The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (102 page)

In summertime, the Lincoln family customarily moved from the White House to the Soldiers’ Home which was about three miles north of the city. Tad kept a pair of goats as pets there; one of them is reported lost. Crittenden, whose death is mentioned here, was John J. Crittenden, Kentucky statesman and author of the Crittenden Compromise of 1860. Brutus Clay, also of Kentucky, was the brother of Cassius Clay, outspoken Southern abolitionist who had been appointed by Lincoln as Minister to Russia. Charles A. Wickliffe, Kentucky politician, had stayed with the Union, but he was a wealthy man whose contempt for laboring people had earned him the title of “The Duke
.”

Executive Mansion, August 8, 1863

M
Y
D
EAR
W
IFE
: All as well as usual, and no particular trouble anyway. I put the money into the Treasury at five percent, with the privilege of withdrawing it any time upon thirty days’ notice. I suppose you are glad to learn this. Tell dear Tad poor “Nanny Goat” is lost, and Mrs. Cuthbert and I are in distress about it. The day you left, Nanny was found resting herself and chewing her little cud on the middle of Tad’s bed; but now she’s gone! The gardener kept complaining that she destroyed the flowers, till it was concluded to bring her down
to the White House. This was done, and the second day she had disappeared and has not been heard of since. This is the last we know of poor “Nanny.” The weather continues dry and excessively warm here. Nothing very important occurring. The election in Kentucky has gone very strongly right. Old Mr. Wickliffe got ugly, as you know: ran for governor, and is terribly beaten. Upon Mr. Crittenden’s death, Brutus Clay, Cassius’s brother, was put on the track for Congress, and is largely elected. Mr. Menzies, who, as we thought, behaved very badly last session of Congress, is largely beaten in the district opposite Cincinnati, by Green Clay Smith, Cassius Clay’s nephew. But enough.

Affectionately,
        A. L
INCOLN

(
Never issued
)

The draft laws, resistance to which had caused the riots in New York in July, were still agitating the country. Lincoln prepared this elaborate argument which was intended to convince those Northern Democrats who were basically loyal to the Union; after writing it he decided that it would be politically more advisable not to release it, so he put it away, and it was not published until Nicolay and Hay printed it in 1889
.

August [15?], 1863

I
T IS
at all times proper that misunderstanding between the public and the public servant should be avoided; and this is far more important now than in times of peace and tranquillity. I therefore address you without searching for a precedent upon which to do so. Some of you are sincerely devoted to the republican institutions and territorial integrity
of our country, and yet are opposed to what is called the draft, or conscription.

At the beginning of the war, and ever since, a variety of motives, pressing, some in one direction and some in the other, would be presented to the mind of each man physically fit for a soldier, upon the combined effect of which motives he would, or would not, voluntarily enter the service. Among these motives would be patriotism, political bias, ambition, personal courage, love of adventure, want of employment, and convenience, or the opposites of some of these. We already have, and have had in the service, as appears, substantially all that can be obtained upon this voluntary weighing of motives. And yet we must somehow obtain more, or relinquish the original object of the contest, together with all the blood and treasure already expended in the effort to secure it. To meet this necessity the law for the draft has been enacted. You who do not wish to be soldiers do not like this law. This is natural; nor does it imply want of patriotism. Nothing can be so just and necessary as to make us like it if it is disagreeable to us. We are prone, too, to find false arguments with which to excuse ourselves for opposing such disagreeable things. In this case, those who desire the rebellion to succeed, and others who seek reward in a different way, are very active in accommodating us with this class of arguments. They tell us the law is unconstitutional. It is the first instance, I believe, in which the power of Congress to do a thing has ever been questioned in a case when the power is given by the Constitution in express terms. Whether a power can be implied when it is not expressed has often been the subject of controversy; but this is the first case in which the degree of effrontery has been ventured upon of denying a power which is plainly and distinctly written down in the Constitution. The Constitution declares that “The Congress shall have power … to raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” The whole scope of the
conscription act is “to raise and support armies.” There is nothing else in it. It makes no appropriation of money, and hence the money clause just quoted is not touched by it.

The case simply is, the Constitution provides that the Congress shall have power to raise and support armies; and by this act the Congress has exercised the power to raise and support armies. This is the whole of it. It is a law made in literal pursuance of this part of the United States Constitution; and another part of the same Constitution declares that “this Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof,… shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” Do you admit that the power is given to raise and support armies, and yet insist that by this act Congress has not exercised the power in a constitutional mode?—has not done the thing in the right way? Who is to judge of this? The Constitution gives Congress the power, but it does not prescribe the mode, or expressly declare who shall prescribe it. In such case Congress must prescribe the mode, or relinquish the power. There is no alternative. Congress could not exercise the power to do the thing if it had not the power of providing a way to do it, when no way is provided by the Constitution for doing it. In fact, Congress would not have the power to raise and support armies, if even by the Constitution it were left to the option of any other or others to give or withhold the only mode of doing it. If the Constitution had prescribed a mode, Congress could and must follow that mode; but, as it is, the mode necessarily goes to Congress, with the power expressly given. The power is given fully, completely, unconditionally. It is not a power to raise armies if State authorities consent; nor if the men to compose the armies are entirely willing; but it is a power to raise and support armies given to Congress by the Constitution, without an “if.”

