o stay the destruction of life and property, and
if anyone in authority at that time had influence with the rioters and
their sympathisers it was Horatio Seymour, who probably accomplished
less than he hoped to.

[Footnote 904: New York _Tribune_, _Herald_, _Times_, and _World_,
July 15; also, _Public Record of Horatio Seymour_, pp. 127-128.]

[Footnote 905: New York _Tribune_, _Herald_, and _Times_.]

Seymour's views in relation to the draft first appeared in August.
While the Federal authorities prepared the enrolment in June, the
Governor, although his cooeperation was sought, "gave no assistance,"
says Fry. "In fact, so far as the government officers engaged in the
enrolment could learn, he gave the subject no attention."[906] On the
day the drawing began, however, he became apprehensive of trouble and
sent his adjutant to Washington to secure a suspension of the draft,
but the records do not reveal the reasons presented by that officer.
Certainly no complaint was made as to the correctness of the enrolment
or the assignment of quotas.[907] Nevertheless, his delay taught him a
lesson, and when the Federal authorities notified him later that the
drawing would be resumed in August, he lost no time in beginning the
now historic correspondence with the President. His letter of August 3
asked that the suspension of the draft be continued to enable the
State officials to correct the enrolment, and to give the United
States Supreme Court opportunity to pass upon the constitutionality of
the Conscription Act, suggesting the hope that in the meantime New
York's quota might be filled by volunteers. "It is believed by at
least one-half of the people of the loyal States," he wrote, "that the
Conscription Act, which they are called upon to obey, is in itself a
violation of the supreme constitutional law.... In the minds of the
American people the duty of obedience and the rights to protection are
inseparable. If it is, therefore, proposed on the one hand to exact
obedience at the point of the bayonet, and, upon the other hand, to
shut off, by military power, all approach to our judicial tribunals,
we have reason to fear the most ruinous results."[908]

[Footnote 906: James B. Fry, _New York and the Conscription_, p. 14.
"Seymour showed his lack of executive ability by not filling up the
quota of New York by volunteers in less than a month after the
Conscription Act was passed. This a clever executive could easily have
done a