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While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
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Cause of the Riots The London Times. Draft
called a despotic Measure. The despotic Power given to
Washington by Congress. Despotic Action sometimes Necessary,
in order to save the Life of the Nation. The Rights of
Government. Drafting the Legitimate Way to raise an Army It
is not Unequal or Oppressive.
The ostensible cause of the riots of 1863 was hostility to
the draft, because it was a tyrannical, despotic, unjust
measure an act which has distinguished tyrants the world
over, and should never be tolerated by a free people. Open
hostility to oppression was more than once hinted in a
portion of the press as not only a right, but a duty.
Even the London Times said, "It would have been strange,
indeed, if the American people had submitted to a measure
which is a distinctive mark of the most despotic governments
of the Continent." As if the fact that a measure, because
resorted to by a despotic government, was therefore
necessarily wrong. It might as well be said, that because
settling national difficulties by an appeal to arms has
always been a distinctive feature of despotic governments,
therefore the American people should refuse to sustain the
government by declaring or prosecuting any war; or that
because it has always been a distinctive feature of despotic
governments to have naval and military schools, to train men
to the art of war, therefore the American people should not
submit to either. It is not of the slightest consequence to
us what despotic governments do or not do; the simple
question is, whether the measure is necessary for the
protection of our own government, and the welfare of the
people. To leave this untouched, and talk only about
despotism, the right of the people, and all that, is mere
demagogism, and shows him who utters it to be unfit to
control public opinion. Besides, there is a great difference
between measures that are despotic, which are put forth to
save the nation's life, or honor, and those put forth to
destroy freedom, and for selfish ends. Not that,
intrinsically, despotic measures are always not to be
deprecated and avoided, if possible; for if tolerated in one
case, they may be exacted in another.
Liberty can never be guarded too carefully, or the barriers
erected around the rights of every individual respected too
scrupulously. But everything in this world is a choice
between two evils. The greatest wisdom cannot avoid all
evils; it can only choose the least. Sound statesmanship
regards any stretch of power better than the overthrow of
the nation. Probably there never was a more able and wise
body of men assembled, or more jealous of any exercise of
arbitrary power, than the First Congress of the United
States; and yet, almost in the commencement of our struggle
for independence, when events wore such a gloomy aspect that
failure seemed inevitable, rising above its fears of
despotic measures, in its greater fear of total defeat, it
conferred on Washington powers that made him to a large
extent military dictator. He was authorized to raise sixteen
battalions of infantry, three thousand light horse, three
regiments of artillery, together with a corps of engineers,
and appoint the officers himself. He had, also, full power,
when he deemed it necessary, to call on the several States
for the militia; to appoint throughout the entire army all
the officers under brigadiers; fill up all vacancies; to
take whatever he wanted for the use of his troops, wherever
he could find it, with no other restriction than that he
must pay for it, which last was nullified, because he was
empowered to seize and lock up every man who refused to
receive in pay Continental money. It would seem impossible
that a body of men who were so extremely sensitive in
bestowing power on a military commander, and so watchful of
the rights of individuals, could have committed such an act;
and yet, who does not see that, under the circumstances, it
was wise. Now, granting that conscription is a despotic
measure, no truthful, candid man will deny that, in case of
a war, where men must be had, and can be got in no other
way, that it would be the duty of government to enforce it.
It is idle to reply that the supposition is absurd that in
this country such a thing can never happen; for what has
been in the world can be again. Besides, this does meet the
question of the right of the Government, that must be
settled before the emergency comes. Now, we do not believe
there is sounder principle, or one that every unbiased mind
does not concede with the readiness that it does an axiom,
that, if necessary to protect and save itself, a government
may not only order a draft, but call out every able bodied
man in the nation. If this right does not inhere in our
government, it is built on a foundation of sand, and the
sooner it is abandoned the better.
But we go farther, and deny that a draft is a despotic
measure at all, but is a just and equitable mode of raising
an army. True, if troops enough can be raised on a
reasonable bounty, it is more expedient to do so; but the
moment that bounty becomes so exorbitant as to tempt the
cupidity of those in whom neither patriotism nor sense of
duty have any power, volunteering becomes an evil. We found
it so in our recent war. The bounty was a little fortune to
a certain class, the benefit of which they had no idea of
losing by being shot, and hence they deserted, or shammed
sickness, so that scarce half the men ever got to the front,
while those who did being influenced by no motive higher
than cupidity, became worthless soldiers. A draft takes in
enough men of a higher stamp to leaven the mass. The first
Napoleon, when asked what made his first "army of Italy" so
resistless, replied that almost every man in it was
intelligent enough to act as a clerk. The objection that a
rich man, if drafted, can buy a substitute, while the poor
man, with a large family depending upon him, must go, if of
any weight at all, lies against the whole structure of
society, which gives the rich man at every step immunities
over the poor man. When pestilence sweeps through a city,
the rich man can flee to a healthy locality, while the poor
man must stay and die; and when the pestilence of war sweeps
over the land, must one attempt to reverse all this relation
between wealth and poverty?
When society gets in that happy state, that the rich man has
no advantages over the poor, there will be no need either of
drafting or volunteering. Yet, after all, it is not so
unequal as it at first sight appears. War must have money as
well as men, and the former the rich have to furnish; and if
they do this, it is but fair that they should be allowed to
furnish with it also the men to do their fighting. Besides,
there must be some rule that would exempt the men that carry
on the business of the country.
We have said this much, because the riots in New York, which
might have ended in national destruction, were brought about
by preaching views directly the opposite of these.
The military spirit is so prevalent in the nation, that in
any ordinary war the Government can get all the troops it
wants by giving a moderate bounty, and wages but a little
greater than can be secured at any ordinary business or
occupation. Still, the right to raise them differently
should never be denied it.
When the old militia system was given up in the State, and a
certain number of regiments were raised and equipped and
drilled for active duty, and for which the people paid
taxes, it was thought they would furnish all the quota that
would ever be called for from the State and in any ordinary
war will. The crisis, however, in which we found ourselves
had never been anticipated, and hence not provided against,
and when Congress attempted to do it in what seemed to it
the best way, an outcry was raised of injustice and
oppression. It was hard, doubtless, but there are a great
many hard things in the world that have been and have to be
borne. The feeling of hostility unquestionably would have
been less intense, had not so many of those to be drafted
been bitterly opposed to the war. Believing it to have been
brought about by the reckless demagogism and fanaticism of
their political opponents, and levied as it was against
those who had been their warm political friends, indeed,
chief dependence for political success, it was asking a good
deal, to require them to step to the front, and fight in
such a war. Whether this feeling was right or wrong, had
nothing to do with the influence it actually exerted.
On this feeling was based, in fact, the real hostility to
the draft, in which a portion of the press shared. But, as
we said before, we having nothing to do with the justice or
injustice of this belief or feeling; we only state the fact,
with our denial that it furnished any excuse for the
denunciations uttered against the draft as a wrong use of
power, or the refusal to submit to it on that account. The
Government, whether wrong or right, must be supported, or
abandoned and given over to revolution. In ordinary times,
denunciation of its measures, and the most strenuous
opposition to them, is the right and often the duty of every
conscientious man. This right, exercised by the press, is
one of the most effectual checks against abuses, and the
most powerful lever to work reform and changes. But in a
great crisis, to set one's self against a measure on which
the fate of the nation hangs, is a flagrant abuse of that
right; for the effort, if successful, will not work change
and an improved condition of things, but immediate,
irretrievable ruin, and put the nation beyond the reach of
reform.
Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873,
Including a Full and Complete Account of the
Four Days' Draft Riot of 1863
