CHAPTER II CHAP. II. J. B. Fry, G THE LINCOLN-SEYMOUR CORRESPONDENCE OVERNOR SEYMOUR was too thorough a partisan to undergo any change of opinion in consequence of the riotous scenes which had so shaken his own nerves and so frightfully disturbed the peace of New York. On the contrary, he was only the more convinced of the illegality and impolicy of the draft, and at once dispatched Samuel J. Tilden and other prominent citizens to Washington to urge the President to suspend it. He supplemented these personal solicitations by repeated telegrams asking that the draft be suspended until the President should receive a letter which he was "New York preparing. In this letter, which was dated the 3d of August, the Governor denounced the enrollment and draft as a "harsh" and "unfortunate " measure. He claimed that injustice was done in assigning the quotas; that they were not in proportion to the relative population of the several districts; and urged, with the greatest earnestness and persistence, that the draft should be suspended in the State of New York until measures should be taken by the courts to ascertain its constitutionality, a point which the Governor had already decided for himself. He said in this letter that "it is believed by and the Conscription," p. 34. 1863. CHAP. II. "New York and the Con scription," p. 34. at least one-half of the people of the loyal States that the conscription act . . . is in itself a violation of J. B. Fry, the supreme constitutional law"; and in a tone of sullen menace he warned the President against persisting in the enforcement of the law. "I do not dwell," he said, " upon what I believe would be the consequence of a violent, harsh policy, before the constitutionality of the act is tested. You can scan the immediate future as well as I." He then de- Ibid., p. 35. manded that the enrolling officers should submit their lists to the State authorities and that an opportunity should be given him, as Governor, to test the fairness of the proceedings. He left entirely out of view in this letter the fact that he had been repeatedly invited and urged to coöperate with the enrolling officers, and thereby insure the fairness of their action. The tone of this letter was not calculated to inspire the President with confidence in the goodwill or the candor of Governor Seymour. But although he recognized in the Governor's attitude that of a determined political opponent, he chose in replying to take his adversary's good faith for granted, and throughout the entire correspondence which ensued the courtesy as well as the fairness of the President is noticeable. After acknowledging the receipt of Seymour's letter, the President said, "I cannot consent to suspend the draft in New York as you request, because, among other reasons, time is too important." He accepted the figures of the Governor as proving the disparity of the quotas in relation to the population; "much of it, however,” he said, "I suppose will be accounted for by the fact that so many more persons fit for soldiers VOL. VII.-3 Lincoln to Aug. 7, 1863. Seymour, Autograph CHAP. II. are in the city than are 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 he did not insist upon this natural explanation of the disparity, but conceded the Governor's claim without further discussion, reducing the quota, where it seemed by the Governor's showing to be excessive, to the average of the districts not complained of. He then said he should direct the draft to proceed in all the districts, ordering a reënrollment in those whose quota had been reduced. He also promised that the Governor should be informed of the time fixed for commencing the draft in each district. He continued: 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 cannot 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 slaughter-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 CHAP. II. my action just and constitutional and yet practical, in performing the important duty with which I am charged, Lincoln to of maintaining the unity and the free principles of our common country. Seymour, Aug. 7, 1863. Autograph MS. Fry, "New York and the Con p. 37. But the Governor was not in a frame of mind to accept this fair and practical treatment of the subject. Even while the President was writing, the Governor was sending him notice of a still more elaborate and partisan statement which had been prepared by his judge-advocate general accusing the enrolling officers of "shameless frauds," which, he said, "will bring disgrace not only upon your scription," Administration but upon the American name"; and on the following day, having received the President's letter of the 7th, Governor Seymour wrote again, regretting the President's decision, urging anew the advantages of the system of volunteering over the draft and calling attention to what he termed the "partisan character of the enrollment." He claimed that in nineteen Re- Ibid., p. 39. publican districts the quotas were too small, and that in nine Democratic districts they were too large. "You cannot and will not fail," he said, "to right these gross wrongs." In spite of these insulting charges the President did not lose his equanimity and good temper. He did not even suggest, as General Fry does, "that the war had then been going on about two years and its early demands had skimmed off the cream of the nation's loyalty, and very naturally most men would be found remaining in those districts which were most unfriendly to the war or the manner in which the Government conducted it." He answered with patient courtesy, on the 11th Ibid. Ibid. CHAP. IL of August, saying to the Governor that, in view of the length of his first statement and the time and care which had been taken in its preparation, he did not doubt that it contained the Governor's entire case as he desired to present it. He had answered it, therefore, supposing that he was meeting Governor Seymour's full demand, laying down the principle to which he proposed adhering, which was "to proceed with the draft, at the same Seymour, time employing infallible means to avoid any great wrongs." He therefore arbitrarily reduced the quotas of several additional districts to the minimum heretofore adopted. Lincoln to Aug. 11, 1863. 1863. Although his demands were thus substantially conceded, nothing could mitigate Governor Seymour's hostility to the execution of the law. General Dix, who had been appointed to the command of the Department of the East, with headquarters in New York City, had asked the Governor, as early as the 30th of July, whether the military power of the State might be relied on to enforce the execution of the law in the case of forcible resistance to it. He was anxious, he said, for perfect harmony of action between the Federal and State governments, and if he could feel assured that the Governor would see to the faithful enforcement of the law he would not ask the War Department to put of John A. United States troops at his disposal for that purpose. Four days later he received a reply from the Governor saying that he believed the President would take such action as to relieve both of them "from the painful questions growing out of an Ibid., p. 78. armed enforcement of the conscription law." Morgan "Memoirs Dix." Vol. II., p. 77. August 3. The general answered in a letter giving ex |