When a citizen is drafted as a soldier, and the question arises of his ransom by a pecuniary contribution, there is no element of equity which is not shocked, so my conscience tells me, if you fail to regulate the requirement of money according to the wealth of the individual. What is there which a man will not give for his life? What is there which a man, having the means, and indisposed to military exposure, will not pay for his exemption? And yet, Sir, by the law as it now stands, you compel the poor to pay the same as the rich. The rich man is drafted, and he pays three hundred dollars, which to him is nothing; he puts his hand into his purse, as you put yours into your pocket to find the change for a newspaper; whereas the poor man, perhaps, is driven to sell all that he has to save himself for his family. Sir, is that just? To my mind it is not. … Suppose the Senator himself were drafted; indisposed, as he probably would be, to the toils of war, what is there that he would not consent to pay for exemption? To him, under such circumstances, the required amount would be nothing; and yet to the poor man it is everything. In short, there are many who have it not; and there are many, who, by calling upon their friends, and exhausting every resource within their reach, are not able to command that small sum; others, perhaps, just able to command it, are compelled to burden their families and deny comfort to wife and child. Now, Sir, the rich man is under no such obligation. If he be drafted under existing laws, he finds his substitute, or he tosses into the Treasury the required amount; he draws his check, and it is all over. Sir, there is no equity in the law as it stands. The proposition I present has in it two elements: the first is that it seeks justice; the second is that it provides a fund out of which bounties may be distributed by the Secretary of War among the men drafted and mustered into service. Here is another attraction to the service,--or, if it be not another attraction, it is something which will mitigate its hardships. The soldier, while on the field of battle, or on his weary march, will bear in mind, that, when the time of honorable discharge at last arrives, or should he be taken away by death, then, for the benefit of his wife and minor children, he may look to the fund from these contributions for a bounty which shall be to him or to them something in the way of support. Therefore in the pending amendment is an inducement which all confess is needed to carry forward our enrolments, and also something more to mitigate them. On motion of Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, the bill was recommitted to the Committee on Military Affairs, who reported it without amendment. * * * * *