'every family" a "good rifled musket, a few pounds of powder, and a hundred or so of shot," to "defend their homes and personal liberties from invasion from any quarter"-meaning, of course, from Canada-distinguished itself by its efforts to provoke active ill-feeling upon this subject. These efforts, directed by the malignant, and inflaming the thoughtless and the ignorant, were followed by events equally disastrous and significant. It would be superfluous to mention more in detail the Irish Anti-Draft Riots of July, 1863, in which New York, in the absence of its militia regiments, was for three days disgraced by scenes of blood, arson, and plunder. The riots were subdued by the vigorous action of the Metropolitan Police force, aided by a few troops. brought up from the forts in the harbor, and order was secured by the arrival of some regiments from the army in the field, and the return of some of the militia. The draft, of course, was ordered to go on as soon as tranquillity was restored, all the more in consequence of the riots. But Horatio Seymour, then Governor of New York, who on more than one occasion seemed to be regarded by the rioters as their particular friend, thought, it would appear, that this assertion of its authority and this execution of an Act of Congress in the face of threatened violence was unbecoming, or at least impolitic, and he applied by letter to the President to have the draft postponed until the constitutionality of the law could be decided by the judicial tribunals. To this the President replied by the following letter.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 7, 1863. His Excellency Horatio Seymour, Governor of New York, Albany, N. Y.-Your communication of the 3d inst. has been received and

attentively considered. I can not consent to suspend the draft in New York, as you request, because, among other reasons, TIME is too important. By the figures you send, which I presume are correct, the twelve districts represented fall in two classes of eight and four respectively.

The disparity of the quotas for the draft in these two classes is certainly very striking, being the difference between an average of 2,200 in one class, and 4,864 in the other. Assuming that the districts are equal, one to another, in entire population, as required by the plan on which they were made, this disparity is such as to require attention. Much of it, however, I suppose will be accounted for by the fact that so many more persons fit for soldiers are in the city than in the country, who have too recently arrived from other parts of the United States and from Europe to be either included in the census of 1860, or to have voted in 1862. Still, making due allowance for this, I am yet unwilling to stand upon it as an entirely sufficient explanation of the great disparity. I shall direct the draft to proceed in all the districts, drawing, however, at first, from each of the four districts to wit, the Second, Fourth, Sixth and Eighth-only 2,200, being the average quota of the other class. After this drawing, these four districts, and also the Seventeenth and Twenty-ninth, shall be carefully reënrolled; and, if you please, agents of yours may witness every step of the process. Any deficiency which may appear by the new enrolment will be supplied by a special draft for that object, allowing due credit for volunteers who may be obtained from these districts respectively during the interval; and at all points, so far as consistent with practical convenience, due credits shall be given for volunteers, and your excellency shall be notified of the time fixed for commencing a draft in each district.

I do not object to abide a decision of the United States Supreme Court, or of the judges thereof, on the constitutionality of the draft law. In fact I should be willing to facilitate the obtaining of it. But I can not consent to lose the time while it is being obtained. We are contending with an enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into a slaugh

ter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an army which will soon turn upon our now victorious soldiers already in the field, if they shall not be sustained by recruits as they should be. It produces an army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side, if we first waste time to reëxperiment with the volunteer system, already deemed by Congress, and palpably, in fact, so far exhausted as to be inadequate; and then more time to obtain a court decision as to whether a law is constitutional which requires a part of those not now in the service to go to the aid of those who are already in it; and still more time to determine with absolute certainty that we get those who are to go in the precisely legal proportion to those who are not to go. My purpose is to be in my action just and constitutional, and yet practical, in performing the important duty with which I am charged, of maintaining the unity and the free principles of our common country. Your obedient servant, A. LINCOLN.

Governor Seymour returned to the charge in another letter, reasserting the injustice of the law, and supporting his position by an opinion prepared by Nelson J. Waterbury, then Judge Advocate of New York. To this letter Mr. Lincoln replied as follows:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 11, 1863.

His Excellency Horatio Seymour, Governor of New York:Yours of the 8th, with Judge-Advocate General Waterbury's report, was received to-day.

Asking you to remember that I consider time as being very important, both to the general cause of the country and to the soldiers in the field, I beg to remind you that I waited, at your request, from the 1st until the 6th inst. to receive your commuIcation dated the 3d. In view of its great length, and the known time and apparent care taken in its preparation, I did not doubt that it contained your full case as you desired to present it. It contained the figures for twelve districts, omit

ting the other nineteen, as I supposed, because you found nothing to complain of as to them. I answered accordingly. In doing so I laid down the principle to which I purpose adhering, which is to proceed with the draft, at the same time employing infallible means to avoid any great wrong. With the communication received to-day you send figures for twenty-eight districts, including the twelve sent before, and still omitting three, for which I suppose the enrolments are not yet received. In looking over the fuller list of twenty-eight districts, I find that the quotas for sixteen of them are above 2,000 and below 2,700, while of the rest, six are above 2,700, and six are below 2,000. Applying the principle to these new facts, the Fifth and Seventh Districts must be added to the four in which the quotas have already been reduced to 2,200 for the first draft; and with these four others must be added to those to be reënrolled. The correct case will then stand: the quotas of the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Districts fixed at 2,200 for the first draft. The Provost-Marshal General informs me that the drawing is already completed in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-second, Twenty-fourth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-ninth, and Thirtieth Districts. In the others, except the three outstanding, the drawing will be made upon the quotas as now fixed. After the first draft, the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twenty-first, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-ninth, and Thirty-first will be enrolled for the purpose and in the manner stated in my letter of the 7th inst. The same principle will be applied to the now outstanding districts when they shall come in. No part of my former letter is repudiated by reason of not being restated in this, or for any other cause.

Your obedient servant,

A. LINCOLN.

The draft was resumed on the 19th of August, and

completed without further opposition.

(6 UNCONDITIONAL UNION MEN."

About the beginning of the second year of the rebellion certain men, hearty supporters of the war for its suppression, and hitherto of the policy of the Administration, began to talk of "unconditional loyalty," and to style themselves "Unconditional Union Men." Mr. Lincoln thought that he discovered that their unconditional loyalty meant loyalty on condition that slavery was immediately and entirely abolished, and the ranks of the army recruited from the negroes; and although his hatred of slavery was no less than theirs, he thought that their purposes were unwise, and their professions somewhat inconsistent with their demands. In August they held a Convention at Springfield, Illinois, and invited the President to be present. He declined the invitation in the following letter:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 26, 1863. Hon. James M. Conkling-Dear Sir-Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of the Unconditional Union men, to be held at the capital of Illinois, on the 3d day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable for me thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I cannot just now be absent from here so long as a visit there would require.

The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life.

There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: you desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First-to suppress the Rebellion by force of This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give

arms.