitutional check holds him, as it once 
 did his predecessors, in wholesome subordina- 
 tion. His friends, his creatures, and his liber- 
 ated slaves watch his eye for the motive to 
 their every act — subservient, devoted, or mer- 
 cenary. Politician, soldier, or citizen — all will- 
 ingly look, or are forced to look, to him as 
 the source of power in this Government — for 
 one will rules here. His courtly press calls 
 him sovereign, and chronicles his every deed 
 
10 
 
 as of royal import. We carry Csesar and his 
 fortunes. The nation is a representative de- 
 mocracy; its capitol is a monarchy; perhaps 
 some may prefer to call it a republic. A dis- 
 tinction without a difiference — tyranny under a 
 sacred name. Venice was a republic — power- 
 ful, victorious, and great. Her executive a 
 doge, who ruled by a secret council of ten for 
 life. Our Executive rules by the secret coun- 
 cil of his Cabinet for a limited term. Eng- 
 land under Cromwell was a republic ; but we 
 would search in vain for representative liberty 
 during the usurpation of the Protector. 
 
 Have we not reason to pause here, before 
 conferring new powers, or at least to consider 
 the wisdom of revoking, at this time, some of 
 the unlimited powers already conferred by this 
 military system upon the Executive? Have 
 we not good reason to apprehend that, at some 
 not very remote period in this struggle, our 
 cause may be sacrificed on the altar of personal 
 ambition ? We have made the prize so great, 
 the power so vast, the task so easy, to such as 
 dare " wade through slaughter to a throne," 
 that prudence, if not patriotism, should check 
 our headlong course of hasty legislation, in 
 adding to or continuing the power of the sword 
 and purse, in the grasp of one man, to our own 
 humiliation, and perhaps our destruction. If 
 we can boast of a mimic little Cromwell, " guilt- 
 less of his country's blood," who has led our 
 puritan hosts to doughty deeds, how long are 
 we to await the coming of some silent and 
 selfish General Monk ? 
 
 There is a similitude in the facts and dangers 
 which link the spirits of liberty and fanaticism 
 now as they were linked in the days of the great 
 Cromwell. May not the Puritans of to-day 
 seize with reckless hands the mace which marks 
 the presence of popular sovereignty in this 
 Hall, and in the words of their archetype bil 
 some soldier of fortune at their heels " Take 
 away that bauble ?" They have long since be- 
 headed the Constitution. History repeats her- 
 self, and teaches by example ; but nations are 
 dull scholars, and fanatics are blind. Have 
 they not already forced you to succumb to their 
 dictation, and robbed you of some of the most 
 honored and best established privileges of this 
 body? 
 
 Does the Executive really need your aid to 
 carry on this Government ? I think not. He 
 seems to have thought not when he pledged, 
 after adjournment of the last Congress, the 
 credit of the nation without law, and in defi- 
 ance of the peculiar right of this House to in- 
 itiate all money bills ; and allow me to remind 
 this House that it was in connection with the 
 military power that the President committed 
 that treasonable breach of law. Practically, 
 the Executive is now independent of all legis- 
 lative authority in this Government. Actu- 
 ally, the conscripts, the veterans, and colored 
 troops are his own, and not the nation's, sol- 
 
 diers. He commissions their ofi&cers directly 
 himself, or through his partisans. It is true 
 the past career of the different Presidents of 
 this Union give us little to fear from personal 
 malevolence or desperate daring ; but there is 
 a political cunning which sometimes covers 
 ambition with a comic mask, and serves as a 
 shield behind which to shoot fatal shafts at the 
 liberties of the people, the rights of the States, 
 the spirit of the Constitution, and the existence 
 of this Union. I will not presume to probe 
 the motives of the Administration ; we are 
 asked to believe that they are good. The 
 present Chief Magistrate may become as fa- 
 mous as any of the great founders of the Union 
 he has sworn to protect. He may be as wise 
 and brave as Washington ; as bold and firm as 
 Jackson ; a3 upright and politic as Adams ; 
 as great and good as Madison ; as continental 
 and broadly national as Monroe ; but his course 
 has not yet developed fully the qualities which 
 may promise such fame for himself, or such 
 glory for his country, as cluster around the 
 name of the humblest of his predecessors. 
 Now we may not praise him. 
 
 " Et laudas uullos uisi mortuos poetas." 
 
 H'.s labors are those of Hercules, but he is 
 without claims as a hero. The Augean stable 
 of the Treasury baulks his genius and para- 
 lyzes his nerve. ' His tasks are already so la- 
 borious that no human hand can perform them 
 alone. And he is no demigod. He may be the 
 instrument of the ruler of nations to scourge 
 us to humility, but need we anticipate him by 
 useless degradation and by abandonment of 
 our duty, by adding to his powers at this 
 time ? Should we not rather seek now to limit 
 them ? 
 
