ity is such as to require attention. Much of it, however,
I suppose will be accounted for by the fact that so many more persons fit
for soldiers are in the city than are in the country who have too recently
arrived from other parts of the United States and from Europe to be either
included in the census of 1860, or to have voted in 1862. Still, making
due allowance for this, I am yet unwilling to stand upon it as an entirely
sufficient explanation of the great disparity.

I shall direct the draft to proceed in all the districts, drawing,
however, at first from each of the four districts--to wit, the Second,
Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth--only, 2200 being the average quota of the other
class. After this drawing, these four districts, and also the Seventeenth
and Twenty-ninth, shall be carefully re-enrolled; and, if you please,
agents of yours may witness every step of the process. Any deficiency
which may appear by the new enrolment will be supplied by a special draft
for that object, allowing due credit for volunteers who may be obtained
from these districts respectively during the interval; and at all points,
so far as consistent with practical convenience, due credits shall be
given for volunteers, and your Excellency shall be notified of the time
fixed for commencing the draft in each district.

I do not object to abide a decision of the United States Supreme Court, or
of the judges thereof, on the constitutionality of the draft law. In
fact, I should be willing to facilitate the obtaining of it. But I cannot
consent to lose the time while it is being obtained. We are contending
with an enemy who, as I understand, drives every able-bodied man he can
reach into his ranks, very much as a butcher drives bullocks into the
slaughter-pen. No time is wasted, no argument is used. This produces an
army which will soon turn upon our now victorious soldiers already in the
field, if they shall not be sustained by recruits as they should be. It
produces an army with a rapidity not to be matched on our side if we first
waste time to re-experiment with the volunteer system, already deemed by
Congress, and palpably, in fact, so far exhausted as to be inadequate;
and then more time to obtain a court decision as to whether a law is
constitutional, which requires a part of those not now in the service
to go to the aid of those who are already in it; and still more time to
determine with absolute certainty that we get those who are to go in