Monday, July 6, 2015

Francis Lieber to Judge Thayer, January 2, 1864

New York, January 2,1864.

. . . The constitutionality of the conscription is one of those footballs of which we have had sundry in our history.

No man, I venture to say, Copperhead or not, would be so bold as to assert that the government had not the power or the solemn duty of raising an army by conscription, if need be, should an English or French army march into our country to the tune of some two hundred and fifty thousand men. The question, therefore, of raising an army by conscription in the present case, is simply one of the magnitude of the danger, and of the hearty sincerity in those who desire, or pretend to desire, to carry out the war successfully. If a man thinks that anything else than victory in the field can now decide our great question, let him say so. The issue will then be on quite a different ground. If a man thinks that we want an army of five hundred thousand, and to keep it up, but that volunteering will be the best method of raising such an army, let him say so, and the question will be one of expediency; but to say that the Constitution prohibits this nation from doing that which Nature commands every creature to do, man or beast, — to defend its own skin, — would be simply laughed at were such folly uttered by any one not backed by party power. Suppose I had said so in one of my books, without reference to any pending and existing question, every reviewer would have set me down as a fool. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 337

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