 Sir, let us remember that we too are instru- 
 ments to check the overbearing conduct of the 
 Executive in the administration of this Govern- 
 ment ; that we are here to protect the people 
 of this Union amid the confusion and conflict 
 of this civil war, in the reasonable hope that in 
 peace posterity may bless our names. And with 
 the growing likelihood of peace diminishes the 
 necessity of conscription. The people look to 
 their Representatives as agents for good and not 
 for evil, as swift messengers to bring glad tid- 
 ings and avert the sorrows, if possible, which 
 attend on nations as on men. The burdens of 
 the peojile now are almost too heavy to be 
 borne by even a self-governed nation. They 
 look to us for prompt and effectual relief. I 
 trust the time for the realization of their hope 
 has come. 
 
 I move to amend the amendment by strik- 
 ing out the last words "and draft." 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. I raise a point of order. I 
 have moved to strike out certain words in this 
 section. Is it in order to move as an amend- 
 ment to my motion, to strike out a portion only 
 of what I propose to strike out ? 
 
 The SPEAKER. It is in the nature of 
 
11 
 
 an amendment to an amendment, and is in or- 
 d.r. 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. Very well. I will only 
 say that I thiuk the gentleman from New York 
 [Mr. Chanler] has already made six ten-min- 
 ute speeches, and he only threatened us with 
 an hour's speech at first. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. That is but another speci- 
 men of the small bullying which is character- 
 istic of the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. 
 ScHEXCK.] This effort on the part of that 
 gentleman to cramp debate is evidently merely 
 for the purpose of gratifying his own peculiar 
 way of wriggling out of a difficulty, and shows 
 remarkable ingenuity, perhaps, but very little 
 moral courage. 
 
 This section is, probably, beyond all others, 
 the most positive proof of the utter failure of 
 this system as a means of enrolling and calling 
 out the armies of the United States. Is there 
 anything that could show a stronger conviction 
 of the utter unwillingness of the American 
 citizen to fight for the institutions of his coun- 
 try, and to die for the cause in which he has 
 so often and so well fought, as to go forth 
 throughout the length and breadth of the laud 
 to capture minors who are not yet citizens, not 
 yet entitled, under the law of this country, to 
 bear the burdens and discharge the duUes of 
 citizenship ; men who, as has been shown by 
 my colleague [Mr. Kernan] and the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Johnson,] owe alle- 
 giance elsewhere ? By the system which you 
 have inaugurated, you have, under the plea of 
 " necessity," exhausted all the elements which 
 should form a strong and patriotic Army. You 
 have sought the slave as a substitute for the 
 soldier. By degrading the position of the sol- 
 dier you have failed to fill the armies by en- 
 listing the citizens of the country. And it is 
 now proposed to seize upon those who, from 
 political necessity or the spirit of enterprise, 
 have come from foreign lands to seek the shel- 
 ter of our flag and Constitution, embracing the 
 in vital ion which we ourselves have extended. 
 This is a most effective way of writing down 
 the American citizen as afraid to meet the 
 dangers which surround his country at this 
 epoch. 
 
 Let this Government rely upon the constitu- 
 tional provisions for the raising of our armies 
 and the calling out of the citizens by the 
 States, and we shall need no such provisions as 
 these. Let the Government rely upon the 
 spirit of the people ; let it rely upon the vol- 
 unteers of the country. We have relied upon 
 them heretofore. The armies in the field to- 
 day embrace many veterans who rushed to the 
 front to serve the country. The heroes of 
 General Sherman's army are not the conscripts; 
 they are not the emancipated slaves; they are 
 not the aliens, whom gentlemen would here- 
 after draft to form into an army for the carry- 
 ing out of tyrannical purposes. No, sir, the 
 
 victories won at the South are won by Ameri- 
 can citizens who have voluntarily, from mo- 
 tives of patriotism, gone into the service. 
 They are not hirelings from every quarter of 
 the globe, brought here by the captivating 
 bounties which this system of draft has caused 
 to be offered. They are not the miserable 
 wretches who, having fled from slavery, have 
 found a refuge beneath the flag of the United 
 States because they wear the iiniform of sol- 
 diers. No, sir, they are the men who have re- 
 mained in the field, and, spite of trials and dis- 
 comforts, have fought their way through to vic- 
 tory. They demand from us proper com- 
 panions in the conflict. They demand from 
 us a proper estimate of their services and 
 their virtues. Let us no longer depreciate the 
 American soldier to that contemptible stand- 
 ard to which all systems like the draft must 
 reduce him. The Constitution of our country, 
 the character of our people, the whole tenor 
 of our institutions are in fiavor of that system 
 by which the citizen brings his free-will offer- 
 ings to the temple of liberty. Yet gentlemen 
 in this House seek to pervert that principle and 
 set at naught the Constitution by advocating 
 measures like this. 
 
