This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
“
[297]
and were it not for that fact it would be deadly to your administration and your cause.”
“To what do you refer?”
“
To the method in which your armies are being raised.
I, as you know, had nothing to do with recruiting a single soldier, but I have lately been at home looking into the matter.
I find all the good men of your army are Republicans as a rule, or are all scallawags, State prison birds, and other vagabonds, picked up to fill out enlistments.
As I told you, I am a Democrat.
Now there are no Democrats as privates or subordinate officers going into the war. There are none going in as officers except they are West Point men, who are made colonels of regiments at once, although in the course of their profession they would have had to work twenty years before they would have obtained that rank.
The subordinate officers have gathered up what men they could from their Republican neighbors.
The Democrats in their localities, not having any confidence in their politics and looking substantially upon the war as a Republican war, are taking no part in it.
This seems to me to be bad statesmanship.
The President of the United States can raise, as he has the right to raise, volunteer troops of the United States.
When he employs the militia of the United States as such, he must employ the militia of the States; but he has full right to enlist volunteers to carry out special objects of the war.
Think of it a moment, Mr. President. Suppose the governors of the States should refuse to raise any volunteers; would not the President of the United States have a right to draft men for the service of the United States, and when he drafts such men could he not appoint officers to organize and draft them without the leave of the governors of the States?
Furthermore, if the present methods of recruiting go on until the election, which is next year, and then you have a million of men or so in the field, you will be short that number of Republican votes because your voters will be in the field.
You may perhaps get the States to pass laws, by constitutional amendment or otherwise, that your soldiers may vote outside of the State, yet that would be attended in ordinary election with a great deal of mischievous trouble and quite probable delay.
Your aim ”
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.