The Northern draft.
Whether
Lincoln can enforce his draft for five hundred thousand men remains to be seen.
His own organs admit that it is a bitter pill to the people, and he can only accomplish it, if at all, by the pressure of an armed force.
Even admitting that, with such appliances, he should be successful, it will be more formidable in quantity than in quality.
A people who can submit to such an exaction from physical fear cannot possibly make the best materials for soldiers.
If they are afraid of those bayonets of
Lincoln, which have been so often beaten back before the
Confederate soldiery, they will not be likely to have their courage improved when the
Confederate soldiery appear in their presence.
Men who are not able to defend their own liberties will scarcely be able to deprive us of ours.
The
North must see by this time that nothing short of armed resistance to the tyrant at
Washington can save them from the complete and final overthrow of free institutions.
Nothing but the mere badges and outward insignia of republican government are left them now. If they have submitted unresisting to this draft, their fate is sealed.
The Republic of the
United States has ceased to exist.--If the experience of this long war has not availed; if the loss of a million of men, and untold millions of money, have not opened their eyes to the point whither they are drifting, or, if, being opened, they are afraid to resist the further demands of the usurper, then they are slaves, proclaimed such by their own want of spirit, and deserve no other destiny than the military despotism to which they have bowed their necks.
In that event, no prophet can foretell how long the war will last.
One thing they may rely on: if they choose to be slaves, we choose to be free or die. We have not the most remote idea of laying down our arms except in triumph or the grave.
We have been too long walking in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death to be scared from our propriety by the apparition of a half- million more men. We have disposed of a million already, and, with the blessing of
Providence, can attend to as many more as soon as the
Federals have them ready for the slaughter.
They have forced us, by a long and brutal and bloody war, to look upon life and its pleasures with an eye of comparative indifference.
It is not as dear to us as liberty and independence.
Heaven has helped us hitherto against the most gigantic odds; and, even if they raise their half-million, or a million, we cannot distrust the power and aid of Him who has upheld us hitherto, and who has most signally shown in this war that He does not always give the battle to the strong.