 Sir, the military necessity under which this 
 system of draft began has ceased ; but the ne- 
 cessities of trade still exist. Stop the trade of 
 your ganerals in the field in cotton ; prevent 
 them from falling victims to the sweet influ- 
 ence of sugar ; stop their yearnings to finger 
 the glittering metal as it gleams upon them 
 through the open door of a fire-proof safe ; 
 teach them that to covet is crime. Sir, rely 
 upon the people. Rely upon the military 
 character which they have shown in the past. 
 You cannot get by importation better soldiers 
 than the natives of your own soil. Do not go 
 begging from country to country to fill up the 
 ranks of American armies. Do not rely upon 
 the " American citizen of African descent ;" 
 but rely upon the white citizen, the man whose 
 hopes and aspirations are all wrapped up in the 
 liberty and glory of his country and the main- 
 tenance of his flas:. 
 
 I think this amendment is injudicious, and 
 will not effect the object the gentleman has in 
 view. I believe from the organization of the 
 bureau having charge of this whole matter of 
 enrollment, and from all the facts connected with 
 this matter of quotas, it is utterly useless to en- 
 deavor to amend this section until we strike out 
 all after the eighth line. By this section you 
 give power to the Provost Marshal General to 
 make such rules and give such instructions to 
 the assistant provost marshals, the boards of 
 enrollment, and mustering officers as shall be 
 necessary for the faithful enforcement of the 
 provisions of this section, to the end that fair 
 and just credit shall be given to every section 
 of the country. You surrender to that officer 
 full power with regard to the adjustment of 
 
12 
 
 this whole matter, in the face of existing evils, 
 in the face of this disordered system in which 
 confusion worse confounded glares through 
 military bureaus like a monster of crime caged 
 in an arsenal of deadly weapons, threatening 
 to break his bonds and destroy his keeper and 
 his prison. You surrender power through the 
 Provost Marshal General to the Executive, 
 whose authority is already too great, and is be- 
 coming dangerous. 
 
 Sir, in authorizing the Provost Marshal 
 General to make such rules and regulations as 
 he may see fit, we have no guaranty that 
 those rules and regulations will be such as a 
 proper sense of duty should induce this body 
 to provide for. There is no section of the 
 country which has not been harassed by the 
 intolerable outrages committed by these boun 
 ty-swindlers, who are the natural offspring of 
 this system of drafting. The Provost Marshal 
 has thus far produced a great deal of confusion 
 and misunderstanding. When the gentlemen 
 of the Military Committee say that this system 
 is as bad as the slave trade, I say yes, indeed 
 it is the sum of all villainies. But the gentle- 
 man from Ohio, [Mr. Garfield,] a member 
 of that Committee, says that, eo nomine, he 
 will not assail the bounty swindlers. Why 
 not ? Because he is afraid to interfere in th d 
 trade. He dare not assail this class of wealthy 
 scoundrels whom he and his colleagues have 
 called into being under this system of con- 
 scription. He and his friends, who have been 
 howling about the horrors of slavery, and the 
 abominations of that trade in human flesh, 
 who have succeeded by such appeals in excit- 
 ing this country to civil war, now refuse, in the 
 face of an acknowledged evil created by them- 
 selves, to assail that evil by its name on this 
 floor. 
 
 Sir, I am not astonished that the gentlemen 
 on the Military Committee are desirous to give 
 to the Provost Marshal General full power to 
 make a fair adjustment of the credits of each 
 district. They know that any adjustment 
 which he may make cannot be a fair adjust- 
 ment. They know tbat this conscription sys- 
 tem teems with crime and bristles with horrid 
 abuses. They know that for an honest man to 
 undertake to regulate this matter of drafting is 
 to mix himself with crime and brand himself 
 with infamy. Since the conscription law be- 
 came the basis of our military code, every citi- 
 zen who could bought a substitute ; every 
 township vied with its neighbor ia raising the 
 price of blood, until the market for human be- 
 ings became like the famous slave pens of 
 which gentlemen on the other side talk so long 
 and so loud. A new trade is springing up 
 among us, with its ramifications reaching to 
 the remote regions of northern and western 
 Europe. Soon Asia, and perhaps Africa, may 
 be honored by the emissaries of modern phi- 
 lanthropists on the other side of the House, 
 
 with an invitation to furnish substitutes to fill 
 the quota of certain States, under the repeated 
 calls for more men to carry out the iu definite 
 policy of this administration. No man knows 
 to-day whether we may not in a year from this 
 be forced to import coolies from China, or a 
 body guard from the sable army of the King 
 of Dahomey ; nor is it unreasonable to sup- 
 pose, from our past conduct, that, so long as 
 the carnage can be fatal to others than our- 
 selves, we will care to stop its progress, or turn 
 the policy of the administration back to the 
 original sources of power fixed by the Consti- 
 tution. 
 
