The in- CHAP. II. provision be a wrong to the poor man? "The principle of the draft, which simply is involuntary or enforced service, is not new. It has been practiced in all ages of the world. It was well known to the framers of our Constitution as one of the modes of raising armies, at the time they placed in that instrument the provision that 'the Congress shall have power to raise and support armies.' It had been used just before, in establishing our independence, and it was also used under the Constitution in 1812. Wherein is the peculiar hardship now? Shall we shrink from the necessary means to maintain our free government, which our grandfathers employed to establish it and our own fathers have already employed once to maintain it? Are we degenerate? Has the manhood of our race run out? "Again, a law may be both constitutional and expedient, and yet may be administered in an unjust and unfair way. This law belongs to a class, which class is composed of those laws whose object is to distribute burthens or benefits on the principle of equality. No one of these laws can ever be practically administered with that exactness which can be conceived of in the mind. A tax law, the principle of which is that each owner shall pay in proportion to the value of his property, will be a CHAP. II. dead letter, if no one can be compelled to pay until it can be shown that every other one will pay in precisely the same proportion, according to value; nay, even it will be a dead letter, if no one can be compelled to pay until it is certain that every other one will pay at all—even in unequal proportion. Again, the United States House of Representatives is constituted on the principle that each member is sent by the same number of people that each other one is sent by; and yet, in practice, no two of the whole number, much less the whole number, are ever sent by precisely the same number of constituents. The districts cannot be made precisely equal in population at first, and if they could, they would become unequal in a single day, and much more so in the ten years which the districts, once made, are to continue. They cannot be remodeled every day; nor, without too much expense and labor, even every year. "This sort of difficulty applies in full force to the practical administration of the draft law. In fact, the difficulty is greater in the case of the draft law. First, it starts with all the inequality of the Congressional districts; but these are based on entire population, while the draft is based upon those only who are fit for soldiers, and such may not bear the same proportion to the whole in one district that they do in another. Again, the facts must be ascertained, and credit given, for the unequal numbers of soldiers which have already gone from the several districts. In all these points errors will occur in spite of the utmost fidelity. The Government is bound to administer the law with such an approach to exactness as is usual in analogous cases, and as entire good faith and fidelity will reach. If so great CHAP. II. departures as to be inconsistent with such good faith and fidelity, or great departures occurring in any way, be pointed out they shall be corrected; and any agent shown to have caused such departures intentionally shall be dismissed. "With these views, and on these principles, I Lincoln, the Draft. Autograph MS. feel bound to tell you it is my purpose to see the opinion on draft law faithfully executed." CHAPTER III DU PONT BEFORE CHARLESTON CHAP. III. Jan. 31, 1863. THE HE blockade of the Atlantic coast was maintained with energy and efficiency; many captures were made, and its execution was at all times so strict that no vessel could enter the Confederate harbors without imminent risk of capture or destruction-a condition of things which is generally accepted as the standard of efficiency in a blockade. Fast-sailing steamers, however, did often succeed in entering blockaded ports, and in going out with cargoes of cotton, and the profits upon each trip were so enormous that the traffic continued throughout the war; the gains of success forming a sufficient insurance against probable losses. The Confederate Government stoutly protested to foreign governments against the recognition of the blockade, continually asserting that it was inefficient, and putting forth extraordinary efforts to break it. The most remarkable of these efforts was made by two Confederate ironclads in the harbor of Charleston, and was supplemented later in the same day by a proclamation of the Confederate commanders in that city; and it is hard to say which demonstration was the more audacious. The Jan. 31, 1863. weather was most favorable to the sortie; a thick CHAP. III. haze covered the glassy sea and added to the obscurity of the wintry morning. Two of the strongest of the blockading vessels were absent, for the moment, taking in coal at Port Royal. Only one vessel of any strength, the Housatonic, remained off the harbor, with the Ottawa and Unadilla, and seven other purchased vessels which were no better fitted than North River steamboats to cope with ironclads. At four o'clock in the morning the Confederate ram Palmetto State (followed by the Chicora) all at once loomed through the haze, almost touching the Mercedita, which was instantly disabled by the first shot from the ram, and an officer was too promptly sent on board the Confederate, who gave an irregular parole and returned to his vessel. The Keystone State was attacked by the Chicora, and received considerable injury; finding his ship helpless, her commander lowered his colors, but the Chicora still continuing to fire, he thought better of it, hoisted them again, and, with the assistance of the Memphis, resumed the fight. By this time the Housatonic had got under way, and, steering in as near as soundings would permit, opened fire on the rams and soon drove them back to the protection of the forts. The Mercedita patched up her injuries and steamed, without assistance, for Port Royal, whither the Keystone State was also sent for repairs; so that before ten o'clock in the morning the incident was closed and the blockade was reëstablished. The rams had made a bold and, on the whole, not unsuccessful raid. But the performance of General Beauregard and Commodore Ingraham, command |