Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 3.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[410] in both houses of Congress, because it deprived a considerable portion of the nation of the privileges of the habeas corpus act. But the majority had properly retained it in the body of the law, of which it was the only effective feature and without which it would have been a dead letter. The privilege of procuring substitutes, so indispensable in a system which admitted of so few exemptions, had naturally been adopted. But, by a strange anomaly, there was added to it the system of exemption, which was so different in its scope and purposes: any individual who had been drafted could procure his freedom by the payment of the sum of three hundred dollars into the Federal treasury.

A considerable number of enrolling-officers were required to take the new census and place the system of drafting—which we will explain presently—in force. The Congressional districts were taken as the basis of this organization: a provost-marshal was appointed in each district to direct, with the aid of a board, the operations of the new census and the drawing by lot. It constituted, with the co-operation of a physician and a commissioner, a revising board. A provost-marshal-general was established at Washington for the purpose of centralizing all the labor through the medium of assistant provost-marshals-general, directed to take post at State capitals.¹ Exemptions could only be decided upon by the revising board. The new census—which for this reason admitted of no exceptions—was made to serve as the basis of conscription from July 2, 1863, whenever, to complete the levies voted by Congress, a deficiency in the number of volunteers rendered drafting necessary. It will be remembered that up to this time these levies could only take effect through voluntary enlistments. The quota of each State had been fixed in proportion to its entire population. At first, the required number of these contingents had been exceeded, but such was not the case in regard to the great levies of 1862. Certain States, although fully credited with the above-mentioned excesses over the first calls, were found to have not yet completed the quota which had been assigned to them. These differences were due not only to the greater or less amount of military zeal which animated the population of these States, but also to great differences