 This whole scheme for raising an army 
 seems not only the mo£."t tyrannical measure 
 ever passed by the legislature of a free peo- 
 ple, but it is abhorrent to any sentiment of 
 justice and civilization. It cannot be urged 
 under the specious plea of military necessity. 
 Our armies are victorious. The rebtllion is 
 crushed, if not utterly overthrown. Peace 
 must soon follow victory. Our victorious troops 
 are now achieving the catastrophe which over- 
 takes traitors in arms. The coming spring 
 will bring with it the renewed vigor of our 
 veterans in the field, and every regiment may 
 be fiUed by a proper appeal to the patriotism 
 of the people to fight for the cause of their 
 country in the future as in the past ; then as 
 at the beginning of the war. But this new 
 call is a threat, a scandal, and an injustice. It 
 puts a new and keener edge upon the blood- 
 hound instincts of the bounty swindler, raises 
 the price of human flesh in the shambles of 
 our military bureau, and brands a zealous and 
 brave people with insult and ignominy. If our 
 forces need replenishing, use the legitimate 
 means furnished by the Constitution. Rely on 
 the States for support. If the national exist- 
 ence is threatened, call out the whole white 
 male population without distinction, between 
 the proper and usual military ages fixed by 
 custom and experience. But do not confirm, 
 l)y a continuation of this law, the dangerous, 
 unnecessary, unconstitutional precedent which 
 hangs about the neck of this bill, and would, 
 but for the strong arm of the Executive, and 
 the audacity of his Cabinet, strangle it in this 
 or any other Congress of a free people. 
 
 The bounty is a medium for filling the ranks 
 with lunatics, convicted criminals, and drunk- 
 en dupes, who no one but he who escapes con- 
 scription by their aid will deny make turbulent 
 and bad soldiers. The madhouse and the jail 
 are filched to save sane and capable citizens 
 from a positive duty. The strictest law to pre- 
 vent enlisting unfit persons cannot remedy the 
 evil. Evasion of such hard, and unfair, and 
 narrow enactments as conscription in this 
 country is connived at and encouraged by pop- 
 ular opinion ; and until the violator of the 
 law be " actually in the land or naval forces, 
 or in the militia when in actual service in time 
 
13 
 
 of war or public danger," there is no constitu- 
 tional power which can deprive him of a trial by 
 jury, the consequences of which may easily be 
 foreseen, namely, he would be almost certain 
 to escape final conviction by the local civil 
 courts ; or the whole country must be put un- 
 der martial law by the enlarged powers of a 
 military commission created for these special 
 evils and to correct a wrong inseparable from 
 the draft and bounty. 
 
 The bounty system as now established is 
 the means of filling quotas of States on paper, 
 but does not fill the Army with soldiers ; and 
 induces men to desert, to re-enlist for a new 
 bounty. Veterans, the main stay of every ar- 
 my, are seduced from their old regiments to 
 enlist in those being newly organized. The 
 organization of the Army is thereby impaired. 
 It offers a premium to vagabonds and thieves 
 to sell themselves as substitutes to the substi- 
 tute broker, enlist and demoralize the charac- 
 ter of the Array. 
 
 Great injustice is done to certain States by 
 the bi"be offered through local and State boun- 
 ties. The less wealthy State, being thereby 
 deprived of her legitimate means of filling her 
 quota by substitutes, is finally compelled to 
 resort to a draft, while her rich neighbor saves 
 her citizens from that scourge at the expense 
 of a few dollars, and recruits her regiments 
 with men not her citizens. The bounty system 
 permits the citizens to evade military duty, one 
 of the most important that rests upon him, 
 while it creates a mercenary army and puts 
 the existence of the Union in jeopardy. To 
 enforce the draft ia each congressional district, 
 the right of trial by jury must be superseded 
 by a military commission, which is a most dan- 
 gerous precedent,if not utterly unconstitutional. 
 It produces a conflict between the court of law 
 and the military tribunals. 
 
 The bad management, vacillation, and incom- 
 petency of the officers of the Government 
 having charge of the draft, the inherent defects 
 of the system, have stopped volunteering, and 
 made high bounties necessary, although the 
 country has, according to the best authority, 
 more men in it fit for duty to-day than when 
 the war began. 
 
