Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/605

 1863] The Conscription Law; violent opposition. 573 of the war might require. Instead of relying upon the governors and State authorities, as had been the case under the volunteer system, and the temporary militia draft, the law provided that it should be enforced by the direct agency of the general government through a provost- marshal-general and a local provost-marshal in each Congressional district, aided also by a local board of enrolment. The passage of this law through Congress was attended by hot and acrimonious discussion, the Republicans supporting and the Democrats opposing the measure. Since the Democratic members denounced the law in Congressional debates as being unconstitutional and despotic, the Democratic voters in the loyal States, following the lead of their repre- sentatives, generally placed themselves in an attitude of hostility towards enforcement. This opposition subsequently gave the government officials not only great annoyance but serious trouble, and caused a three days' riot in the city of New York, beginning on July 11, 1863, in which $2,000,000 worth of property was destroyed and from 600 to 1000 persons, it was estimated, were killed and wounded. Slight disturbances occurred in several other cities; and in a very few instances provost- marshals or their deputies were assassinated in country districts. On the whole however the law was firmly and justly enforced, though frequently mitigated in its stringency by the fact that active volunteering was earned on concurrently and greatly promoted by high bounties paid to volunteer recruits, through which local districts furnishing their required quota of men were enabled to avoid the draft. Out of this opposition to the draft-law grew an incident of national interest. Clement L. Vallandigham, a Democratic member of Congress from Ohio, carried his denunciation of the measure to such an extreme in speeches before his constituents, that General Burnside, at that time in command of the military department in which the State was included, had him arrested on May 1. Placed on trial before a military com- mission, Vallandigham was convicted of having violated Order No. 38 by "declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions, with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion," and was sentenced to military confinement during the continuance of the war. An application for a writ of habeas corpus was denied by Judge Leavitt of the United States Circuit Court, on the ground that the President, under whose military authority, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, General Burnside acted, is his own sole judge of the power with which the Constitution invests him, and is amenable for an abuse of his authority by impeachment only. President Lincoln's judgment was always against arbitrary military measures ; but he felt that it would be imprudent to annul the action of the general and the military tribunal. Conformably, however, to a paragraph in Burnside's Order No. 38, he modified the sentence by sending the prisoner south beyond the Federal military lines, on May 25. CH. XVIII.