The New York Riott.
We have seen the New York
Herald of the 15th.
At the date of its publication the riots were still in progress, and
Governor Seymour had taken upon himself the entire direction of affairs, with a determination to restore order, even at the point of the bayonet, should that become necessary.
In his speech, it will be recollected, he intimated that the legality of the conscription act should be tried by the courts.
It will also be recollected that the Supreme Court of New York had decided that the law was not in accordance with the
Constitution.
We should be very sorry to believe that any dependence upon the effects of the proceedings of the populace in New York and elsewhere should induce our military authorities to relax in their preparations.
Yet, as we expressed ourselves the other day, we are not without hopes from the spontaneous burst of feeling which the conscription has produced.
It at least indicates that the masses are violently opposed — not to the war itself — but to serving in the war themselves.
They are very willing to have their neighbors shot at, but they have no fancy for having their own bodies converted into targets by an act of Congress.
Lincoln may be able to put them down by military force, and to drag them to the field by means of the same appliances.
But we greatly doubt whether he will not be deterred from attempting it, in the face of
Governor Seymour's declaration that every citizen's right to appeal to the courts shall be maintained, and of the decision of the Supreme Court upon certain of those appeals.
We cannot agree with some of our contemporaries that this is a case parallel to that of revolutionary
France, which continued to send its hundreds of thousands across the frontier, to make aggressive war upon its neighbors, while it was torn by factions within.
The right of the existing Government to send these conscripts on that mission never was directly disputed by the very conscripts themselves, which is the case at present.
The riots is produced by the very men who are subject to the conscription.
It is little more or less, in fact, than a mutiny sustained by the courts of law. In the case of
France, the
Mountain put down the Gironde, and then the members proceeded to murder each other.
While the guillotine was working in
Paris at the rate of eighty heads a day, and in the provinces at a still higher rate, the conscripts marched off to the frontier with the utmost alacrity.
Had
they refused to go the issue might have been very different.
As we have said, we hope no relaxation will be made in our military preparations, for we have already had experience enough of the folly of depending on anything but our own exertions.
Nevertheless, we cannot help hoping that these events will prove favorable to us.