 There is no want of men to fill the Army ; 
 but there is no sympathy in the hearts of the 
 people with the reckless and wicked system by 
 which the enlistments are made and the war 
 conducted. The apathy of the people is a re- 
 buke to the Administration. It is a political 
 Nemesis pursuing a party which has insulted a 
 devoted and eager nation by fastening on it a 
 conscript law in violation of every instinct of 
 a free representative Government. The curse 
 which ever follows cruelty and tyranny is close 
 upon this Administration. The thousands of 
 brave men butchered in the Wilderness are 
 now needed to take the field for an onward 
 march. The Wilderness refuses to give up its 
 
 dead ; the living are loth to perish in the Wil- 
 derness ; each man would sacrifice his neigh- 
 bor as a scape-goat in this tribute of blood. 
 The people of the North who protested so often 
 and so vainly against the violations of the 
 Constitution by the party in power ; the Demo- 
 cratic masses who dared to rebuke the mad 
 career of the majority by sending a strong Op- 
 position to Congress, are now soon lo be forced 
 into the Army to sustain those who never 
 ceased reviling them as traitors and as sym- 
 pathizers with the enemy they are invited to 
 fight. Why do you trust your cause to men 
 you deem traitors ? Why do you call on the 
 people of New York city to sustain this Ad- 
 ministration by its quota ? Is there not dan- 
 ger that the Army made up of such men as 
 you say they are will turn on you? Why does 
 the United States recruit among men whom 
 their whole policy has exasperated and insulted, 
 and who have been robbed, kidnapped, and 
 imprisoned at will by taxation, conscription, 
 and arbitrary arrests ? Are you afraid to 
 take the field yourselves, that you intrust the 
 cause of emancipation and the honor of your 
 country to men whom you daily accuse of 
 treason ? 
 
 Can this Administration complain that the 
 people do not enlist as volunteers ? Certainly 
 not. When they offered their services to the 
 country they were ordered back with a threat 
 that a draft would supply the soldiers needed 
 for this war by this Administration. The 
 draft is the result of our policy ; bounty-swind- 
 ling is the result of the draft. It rests like a 
 pestilential cloud over the whole nation, forbo- 
 ding corruption, usurpation, and crime — cur- 
 ruption of the people, usurpation by the Exec- 
 utive, crime by the despicable tools who hunt 
 for substitutes and trade in the lives of their 
 fellow-men. Fellow-men ! No, sir ; such crea- 
 tures have no fellows save fiends and vipers. 
 The pir?,te who scuttles a ship at sea, steals 
 the cargo, and kills the crew, or sends them to 
 the bottom with the ship ; the murderer who 
 calmly plans his crime while enjoying the hos- 
 pitality of his victim ; the wretch who fires the 
 house of the unwary citizen whose doors were 
 opened in a spirit of charity to a seeming 
 wanderer ; the false friend who lures a confiding 
 soul to ruin, are the fit companions of those 
 who live by this trade in human flesh — " the 
 sum of all villainies." 
 
 Sir, in view of the depraved, dangerous, and 
 unjust character of this system, the natural 
 result of the enrollment acts passed by this 
 House, it is not unreasonable to suppose that 
 some broad, sound and patriotic reason would 
 have been advanced in extenuation of this 
 amendment to the existing law. Perhaps the 
 chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs 
 has some most excellent argument in reserve. 
 Up to this date Congress and the country have 
 been kept in the dark as to the course to be 
 
14 
 
 followed in regard to the new call of the Pres- 
 ident. Up to a few days since it was ofi&cially 
 announced that the quota of the city of New 
 York would amount to four thousand four 
 hundred and thirty-three men as originally 
 called for. Now, by a juggle in the war office 
 and a ukase from the Provost Marshal Gen- 
 eral, we have been ordered to furnish twenty- 
 one thousand men in a few weeks from this 
 date. Since then, without due explanation, 
 but on the " ipse dixit'' of the Secretary of 
 War, another change has been made. To- 
 morrow we may have another decree fixing 
 another quota, and that, after the large and 
 repeated calls for troops from that devoted 
 city during this war. 
 
 The speculators in human flesh throng to 
 New York city from all sections to outbid one 
 another in the market furnished by immigra- 
 tion and created''by conscription. In self-de- 
 fence, to meet the exigencies of the case, and 
 if possible make good out of evil, our local 
 board of supervisors, made up equally of both 
 political parties, have organized a committee 
 who regulate the matter as far as lies in their 
 power, at once protecting the poor victim of 
 this law, and regulating the nefarious traffic by 
 a reasonable standard. TV ■) plague has been 
 introduced by the party in power here, who 
 should have protected us, and from whom there 
 is no appeal ; in despair from its ravages we 
 have inoculated those in our midst, willing to 
 suffer, that the whole body-politic may not be 
 corrupted and then sacrificed in their defence- 
 less ignorance. 
 
