September 1864 was another draft month in the North. Here’s some sarcasm, first from a paper in central New York State and then from the Richmond Dispatch as it reported on Ohio Governor John Brough’s warning against draft resistance.
From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in September 1864:
THE QUOTA FULL. – A dispatch from the office of the Provost Marshal at Auburn, states that every town and ward in this district has filled its quota under Lincoln’s call for 500,000 men. Let anxious minds, therefore, be at rest.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch September 2, 1864:
The proclamation of Governor Brough, of Ohio — warning against resisting the draft.
The last draft of Lincoln for five hundred thousand men has created the deepest discontent in Ohio. So manifest is this, that Governor Brough, of that State, has felt it his duty to issue a proclamation, dated “Executive Department of Ohio, Columbus, August 23d,” in which he warns the people against resisting this new thinning out of their homes. The draft is to take place on Monday next, the 5th instant, and in some of the districts in the State there is a deficiency in the quota, and it must be put in operation in those districts. In his proclamation he says:
resistance is futile
The exertion which has been made to discourage and prevent enlistments, if otherwise directed, would have filled the quotas of those localities, or left the deficiencies very light. However unwilling to believe that any considerable portion of the people of this State would array themselves in a spirit of factious, if not treasonable, opposition to the execution of the laws of the land, there are indications of such a spirit in the State, which as Chief Magistrate, I may not disregard. In appealing to the people to discard the counsels of wicked and unprincipled leaders that invite them to factious and forcible resistance to the draft, or any other legal requirement of the Government, I am actuated solely by a desire to preserve, if practicable, the peace of the State and the welfare of the erring portion of our people, and not from any apprehension of either the determination or ability of the Government to maintain the supremacy of its laws. The man who supposes that either the National or State Government is unadvised of, or unprepared for, the threatened emergency, is following the deception of his leaders to consequences of the most serious character. Let me advise you who countenance this insurrection to look carefully at the civil and military penalties you are incurring.
He then cites to them all the pains and penalties ordained by Congress to follow any resistance to the “Government of the United States,” which it is likely the people of Ohio will count as light afflictions, and but for a moment, as compared with the terrible alternative of being sent South to be killed. The following is the conclusion of his proclamation:
If men may take up arms to resist laws, in the policy or effect of which they do not concur, then all government is at an end, and we are resolved into anarchy. This state of things is not to be tolerated. A government may as well perish in a bold and vigorous effort to maintain its integrity as to suffer an insurrection to neutralize and defy its power. …
John Brough.
The image of Governor Brough (at Son of the South) was published in the December 26, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, which noted that he beat leading Copperhead Clement Vallandigham by about 100,000 votes in the gubernatorial election.
