THE DEMOCRATIC PRESS ON THE DRAFT. your own rights, take care that you do not invade those of your neighbor." [Applause.] These orations are mild and cautious compared with the great mass of Democratic harangues on this occasion. The allusions to Mr. Vallandigham's arrest as a lawless outrage, and to the States as guardians of the rights of their citizens (with direct reference to the impending draft, which Gov. Seymour, with the great mass of his party, was known to regard as unconstitutional), and all kindred indications of a purpose to resist the Federal Executive, even unto blood, in case his "usurpations" and "outrages" should be repeated and persisted in, were everywhere received with frenzied shouts of concurrence and approbation: and a proposition to organize at once to march on Washington, and hurl from power the tyrant enthroned in the White House, would have elicited even more frantic manifestations of delight and approval. The first Draft in the city of New York for conscripts under the Enrollment Act was advertised to commence at the several enrollment of fices soon afterward ;" and, as a preparation therefor, the several Democratic journals of that city seemed to vie with each other-especially in their issues of the eventful morning in efforts to inflame the passions of those who at best detested the idea of braving peril, privation, suffering, and death, in the prosecution of an 'Abolition war.' That the enrollment here was excessive, and the quota required of the city was too high, were vehemently asserted; that there would be unfairness in the 501 drawing of names from the wheel was broadly insinuated; but that the Draft itself—any Draft- -was unconstitutional, needless, and an outrage on individual liberty and State rights, was more emphatically insisted on. Said The Journal of Commerce: "It is a melancholy fact that war, sad and terrible as it is, becomes oftentimes the tool of evil-minded men to accomplish their ends. The horrors of its continuance are nothing to their view. The blood shed counts as of no value in their measurement. The mourning it causes produces no impression on their sensibilities. Such men lose all consciousness of personal responsibility for the war, and only look to selfish desires to be realized. What right has any man, or any class of men, to use this war for any purpose beyond its original object? If they, indeed, have diverted it from that, if they have prolonged it one day, added one drop of blood to its sacrifice, by their efforts to use it for other ends than its original design, then they are responsible before God and man for the blood and cost. There is no evading that responsibility. "Some men say, 'Now that the war has commenced, it must not be stopped till slaveholding is abolished.' Such men are neither more nor less than murderers. The name seems severe: it is nevertheless correct. Would it have been justifiable for the Northern States to commence a war on the Southern States for the sole purpose of abolishing Slavery in them? No! it would have been murder to commence such a war. By what reasoning, then, does it become less murder to divert a war, commenced for other purposes, to that object? How can it be any less criminal to prolong a war, commenced for the assertion of governmental power, into a war for the suppression of Slavery, which, it is agreed, would have been unjustifiable and sinful if begun for that purpose?" Said The World: "Whether the weak and reckless men who temporarily administer the Federal Government are aware of the fact or not, it is undeniably a fact that the very existence of the Government they administer is quite as seriously involved, in the execution of the conscription which they are now putting in force, as it has been in any other measure The act itself, which or event of the war. should never have been framed, except with the most absolute deference to the Consti36 Monday, July 13. tution and on the broadest attainable basis of representative support, was fairly forced to its passage through the Constitution and over the restraints and decencies of Senatorial debate. Such were the circumstances which attended its final passage, that one might almost have supposed the National legislature to be an oligarchic conspiracy plotting a vast scheme of military servitude, rather than the council of a great people giving form to its independent determination and organizing its force for the assertion of its freedom. The idea of a military conscription being in itself profoundly repugnant to the American mind, it might have been supposed that unusual steps would have been taken by the friends of that resort to present it with the utmost possible frankness, and in the light best adapted to dissipate the popular hostility. Nothing of the sort was done. A measure which could not have been ventured upon in England even in those dark days when the press-gang filled the English shipsof-war with slaves, and dimmed the glory of England's noblest naval heroes—a measure wholly repugnant to the habits and prejudices of our people was thrust into the statute-book, as one might say, almost by force. It was not only a conscription, but an act passed by conscription. "The natural consequences followed. Hundreds of thousands of loyal citizens were led to look with distrust and concern upon the passage of the bill. Men who would not hesitate for a moment to risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors, upon the summons of any legitimate National authority, became discontented and dissatisfied with what they regarded (whether justly or unjustly is not now to the point) as an unnecessary stretch of Governmental control over individual liberty." Said The Daily News: "It is sincerely to be hoped that measures will be taken to test the constitutionality of the law which threatens to remove sixty-odd thousand of our citizens from the conducted in New York is such an outrage upon all decency and fairness as has no parallel, and can find no apologists. No proclamation has been issued upon the subject; and it is only a matter of