 The same evil exists in every congressional 
 district, in every town and city of the country. 
 The memorial of the mayor of Philadelphia 
 and others, members of the Loyal League of 
 that city, is a complete and forcible appeal in 
 behalf of decency, humanity, and justice, 
 against this system. The Legislature of Rhode 
 Island has petitioned for a delay of the new 
 draft. A commission from the Legislature of 
 Pennsylvania has asked for mercy from the 
 Executive under this cruel law. The whole 
 nation will soon raise a hue and cry against 
 the perpetrators, aiders, abettors, and origina- 
 tors of the nefarious scheme, or sink itself un- 
 der the odium of its complicity with crimes 
 Christianity forbids and virtue detests, and live 
 on demoralized and disgraced before the world. 
 The military system of the State is rotten, and 
 if borne with longer, threatens to convert the 
 whole country into one mass of moral and po- 
 litical decay. It would be unjust to the mili- 
 tary system which has grown so big and dan- 
 gerous to its supporters under the enroll- 
 ment act, were we to dismiss this subject without 
 alluding to a change which has come over the 
 spirit of its dream since the rebellion first 
 broke out. I refer to those who reap the profit 
 which war bestows ; not to the honest and 
 brave soldiers in the ranks, nor to the skillful 
 
 and pure-minded officers who have led them 
 over hard -won fields to final victory. 
 
 The object of this war has, in the minds of 
 a certain class of soldiers, apparently under- 
 gone a thorough revolution, a revolution with- 
 in a revolution, a wheel within a wheel. To 
 their minds the war has been perverted from 
 the direction given it by the pure principles of 
 patriotism which first moved the people to res- 
 cue our flag from threatened dishonor. Spec- 
 ulation, political ambition, party rivalry, and 
 personal jealousy have wrought a baneful and 
 wide-spread influence in our councils and in 
 our camps. The maddest fanatics have be- 
 come fat nabobs, princely scions of the royal 
 tree of cotton. Battles have been "won and 
 lost around the sacred precincts where lies in 
 state the silver-haired King Cotton, who is torn 
 piecemeal like another Priam in another Troy 
 wrapped in flames, and perishes amid his 
 lieges at the altar of Mammon. His baneful 
 influence extends through the thick padding 
 of a well-stuffed uniform and penetrates to the 
 inner chords of the heart of these commercial 
 heroes who pass within gunshet of a planta- 
 tion. Sugar, too, has shed its sweet influence 
 over the stern usages of war ; and generals 
 who were blind to the blandishments and deaf 
 to the prayers of their captives, and fierce in 
 denunciation of traitors, have quelled the spirit 
 of strife in obedience to the law of trade. Gold, 
 the love of which is a root, has met with deep 
 sympathy from the radicals, as its yellow face 
 grinned through the bars of iron-proof safes 
 with such winsomeness that the severest virtue 
 has been induced to jeopardize honor, fame, 
 and military rank, not in covetousness — oh, 
 no ! nor with intent of felony, but for the bare 
 satisfaction of fingering the precious stuff to 
 soothe an itching palm for a year or so, in 
 trust. 
 
 The war necessity which once existed for 
 the draft, according to the case made up by 
 this Administration, sleeps, and no longer rings 
 its steel chime as a knell to our suspended 
 Constitution, the first and noblest victim to its 
 rage. Commercial necessity and financial ne- 
 cessity now chant a requiem over the fallen 
 currency and crippled credit of the country, 
 both " in extremis^'' moribund of superficial 
 fanaticism and internal corruption. The plea 
 — cruel, tyrannical, overwhelming — of military 
 necessity is gone as an argument from this 
 Administration, and I hope this place will 
 know it no more. With it should disappear 
 the whole superstructure of draft, confiscation, 
 arbitrary arrests, and the executive nebulae of 
 proclamations which have so streaked the sky 
 that the stars and stripes can scarcely be dis- 
 tinguished. It is now time to set the military 
 system of the country free forever from this 
 plea of necessity. Limit the exploits of our 
 generals to the legitimate trade of war and we 
 will not need the repeated calls for drafts. 
 
15 
 
 • Limit our military expeditions to conquering 
 tiie armies and taking the forts — Fisher and 
 others like it ; forbid and punish wild-goose 
 chases almost to the sources of the Red river 
 after cotton, and we will not need cruel laws to 
 enforce enrollment. We then may dispense 
 with the bounty swindler, together with the cot- 
 ton speculator, the gold robber, and the dealer 
 in permits to trade with the rebels, all ai one 
 fell swoop. Stop supplying the enemy with 
 the sinews of war by the niillion, and then we 
 may listen patiently to the President's call for 
 three hundred thousand more loyal hearts, to 
 be plu«ked from the bosom of society by the 
 ruthless hand of an irresponsible provost mar- 
 shal, through an order from the War Depart- 
 ment, under the pretext of military necessity. 
 
