“I ask gentlemen who oppose this repeal, why they desire to make it easy for citizens to escape from military duty? Is it a great hardship to serve one’s country? Is it a disgraceful service? Will you, by your action here, say to the soldiers in the field, ‘This is a disreputable business; you have been deceived; you have been caught in a trap, and we will make no law to put any body else in it’? Do you thus treat your soldiers in the field? They are proud of their voluntary service, and if there be one wish of the army paramount to all others, one message more earnest than all the others which they send back to you, it is that you will aid in filling up their battle-thinned ranks by a draft which will compel lukewarm citizens who prate against the war to go into the field. They ask that you will not expend large bounties in paying men of third-rate patriotism, while they went with no other bounty than their love of country, to which they gave their young lives a free offering, but that you will compel these eleventh-hour men to take their chances in the field beside them. Let us grant their request, and, by a steady and persistent effort, we shall, in the end, be it near or remote, be it in one year or ten, crown the nation with victory and enduring peace.” In the sequel, this bill passed; a grand reinforcement of five hundred thousand men soon secured the supremacy of the Union, and Father Abraham was thus enabled to finish his immortal work. Early in the first session of the Thirty-Eighth Congress, the subject of confiscation was pretty thoroughly discussed. House Resolution No. 18 was offered, so amending a resolution of the preceding Congress that no punishment or proceeding under it should be so construed as to make a forfeiture of the estate of the offender, except during his life. Out of this little motion there grew a great crop of controversy, and among others, General Garfield took part. His main speech, the first lengthy address he ever made in Congress, was delivered on January 28, 1864. Mr. Finck, of Ohio, had just sat down at the close of a long set speech, when Garfield arose and began in these words: “Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to ask the attention of the House or to occupy its time on this question of confiscation at all, but some things have been said, touching its military aspects, which make it proper for me to trespass upon the patience of the House. Feeling that, in some small degree, I represent on this floor the Army of the Republic, I am the more emboldened to speak to this subject before us.