It is clear that a constitutional law may not be expedient or
proper. Such would be a law to raise armies when no armies were needed. But this is not such. The republican institutions and territorial integrity of our country cannot be maintained without the further raising and supporting of armies. There can be no army without men. Men can be had only voluntarily, or involuntarily. We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily, and to obtain them involuntarily is the draft—the conscription. If you dispute the fact, and declare that men can still be had voluntarily in sufficient numbers, prove the assertion by yourselves volunteering in such numbers, and I shall gladly give up the draft. Or, if not sufficient number, but any one of you will volunteer, he for his single self will escape all the horrors of the draft, and will thereby do only what each one of at least a million of his manly brethren have already done. Their toil and blood have been given as much for you as for themselves. Shall it all be lost rather than that you, too, will bear your part?

I do not say that all who would avoid serving in the war are unpatriotic; but I do think every patriot should willingly take his chance under a law made with great care, in order to secure entire fairness.…

Much complaint is made of that provision of the conscription law which allows a drafted man to substitute three hundred dollars for himself; while, as I believe, none is made of that provision which allows him to substitute another man for himself. Nor is the three hundred dollar provision objected to for unconstitutionality; but for inequality, for favoring the rich against the poor. The substitution of men is the provision, if any, which favors the rich to the exclusion of the poor. But this, being a provision in accordance with an old and well-known practice in the raising of armies, is not objected to. There would have been great objection if that provision had been omitted. And yet, being in, the money provision really modifies the inequality which the other introduces. It allows men to escape the service who are too poor to escape but for
it. Without the money provision, competition among the more wealthy might, and probably would, raise the price of substitutes above three hundred dollars, thus leaving the man who could raise only three hundred dollars no escape from personal service. True, by the law as it is, the man who cannot raise so much as three hundred dollars, nor obtain a personal substitute for less, cannot escape; but he can come quite as near escaping as he could if the money provision were not in the law. To put it another way: is an unobjectionable law which allows only the man to escape who can pay a thousand dollars made objectionable by adding a provision that any one may escape who can pay the smaller sum of three hundred dollars? This is the exact difference at this point between the present law and all former draft laws. It is true that by this law a somewhat larger number will escape than could under a law allowing personal substitutes only; but each additional man thus escaping will be a poorer man than could have escaped by the law in the other form. The money provision enlarges the class of exempts from actual service simply by admitting poorer men into it. How then can the money provision be a wrong to the poor man? The inequality complained of pertains in greater degree to the substitution of men, and is really modified and lessened by the money provision. The inequality could only be perfectly cured by sweeping both provisions away. This, being a great innovation, would probably leave the law more distasteful than it now is.

The principle of the draft, which simply is involuntary or enforced service, is not new. It has been practised 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?

Lincoln was fond of the theater and especially fond of Shakespeare. He had seen James H. Hackett as Falstaff, a part in which Hackett had made a great reputation for himself. The actor had sent a copy of his book
Notes and Comments on Shakespeare
to the President. Lincoln writes to thank Hackett and to comment on Shakespeare. Hackett, without realizing that he would be providing fuel for political fires, unthinkingly permitted this letter to he published. The opposition newspapers gleefully attacked Lincoln as a Shakespearean critic. (See also letter to Hackett, November 2, 1863.)

Executive Mansion, August 17, 1863

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Months ago I should have acknowledged the receipt of your book and accompanying kind note; and I now have to beg your pardon for not having done so.

For one of my age I have seen very little of the drama. The first presentation of
Falstaff
I ever saw was yours here, last winter or spring. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay is to say, as I truly can, I am very anxious to see it again. Some of Shakespeare’s plays I have never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are
Lear, Richard HI, Henry VIII, Hamlet
, and especially
Macbeth.
I think nothing equals
Macbeth.
It is wonderful.

Unlike you gentlemen of the profession, I think the soliloquy in
Hamlet
commencing “Oh, my offense is rank,” surpasses that commencing “To be or not to be.” But pardon this
small attempt at criticism. I should like to hear you pronounce the opening speech of Richard III. Will you not soon visit Washington again? If you do, please call and let me make your personal acquaintance.

A mass meeting of loyal Union men was to be held in Springfield, Ill., and Lincoln had been invited to go there to address this important political gathering. At first he had seriously considered leaving Washington to do so but he then realized that the press of national affairs made this impossible. He wrote, instead, this long and important letter which was intended to be read at the meeting and to be published throughout the nation. It was written during the high tide of Northern victory, and it did much to win the people to Lincoln. It was widely commented on by newspapers, not only in America, but also abroad.

Executive Mansion, August 26, 1863

M
Y
D
EAR
S
IR
: Your letter inviting me to attend a mass-meeting of 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 to me to thus 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.…

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 arms. 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 up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise.
I do not believe any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them.