 Yet the gentleman from Ohio says that 
 while he gives all these powers to the Provost 
 Marshal General, and makes him superintend- 
 ent of bounty swindling in this country, eo 
 nomwe, he will not assail this organized sys- 
 tem of crime, this outrage against humanity 1 
 Yet day by day the majority in this House 
 confiscate property; they trample upon the 
 rights of citizens of both sectious of the coun- 
 try, under the miserable plea of false philan- 
 thropy. Such philanthropy is a falsehood on 
 its f&CG 
 
 Mr. SCHENCK. I move that debate be 
 closed on this section. 
 
 The motion was agreed to. 
 
 Feb. 23, 1865. 
 enrollment bill — again. 
 The Clerk read, as follows : 
 
 Sec. 11. A-nH be it fuHher enacted, Tbat in addition to 
 the other lawful penalties of the crime of desertion from 
 the military or uavul service, all persons who bave de- 
 serted the military or naval service of the United States, 
 who shall not return to said service or report themselves 
 to a provost marshal within sixty days after the passage of 
 this act, shall be deemed and taken to have voluntarily re- 
 linquished and forfeited their rights of citizenship and their 
 rights to become citizens ; and such deserters shall he for- 
 ever incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under 
 ' the United States, or of exercising any of the rights of citi- 
 zens thereof, and all persons who shall hereafter desert the 
 military or naval service, and all persons who, be'ug duly 
 enrolled, shall depart the jurisdicUon and go beyond the 
 limits of the United States, with intent to avoid any draft 
 into the military or naval service duly ordered, shall be lia- 
 ble to the penaities of this section. And the President is 
 hereby authorized and required forthwith, on the passage 
 of this act, to issue his proclamation setting forth the pro- 
 visions of this section. 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I move to amend the 
 amendment by striking out the last word. My 
 object in rising is to draw the attention of the 
 House, for the fourth time under this bill, to the 
 provision that all who shall not return to said 
 service, or report themselves to a provost mar- 
 shal within sixty days after the passage of this 
 act, shall be deemed and taken to have volun- 
 tarily relinquished and forfeited their rights of 
 citizenship and their rights to become citizens ; 
 and that such deserters shall be forever incapa- 
 ble of holding any office of trust or profit un- 
 
 der the United States, or of exercising any of 
 the rights of citizens thereof. While I am wil- 
 ling to unite with the chairman of the Military 
 Committee in punishing deserters and in enrol- 
 ling into the Army of the United States all 
 competent and true men, I certainly deem it a 
 legitimate question of debate — without render- 
 ing ourselves liable to the charge of disloyalty 
 — as to the propriety or impropriety of the 
 provision of this section which makes it the 
 law that by a non-observance of the obliga- 
 tions to which I have referred, a citizen shall 
 be held to forfeit all his rights under the law 
 as a citizen. This bill and the debate under 
 it have brought into issue the question of the 
 loyalty of memb rs upon this floor. It has 
 given rise to a serious question in the mind of 
 every man who has taken his oath to maintain 
 the Constitution, and all these questions centre 
 upon the personal responsibility of each mem- 
 ber ; and it does not become one on either 
 side of the House to charge another with dere- 
 liction of duty for conscientiously debating this 
 bill. 
 
 Now, sir, the Democratic party stands here 
 to-day, Cassandra-like, raising its unavailing, 
 sad voice against the introduction of this bill, 
 containing within its fatal ribs the armed ene- 
 mies of this Government, and its existence as 
 a republic and a free Government upon this 
 continent. 
 
 Gentlemen upon the other side of the House 
 have risen in their places and represented to 
 the Committee on Military Afl'airs that this bill 
 is dangerous to the safety of the State. We 
 charge that with this section, and the lines just 
 read prove it, this bill tends to violate the most 
 sacred rights of every citizen throughout the 
 country. 
 
 But, sir, there are other points in this con- 
 nection. What is the necessity for this strin- 
 gent measure ? Until the chairman of the 
 Committee on Military Affairs shall have ad- 
 vanced to an argument more cogent than that 
 of limiting debate to prove that this is a good 
 enactment, he, of all men, has the least right to 
 rise here and denounce those who debate the 
 bill. Why has not the Secretary of War 
 reported, as his duty wasjto^his House with 
 regard to the condition ,of the armies in the 
 field .? We are in the dark with regard to the 
 whole matter of the cond^tct of this war. Why 
 has not the committee oh the conduct of the 
 war reported to the House, and laid before us 
 the necessity for this law ? 
 I Mr. SCHENCK. I think this matter is suf- 
 I ficiently well understood, and I propose to 
 j move to stop debate upon this section. Be- 
 ' fore I do so, however, I must insist upon set- 
 ' ting gentlemen right in regard to one partic- 
 ular matter, for I do not mean to be misap- 
 ! prehended. I have made no general charge 
 I of disloyalty that should call gentlemen to theit 
 , feet. 
 
