This Act has somehow gotten a bad name, and one that in no wise belongs to it. Nothing is more talked at and about than the “Conscript Act,” passed at the last session of Congress, when nothing that the name belongs to, is in existence this side of Rebeldom. Indeed, as the Washington Chronicle remarks, “this enrollment is no more in the nature of conscription than is the taking of the census. It is in fact, merely a census of such portion of the people are as capable of military service. The Government desires to know who and what its resources are, in the shape of men and material. One step toward it is the enrollment – as innocent and praiseworthy a deed, as is the registry of voters or the assessment of property. It is the only means the Government has, of learning its power; which it is eminently necessary it should know.
It is sometime hinted that there will be difficulty in the execution of this Act. Possibly some evil-disposed persons may endeavor to create such difficulty. So there have been troubles in the location of railways, the assessment of property and taking the census. But they grow out of ignorance or misrepresentation; and no man in the Northern States, except the fool or knave, thinks of opposing such steps as these. No more should there be any opposition to the enrollment, which, if thoroughly carried out, a few times, as the law requires it shall be, cannot fail to be of immense advantage, in many ways. The question of the draft has nothing whatever to do with it, except as it enables the Government to know who ought to be drafted. A conscript law is an indiscrimmate enforcement of the population into the military service, as is the case with the South at the present time. An enrollment is nothing of the kind. The two should not therefore be confounded.
– Published in the Stark County News, Toulon, Illinois, Thursday, May 21 1863
It is sometime hinted that there will be difficulty in the execution of this Act. Possibly some evil-disposed persons may endeavor to create such difficulty. So there have been troubles in the location of railways, the assessment of property and taking the census. But they grow out of ignorance or misrepresentation; and no man in the Northern States, except the fool or knave, thinks of opposing such steps as these. No more should there be any opposition to the enrollment, which, if thoroughly carried out, a few times, as the law requires it shall be, cannot fail to be of immense advantage, in many ways. The question of the draft has nothing whatever to do with it, except as it enables the Government to know who ought to be drafted. A conscript law is an indiscrimmate enforcement of the population into the military service, as is the case with the South at the present time. An enrollment is nothing of the kind. The two should not therefore be confounded.
– Published in the Stark County News, Toulon, Illinois, Thursday, May 21 1863
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