We copy to-day, from the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph an able and interesting article on the subject of conscription. This writer protests as we do against conscription, as an invasion of the rights of the States, and as an engine of military despotism. – North Carolina, like Georgia, has responded with alacrity to every call for troops by the President. – Our state will soon have raised fifty regiments; and of these, thirty eight to forty will soon be in the field for the war. If the President wants forty more for the war, he can get them; but we must insist on volunteers and not conscripts; and these volunteers must be guaranteed the constitutional right of choosing their officers according to the plan adopted by the State. Volunteers for the war are simply militia for the war; and by the Constitution of the Confederate States, “the appointment of the officers” of the militia is expressly reserved to the States.
Conscription was recommended and attempted under the old government, in the war of 1812. In October, 1814, it was proposed by Mr. Monroe, acting Secretary of War, that the free male population of the United States should be formed into classes of one hundred men each – each class to furnish a certain number of men for the war, and replace them in event of casualty, or if any class proved delinquent, the men to be raised by draft on the whole class. “This plan,” says the Statesman’s Manual, vol. 1, p. 378, “was considered conscription, intended to be equally efficacious with the conscription established in France by Bonaparte. It was opposed as unconstitutional, oppressive and absurd, and when modified and introduced in the Senate, by Mr. Giles, in the form of a bill for the raising of eighty thousand men, after a long debate, and great efforts by the friends of the administration, the measure could not be carried through Congress, and of course failed.” It is stated in Hildreth’s history of the United States, vol. 3, page 541, that Mr. Wright of Maryland, and other vehement war men, were as zealous as the Federalists in their opposition to this measure. Indeed, it was defeated by Republicans and Federalists combined, many of the former being as hostile to it as the latter. And yet the necessity for conscription was much greater then than is now. A large party not only opposed the declaration of war against Great Britain, but continued to oppose it during its progress, and it was with difficulty that troops could be raised in some of the States. Such is by no means the case in this war. The people generally are in favor of it, and the States have vied with each other in raising and arming troops for both State and Confederate defence [sic]. There is, therefore, no good reason for urging a levy en masse on the people; and it is both wicked and dangerous to attempt to force free men to do what they have been doing, and will do voluntarily. We are inflexibly opposed to calling into the field, as hireling soldiers, all our fighting men between eighteen and thirty-five, and then disarming the remained of the population, as proposed by the President in his “request” to Maj. Ashe. Our liberties might not, in the end, be destroyed by such a course; but we are not willing to trust any man, or any government, of delegated powers, under any circumstances, with the exercise of such power. “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
We are glad to find that the press of the State is generally opposed to conscription. The last Fayetteville Observer says:
“So far as North Carolina is concerned, we can say with pride and pleasure, that she has gone ahead of all calls upon her for troops. The late requisition is a glorious example of this. The Governor, by direction of the President, called for five regiments, and more than ten have sprung forward. Is it not cruel, under such circumstances to impress all? Is it not unjust to require, when more that are needed are ready to go upon a mere request? We have reason to know that in some portions of the State, if not all, almost every man who ought to go is already enrolled, and gone or going. Here and there is found a man with a wife and a half a dozen to a dozen children dependent upon his labor alone for bread and his presence for protection; shall such men be carried of to the army? God forbid. If they all go, who is to raise the food for the family, to say nothing of the army? We tell the authorities, that there are already serious and alarming apprehensions upon this latter point. We lately received a letter from an upper county, begging us to call attention to the fears felt there that there will not be laborers enough left (in a section where there are few slaves,) to reap and save the crops of all small grain now nearly ready for the sickle.
Again: this measure proposes to retain, by law, all the twelve months’ volunteers now in the service (between 18 & 35) in violation of the solemn obligation, the plighted faith of the State and the Confederate States, that they should have a right to a discharge at the end of the twelve months. The mere statement of such a proposition brands it as – we are unwilling to use the term. But what sort of soldiers would men make who are thus treated? We say, beware!
We would have said something on this view – the political view – but it is so well and forcibly said by an eminent statesman in a letter just at hand, that we take the liberty of substituting his language instead of our own. It occurs at the end of a business letter, as follows: –
“I am gratified to see that the Observer has independence enough to object to the proposition to repudiate the paroles of our released soldiers. It proposes a process of absolution, scarcely less than Papal. But I regard the recent message of the President, asking for the power of conscription, as in effect looking to a military despotism, and I am greatly surprised that the Richmond Whig, which has manfully raised its voice against the proscription and favoritism of the administration, and the imbecility in office which has become its natural result, should have yielded its acquiescence in the policy. Give to the President a standing army consisting of all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 35, with power to call into the field as many as he pleases and when and where he pleases, without saying to the Governor of a State “by your leave,” and not only is the Constitution subverted, but personal liberty is no more. The power to declare and enforce martial law, and imprison citizens indefinitely without the right of habeas corpus to inquire into the cause of detention, is another wide step in the came direction. A panic prevails in the country, and those in authority have but to ask for power on the ground of “military necessity,” and the oldest and most sacred safeguards of freedom are yielded without question.
We must retain our self possession, and our liberties too, in the progress of this war, or we will look in vain for them at its close.
– Published in The North Carolina Weekly Standard, Raleigh, North Carolina, Wednesday, April 16, 1862, p. 1
