May 8, 1863. |
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struggle with its foes, leading politicians of the Peace Faction, evidently in affiliation with the disloyal secret organization known as Knights of the Golden Circle,1 were using every means in their power to defeat the patriotic purposes of the loyalists, and to stir up the people of the Free-labor States to a counter-revolution.
This had been their course for several months during the dark hours of the Republic, before the dawn at Gettysburg; and the more strenuous appeared the efforts of the Government to suppress the rebellion, the more intense was their zeal in opposing them.
This opposition was specially exhibited when the President acted in accordance with the law of Congress, passed in April, 1862, “for the enrollment of the National forces,” and authorizing the Executive to make drafts, at his discretion, from such enrolled citizens for service in the army.2 The President refrained from resorting to this extreme measure so long as the public safety would allow.
Finally, in consequence of the great discouragements to volunteering produced by the Peace Faction, he issued a proclamation
for a Draft to begin in July, and caused the appointment of an enrolling board in every Congressional district.
This was made the pretext for inaugurating a counter-revolution in the Free-labor States, which the leaders of the rebellion had been promised, and which their dupes were expecting;3 and organized resistance to the measure instantly appeared, general and formidable.
The politicians of the Peace Faction denounced the law and all acts under it as despotic and unconstitutional, and a hitherto obscure lawyer, named McCunn, who had been elected to the bench in the city of New York by the Opposition, so formally decided.
He was sustained by the decision of three respectable judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania--Lowrie, Woodward, and Thompson — and, with this legal sanction, the politicians opposed the Draft with a high hand.
In the mean time the suspension of the privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus and the practice of arbitrary arrests had become a subject for the bitter denunciations of the Peace Faction.
They were specially excited to opposition by the arrest and punishment, under military authority, of C. L. Vallandigham, late member of Congress from Ohio, and the most conspicuous leader of the Opposition, in the West.
This politician, possessing ability and pluck, was very busy in sowing the seeds of disaffection to the Government in the spring of 1863.
On the 13th of April, General Burnside, then in command of a military department which included Ohio, issued a general order for the suppression of seditious speech and action, then seriously affecting the public service by discouraging enlistments.
It declared that
1 See page 187, volume I.
2 So early as the 20th of August, 1861, General McClellan, then in command of the Army of the Potomac, had recommended such enrollment and conscription. The Act of April 18, 1862, provided for the enrollment of all able-bodied masculine citizens, including aliens who had declared their intentions to become naturalized, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years; those between twenty and thirty-five to constitute the first class, and all others the second class. The President was authorized to make a draft from these after the 1st of July next succeeding (1862), the person so drafted not to serve in the armies for more than three years. A commutation of three hundred dollars might be received in lieu of such service; and the heads of executive departments, National judges, Governors of States the only son of a widow, or of an aged and infirm father, dependent for his support on the labor of such son; the father of motherless dependent children under twelve years of age, or the only adult brother of such children, being orphans; or the residue of a family, of which two members might be in the service, were exempted. This Act was passed in each house of Congress by a party vote, the Republicans in its favor and the Opposition against it. It received in the Senate 85 yeas to 11 nays, and in the other House 115 yeas to 49 nays.
3 See page 48.
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