surmise whether 300,000 or 600,000 men are to be raised. If, as is supposed, 300,000 additional troops are to be added to the Union Army by the present conscription, the proper quota to be drawn from this city would be about 12,000 of our citizens. Instead of this number, however, over 22,000 are being drafted; and, with 50 per cent. extra required for exemptions, 33,000! No allowance is made for the militia who are in Pennsylvania and Maryland; and the $300 to be paid by rich conscripts, instead of purchasing substitutes, is to be diverted, against the spirit of the law, to some other direction. "The evident aim of those who have the Conscription Act in hand, in this State, is to lessen the number of Democratic votes at the next election. The miscreants at the head of the Government are bending all their powers, as was revealed in the late speech of Wendell Phillips at Framingham, to securing a perpetuation of their ascendency for another four years; and their triple method of accomplishing this purpose is, to kill off Democrats, stuff the ballotboxes with bogus soldier votes, and deluge recusant districts with negro suffrages. The crafty, quiet way in which the enrollment has been carried on, forestalled both criticism and opposition. Nevertheless, the work has neither been fairly performed, nor has it been thorough. And, now that it is over, the people are notified that one out of about two and a half of our citizens are destined to be brought off into Messrs. Lincoln & Company's charnel-house. God forbid! We hope that instant measures will be taken to prevent the outrage, and to secure such a decision from our courts as will exempt New York from further compelled participation in the suicidal war which is desolating the land." A most incendiary hand-bill appeal State of New York, before a single individ- to the people to rise for the vindicaual is permitted to be forced, against his will, to take part in the ungodly conflict tion of their liberties had been cirwhich is distracting the land. It is said that culated anonymously throughout the Gov. Seymour openly expresses his belief that neither the President nor Congress, city on the night before the 4th, with without the consent of the State authori- evident intent to incite an insurrecties, has any right to enforce such an act as tionary movement on that day; but is now being carried into effect under the auspices of the War Department; but that the tidings received by telegraph of he thinks his interference would do more Meade's success at Gettysburg, callharm than good, and that the questioning all the supporters of the War into The manner in which the draft is being the streets and inclining its opponents ought to be settled by the courts. THE DRAFT RIOTS IN NEW YORK CITY. 503 to solitude and seclusion, interfered | swelled to furious thousands; and with the execution of the programme. a strong detachment of the police, But now, inflamed by the appeals of their favorite journals, the commencement of drafting in our several districts was marked by the gathering-especially in the up-town districts, where there is a compact population of laborers, mainly of foreign birth of excited crowds, who soon proceeded to violence, arson, and bloodshed. which attempted to disperse or drive the mob, was likewise worsted and forced to retreat. The firemen, who were tardy in their appearance, and who were cheered and applauded by the mob, made no effort to save the obnoxious house in which the fire had been kindled, but finally arrested the progress of the conflagration; though not till several more houses had been destroyed, and the bulk of the mob had moved off to other scenes of outrage and devastation. In the IXth Congress district, comprising the most northerly wards of the City, largely peopled by railroad employés and other foreign-born la- The organized militia of the city borers, the drawing commenced at were generally absent in the interior 10 a. M., in the house where the en- of Pennsylvania; the Government rollment had been made, at the cor- had no military force within call but ner of Third Avenue and 46th-street, a handful on Governor's island and in the presence of some 300 persons, in the forts commanding the seaward mainly spectators. Half an hour approaches; while the Police, though thereafter, when 75 to 100 names had well organized and efficient, was not been drawn, while all was quiet and competent to deal with a virtual inorderly within the building, a pistol surrection which had the great body was fired in the street, where a large of the foreign-born laborers of our crowd had rapidly assembled; where- city at its back, with nearly every upon, a shower of brickbats and other one of the 10,000 grog-shops for its missiles was hurled at the house, and block-houses and recruiting-stations. the crowd rushed in, driving out the The outbreak had manifestly been officers and clerks, tearing up the premeditated and prëarranged; and papers, and taking complete posses- the tidings of its initial success, being sion. In a few minutes, one of the instantly diffused throughout the city, rioters produced a can of spirits of incited an outpouring into the streets turpentine, which he poured over the of all who dreaded the Draft, hated floor and set fire to it, and the build- the War, or detested Abolitionists and ing was soon in flames-the police- Negroes as the culpable causes of men and draft officers who attempted both. The rioters constantly augresistance being driven off by show-mented their numbers by calling at ers of stones-Mr. John A. Kennedy, the gas-houses, railroad offices, workSuperintendent of Police, who was present in plain clothes, being recognized and severely beaten. A small force of the Invalid Corps soon appeared, but was promptly overpowered and driven off by the mob, now shops, and great manufactories, and there demanding that all work should be stopped and the laborers allowed to fall into their ranks—a demand which, through sympathy or cowardice, was too generally acceded to. 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