16 
 
 013 703 693 9 
 
 Mr. CHANLER. I move to add the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 That so much of all acts or parts of acts entitled acts to 
 regulate and provide for enrolling and calling out the na- 
 tional forces, and for other purposes, as authorize the Pres- 
 ident of the United States to raise troops by conscription, 
 be and hereby are repealed ; and that a': acts and parts ot 
 acts inconsistent with this section be and the same are 
 hereby repealed. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, my object in oflFering this is to 
 give an opportunity to those upon this floor 
 who conscientiously and earnestly believe the 
 whole system of a draft is contrary to the spirit 
 of our institutions, and opposed to the welfare 
 of our people, to place their vote upon record. 
 I deem it a great privilege, with those who 
 agree with me, to say to the people of the 
 country that we adhere to the military system 
 under which our liberties were won, and that 
 we are unwilling to fall away from it and the 
 precedents of the American Government, to 
 establish the European system of raising troops 
 and organizing armies in the midst of a civil 
 war. Ourrecentvictories show that the armies 
 of the rebellion, raised by conscription, are 
 fleeing everywhere before our troops who were 
 raised by volunteering. Why should we, imi- 
 tating those who have rebelled against the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States and inaugurated 
 a system of conscription, adopt a similar law 
 and impose it upon the loyal and devoted peo- 
 ple of this country, who have responded to 
 every call of the Government thus far, and ex- 
 posed themselves and offered their fortunes for 
 the protection of the Union ? 
 
 If the signs of the times do not mislead us, 
 the rebel hosts have been scattered, and the 
 arch-conspirator who drew them after him in 
 rebellion against the highest earthly power, 
 the people of this country, is about being 
 hurled from his bad eminence, overthrown by 
 ovr veteran volunteers and their skillful com- 
 manders. A conflict is raging among the 
 stars which emblazon the southern half of our 
 political horizon. That ruling spirit which 
 they called from his high station here to hold 
 them in harmony by his genius is stealing 
 them one by one from their eccentric orbits to 
 adorn the seat of his power as the centre of a 
 new system. Whether by force supernal or 
 infernal hejnagiachieve this mighty wrong we 
 know not.. . The supreme power may be 
 snatched from a-{)ortioi^''ofour people, and the 
 sovereig'htjj of oi^r 'StdteV may glitter in the 
 soathero cross abd:^e^e.tliroueof a despot. If 
 
 so it is to be, ^ .„„ ,.„^j ^j^^ „f 
 
 those who withdrew from our councils and our 
 fellowship with proud looks and bloody hands, 
 must cower before the artificial blaze of light 
 which shall burst from that throne, and, bow- 
 ing their prostrate forms before their tyrant, 
 yearn for the calm and peaceful effulgence 
 which once fell with universal blessing on the 
 remotest section of this Union. 'With this 
 warning sent to us from the very field of bat- 
 tle, are we not unwise and heedless of the dan- 
 gers actually surrounding the Constitution and 
 the Union by continuing this conscription bill 
 among our laws? Can we hope to escape the 
 consequences inseparable from an undue mil- 
 itary power in the hands of one man and his 
 partisans ? Are we prepared to surrender the 
 civil and religious rights of every citizen of this 
 country to the almost Turkish justice of a mil- 
 itary tribunal ? 
 
 But suppose, as we have good reason to 
 hope, that our rebellious brothers reunite with 
 us again in national council for the restoration 
 of the Union as it was. Suppose that they 
 unite their force with our armies and bear 
 their banner and their cross, token of suffer- 
 ing and betrayal, against the new emperor 
 whose audacious throne is already fixed upon 
 a continent proclaimed free, and, under God, 
 sacred to the sovereignty of the people alone. 
 Against him, united in battle, we may hoj/e 
 forever to sustain unbroken and untarnished 
 the bright shield of our Union as it ever 
 before gleamed in triumph against the despotic 
 principles of feudalism and vassalage, until 
 this whole boundless continent be ours. If this 
 comes to pass, and our people arm themselves 
 again for war, does any man dream that a 
 conscription will be needed ? The past his- 
 tory of this crisis has shown it to have been 
 unnecessary ; at present it is useless and worse 
 than unnecessary, it is corrupt. Let the en- 
 rollment law be now repealed. 
 
 I see no reason for debating this subject 
 further. I do not wish to continue to draw upon 
 the passions of the gentleman from Ohio, the 
 chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, 
 [Iilr. ScHENCK.] I submit the matter to the 
 consideration of the House with a perfect 
 reliance in the propriety of my action in 
 voting against this bill, and am ready to abide 
 by the judgment which may be passed upon 
 its merits by the country. 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 703 693 9