For “limitless taxation and conscription”
Some Democratic campaign rhetoric painted a picture of endless drafts and high taxes if President Lincoln was re-elected.
From a Seneca County, New York newspaper in September 1864:
Not The Last Draft.
It may not be uninteresting as a subject on which to reflect that the administration has officially informed Governor Seymour, of New York, that the surplus volunteers of the State will be credited on the next draft after that for September. – Everywhere men are being urged to enlist for three years, and a circular from the Secretary of War directs that all officers be henceforth mustered for three years. If there are those sufficiently silly to believe that the war is near its end under the present abolition policy, they are welcome to what comfort they may derive from such foolish belief. In the event of Lincoln’s re-election, conscription will follow conscription, and remorseless taxation drag the people down. Those who want limitless taxation and conscription, will vote for Lincoln; those who want peace and security will vote against him – vote for George B. McClellan, whose administration will bring security to all.
According to the Library of Congress the following 1864 political cartoon was based on the Lincoln Administration’s conscription policies:
In 1862, displeased by Attorney General Edward Bates’s slowness in enforcing the Conspiracies Act, the President took matters into his own hands and issued a proclamation “directing trial by court martial or military commissions of all persons who impeded the draft, discouraged enlistments or committed other disloyal acts.” Around thirty-eight thousand people were arrested, denied the right of habeas corpus, and held in jail until brought to trial. This heavy-handed act provides the fuel for the artist’s attack here.
The link also points out that the cartoon also touched on abolition fears.
the Union has passed away
A devil-like Secretary of State Seward is in the upper right-hand corner. A Richmond paper 150 years ago this month found proof that Mr. Seward had been lying about the draft. From the Richmond Daily Dispatch September 13, 1864:
The draft to be enforced.
In the following official telegram from Secretary Stanton, we find that Seward was deceiving the A[u]burnites when he told them that the draft would not be enforced:
Washington, September 7.
Major-General Dix, New York:
This Department is still without say dispatches from south of Nashville.
It is supposed to be General Sherman’s design to withdraw his advanced columns and give his army rest in Atlanta, and establish himself securely there, and restore his railroad communications broken by Wheeler and Forrest, before making further advances.
No operations by the armies of General Grant or General Sherman are reported to-day.
The provost-marshal-general’s office is busily engaged in arranging the credits of the several districts, and is ordered to draft without delay for the deficiency in the districts that have not filled their quotas, beginning with those most in arrears.
Credits for volunteers will be allowed as long as possible; but the advantage of filling the armies immediately requires the draft to be speedily made in the defaulting districts. All applications for its postponement have, therefore, been refused.
Edwin M. Stanton,
Secretary of War.
