MILITARY RECORDS
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ON CIVIL WAR DRAFT
Transcribed by Sue Broadbooks, July 27, 2024
The Morning Democrat
Davenport, Iowa
Fri, Sep 12, 1862
Page 2Our neighbor, the Democrat, is averse to Quaker exemption, and thinking so, speaks not only his own mind, but gives a Marengo correspondent the same privilege. The denunciatory process, in our estimation, is hardly the way to treat this question.
The Quakers in Iowa are very few; yet their consciences here are just as tender as though residing in the great city to which they have given a familiar name. From the time of George Fox, and William Penn, and Robert Barclay, they have held to the doctrine of "peace on earth and good will to men." Their religious policy embraces this sentiment as one of its foundation stones. Among themselves, animosities aro not permitted - no one is even allowed to go to law with his brother in the faith. Their example in times of peace, is one which ennobles a neighborhood, and fills it with charitable and humane feelings. They are the very best of citizens, their members are never in courts of justice. arraigned for crime, and the necessities of their poor aro never permitted to be known to the public. They are patriotic in their impulses - none more so. During the Revolution, they did everything for the great cause possible for men to do, except shoulder the musket. No Royalists were among them at all. They were despoiled of their property, many of them made homeless for opinion's sake, yet they never placed their views under.concealment then, any more than they do at the present day in regard to the wicked system of human bondage. Talk with a Quaker about the existing infamous rebellion, and if you get a secession or semi-secession sentiment out of him, he may be esteemed a lusus natura. As a class, they would rather die than be guilty of such violence to their honest convictions. Let a soldier, or the family of a soldier, come within the range of the personal benevolence of a Quaker, and there will be a persistency in affording what relief is necessary, that will put to shame many of the spasmodic efforts of the world around them. True, a poor, miserable wretch of a rebel, would receive much of the same compassionate treatment, but then, it would be rendered in such a way as to heap coals of fire upon his head, and make him keenly sensitive to his shortcomings towards the benign form of government against which he had raised his ungrateful arm.
View the subject from what point we may-with our knowledge of the habits and education of the Quakers, their blameless lives and law-abiding tendencies, and above all, their innate horror of spilling the blood of their fellow man under any circumstances we should feel condemnation of the most poignant character, were we to advocate a policy which should force them into a position where they would not only be useless as soldiers but unnecessary victims of slaughter. Editors and correspondents may discourse learnedly about injustice being done to the rest of the people of the State by this species of exemption; but, the neighbor of a Quaker, when ho girds on his armor, has no such feeling. He does not expect for a moment that his friend in drab should, by his actions, prove his whole life to be a lie, by imitating his example. The wife of his bosom and his little ones perhaps, will experience the out-gushings of sympathy for their forlorn condition, in a way that will make the patriotic soldier feel, in his lonely watchings about the camp, as though things could not go ill at home, with such associations.
Other States, in their moments of peace, have acted wisely, we think, in framing laws to suit the peculiar condition of the Friends. In this, our time of sure trial as a nation, we shall lose nothing in Iowa, by giving heed to that "still small voice," which in our heart of hearts indicates that their religious feelings should be respected to such an extent, at least, that they may not be forced to bear arms.
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