national forces." All able-bodied citizens between twenty and forty-five years of age were to "perform military duty in the service of the United States, when called on by the President for that purpose."[[50]] This was strenuous earnest, for it portended a draft.
The situation certainly was not to be considered without solicitude when, in a war which peculiarly appealed to patriotism, compulsion must be used to bring involuntary recruits to maintain the contest. Yet the relaxation of the patriotic temper was really not so great as this fact might seem to indicate. Besides many partial and obvious explanations, one which is less obvious should also be noted. During two years of war the people, notoriously of a temperament readily to accept new facts and to adapt themselves thereto, had become accustomed to a state of war, and had learned to regard it as a condition, not normal and permanent, yet of indefinite duration. Accordingly they were now of opinion that the government must charge itself with the management of this condition, that is to say, with the conduct of the war, as a strict matter of business, to be carried on like all other public duties and functions. In the first months of stress every man had felt called upon to contribute, personally, his own moral, financial, and even physical support; but that crisis had passed, and it was now conceived that the administration might fairly be required to arrange for
getting men and money and supplies in the systematic and business-like fashion in which, as history taught, all other governments had been accustomed to get these necessaries in time of war.
At any rate, however it was to be explained or commented upon, the fact confronted Mr. Lincoln that he must institute enrollment and drafting. The machinery was arranged and the very disagreeable task was entered upon early in the summer of 1863. If it was painful in the first instance for the President to order this, the process was immediately made as hateful as possible for him. Even loyal and hearty "war-governors" seemed at once to accept as their chief object the protection of the people of their respective States from the operation of the odious law. The mercantile element was instantly and fully accepted by them. The most patriotic did not hesitate to make every effort to have the assigned quotas reduced; they drew jealous comparisons to show inequalities; and they concocted all sorts of schemes for obtaining credits. Not marshaling recruits in the field, but filling quotas upon paper, seemed a legitimate purpose; for the matter had become one of figures, of business, of competition, and all the shrewdness of the Yankee mind was at once aroused to gain for one's self, though at the expense of one's neighbors. Especially the Democratic officials were viciously fertile in creating obstacles. The fact that the Act of Congress was based on the precedent of an Act of the Confederate Congress,
passed a year before, did not seem in the least to conciliate the Copperheads. Governor Seymour of New York obtained a discreditable preeminence in thwarting the administration. He gathered ingenious statistics, and upon them based charges of dishonest apportionments and of fraudulent discrimination against Democratic precincts. He also declared the statute unconstitutional, and asked the President to stay all proceedings under it until it could be passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States,—an ingenuous proposition, which he neglected to make practicable by arranging with General Lee to remain conveniently quiescent while the learned judges should be discussing the methods of reinforcing the Northern armies.
In a word, Mr. Lincoln was confronted by every difficulty that Republican inventiveness and Democratic disaffection could devise. Yet the draft must go on, or the war must stop. His reasonableness, his patience, his capacity to endure unfair trials, received in this business a demonstration more conspicuous than in any other during his presidency. Whenever apportionments, dates, and credits were questioned, he was liberal in making temporary, and sometimes permanent allowances, preferring that any error in exactions should be in the way of moderation. But in the main business he was inflexible; and at last it came to a direct issue between himself and the malcontents, whether the draft should go on or stop. In the middle of July the mob in New York city tested
the question. The drafting began there on Saturday morning, July 11. On Monday morning, July 13, the famous riot broke out. It was an appalling storm of rage on the part of the lower classes; during three days terror and barbarism controlled the great city, and in its streets countless bloody and hideous massacres were perpetrated. Negroes especially were hanged and otherwise slain most cruelly. The governor was so inefficient that he was charged, of course extravagantly, with being secretly in league with the ringleaders. A thousand or more lives, as it was roughly estimated, were lost in this mad and brutal fury, before order was again restored. The government gave the populace a short time to cool, and then sent 10,000 troops into the city and proceeded with the business without further interruption. A smaller outbreak took place in Boston, but was promptly suppressed. In other places it was threatened, but did not occur. In spite of all, the President continued to execute the law. Yet although by this means the armies might be kept full, the new men were very inferior to those who had responded voluntarily to the earlier calls. Every knave in the country adopted the lucrative and tolerably safe occupation of "bounty-jumping," and every worthless loafer was sent to the front, whence he escaped at the first opportunity to sell himself anew and to be counted again. The material of the army suffered great depreciation, which was only imperfectly offset by the improvement of the
military machine, whereby a more effective discipline, resembling that of European professionalism, was enforced.[[51]]
[48] N. and H. vi. 268; this account is derived from their twelfth chapter.
[49] N. and H. vi. 309, from MS.