Abraham LincolnCharnwood, Godfrey Rathbone Benson, Baron
History
Abraham Lincoln
Charnwood, Godfrey Rathbone Benson, Baron
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
of his term of office he persecuted Lincoln with complaints as to the
unfairness of the quota imposed on certain districts under the
Conscription Act. It is true that he also protested on presumably
sincere constitutional grounds against the Act itself, begging Lincoln to
suspend its enforcement till its validity had been determined by the
Courts. As to this Lincoln most properly agreed to facilitate, if he
could, an appeal to the Supreme Court, but declined, on the ground of
urgent military necessity, to delay the drafts in the meantime.
Seymour's obstructive conduct, however, was not confined to the
intelligible ground of objection to the Act itself; it showed itself in
the perpetual assertion that the quotas were unfair. No complaint as to
this had been raised before the riots. It seems that a quite unintended
error may in fact at first have been made. Lincoln, however, immediately
reduced the quotas in question to the full extent which the alleged error
would have required. Fresh complaints from Seymour followed, and so on
to the end. Ultimately Seymour was invited to come to Washington and
have out the whole matter of his complaints in conference with Stanton.
Like a prudent man, he again refused to face personal conference. It
seems that Governor Seymour, who was a great person in his day, was very
decidedly, in the common acceptance of the term, a gentleman. This has
been counted unto him for righteousness. It should rather be treated as
an aggravation of his very unmeritable conduct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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