litary necessity.
The spirit and manner of its acceptance may be judged from the results of
any of the calls for troops under this law. For example, in December,
1864, towards the end of the war, 211,752 men were brought up to the
colours; of these it seems that 194,715 were ordinary volunteers, 10,192
were substitutes provided by conscripts, and only 6,845 were actually
compelled men. It is perhaps more significant still that among those who
did not serve there were only 460 who paid the 300-dollar penalty, as
against the 10,192 who must have paid at least three times that sum for
substitutes. Behind the men who had been called up by the end of the war
the North had, enrolled and ready to be called, over two million men.
The North had not to suffer as the South suffered, but unquestionably in
this matter it rose to the occasion.

The constitutional validity of the law was much questioned by
politicians, but never finally tried out on appeal to the Supreme Court.
There seems to be no room for doubt that Lincoln's own reasoning on this
matter was sound. The Constitution simply gave to Congress "power to
raise and support armies," without a word as to the particular means to
be used for the purpose; the new and extremely well-considered
Constitution of the Confederacy was in this respect the same. The
Constitution, argued Lincoln, would not have given the power of raising
armies without one word as to the mode in which it was to be exercised,
if it had not meant Congress to be the sole judge as to the mode. "The
principle," he wrote, "of the draft, which simply is involuntary or
enforced service, is not new. It has been practised in all ages of the
world. It was well known to the framers of our Constitution as one of
the modes of raising armies. . . . It had been used just before, in
establishing our independence, and it was also used under the
Constitution in 1812." In fact, as we have seen, a certain power of
compelling military service existed in each of the States and had existed
in them from the first. Their ancestors had brought the principle with
them from the old country, in which the system of the "militia ballot"
had not fallen into desuetude when they became independent. The
traditional English jealousy, which the American Colonies had imbibed,
against the military power of the Crown had never manifested itself in
any objection to the means which might be taken to raise soldiers, but in
establishing