MR. PRESIDENT,--I presume that I do not exaggerate, if I say, that, of all the questions connected with this bill, that relating to commutation for service is the most difficult and the most sensitive. It is the question which has most occupied the attention of the country. It has been most discussed in the newspapers, and also in conversation. I presume it is the ground of objection most often made against the draft. Now I think all Senators will unite in any proposition that promises in any way to smooth these difficulties,--in short, to popularize a part of the bill which has been open to so much objection among the people. January 12th, in the course of debate, Mr. Sumner replied to Mr. Sherman, of Ohio. The Senator from Ohio, not contenting himself with opposing the amendment, introduced other and extraneous matter, which has been under discussion since, diverting our minds from the original proposition. But if I can have his attention for a few minutes, it seems to me--I do not know--- I may even satisfy him that his argument was not well founded. If I understand the Senator, he objects to my proposition on the ground, in the first place, that it is an unusual tax. Sir, what is the draft but a tax? The draft compels all persons drafted to contribute strength, muscle, life, to the defence of the Republic. That, if I am not mistaken, is the highest tax the country can impose. But, still further, what is the commutation which the statute positively requires but a tax? If, then, there be anything in the argument of the Senator, both the draft itself and the commutation of three hundred dollars are a tax, and both are therefore objectionable. But neither the one nor the other is a tax in a received sense, because neither the one nor the other is an imposition for revenue; and I ask the attention of the Senator to the distinction, neither the one nor the other is an imposition for revenue. Not on any such ground do I present this amendment, but simply and distinctly on the duty of equalizing this burden, that it shall bear, so far as we can make it, with something like equality upon the rich and the poor. Now I have to say that at present the burden is not equalized, and that it does not bear with anything like equality upon the rich and the poor. You make the poor man pay three hundred dollars; but the rich man pays no more. Is this equality?