Soon afterwards a letter came to General Garfield, signed by twenty of his constituents, censuring his action, and demanding his resignation. They were only answered that he held their letter, and that within a year they would all agree with what he had done. Before the year closed, there was a cross opposite each man’s name, denoting the fulfillment of the General’s prophecy.
This action also attracted the admiring attention of Salmon P. Chase, who soon afterward congratulated him, but at the same time coupled his praises with a good piece of advice. Mr. Chase liked to see a man exhibit great firmness, but warned his young friend that such antagonism to his party would better be indulged sparingly. It would seem that the advice was unnecessary to Garfield, however, as he was not a factious man. He simply had the courage of his convictions. On this point we find that Garfield never fails to meet our expectations, no matter what the opposition:
“But, like a rock unmoved, a rock that braves
The raging tempest and the rising waves,
Propp’d on himself, he stands.”
Legislation on the enrollment of soldiers was yet to come, which should be more severe than any we had known. The system of bounties proved a failure. We had attempted coercion on the States, and the only way to succeed was by further coercion of our own citizens. It was a hard thing to come to, and the people were unwilling. Congressmen were afraid of the coming fall election of 1864. Finally, early in June, Mr. Lincoln sought an interview with the Military Committee. He told them that the army had in it only three-quarters of a million men; three hundred and eighty thousand were within a few months of the end of their term of service. These places must be filled, and a law framed for the purpose at once. The committee expressed its opinion of the political danger: “Mr. Lincoln, such a law will defeat you for President.” Then a light shone out from that great homely countenance, the tall form was drawn grandly to its full height, as the answer was given. Mr. Lincoln said that his business was to put down the Rebellion, no matter what the danger. Grant and Sherman were on the verge of victory; their strength must be kept up, and the struggle ended quickly.
Accordingly, a bill was prepared after the President’s own plan. Many of the draft exemptions of the existing law were taken away by it; commutation-money was no longer to be received, and every possible facility was to be afforded for compelling men to enlist. But peace Democrats, united with cowardly Congressmen of the Republican party, together voted out the most effective clauses of the new bill.
This would never do. The friends of the bill reconstructed it, and determined to put it through. On the 21st of June, the effort was made. General Garfield was, perhaps, more intensely wrought up on the subject, than any man except Lincoln; and he made a great speech, a speech replete with learning, logic, and eloquence. This bill was the result of conditions in national affairs which he had long foreseen; he had prophesied, at the time of his vote against extending bounties, that the end of such extension would be ruin to the Union cause. That ruin was now impending, and all his energies were bent toward averting the evil. Hear this closing appeal:
“I ask gentlemen who oppose this repeal, why they desire to make it easy for citizens to escape from military duty? Is it a great hardship to serve one’s country? Is it a disgraceful service? Will you, by your action here, say to the soldiers in the field, ‘This is a disreputable business; you have been deceived; you have been caught in a trap, and we will make no law to put any body else in it’? Do you thus treat your soldiers in the field? They are proud of their voluntary service, and if there be one wish of the army paramount to all others, one message more earnest than all the others which they send back to you, it is that you will aid in filling up their battle-thinned ranks by a draft which will compel lukewarm citizens who prate against the war to go into the field. They ask that you will not expend large bounties in paying men of third-rate patriotism, while they went with no other bounty than their love of country, to which they gave their young lives a free offering, but that you will compel these eleventh-hour men to take their chances in the field beside them. Let us grant their request, and, by a steady and persistent effort, we shall, in the end, be it near or remote, be it in one year or ten, crown the nation with victory and enduring peace.”
In the sequel, this bill passed; a grand reinforcement of five hundred thousand men soon secured the supremacy of the Union, and Father Abraham was thus enabled to finish his immortal work.