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MILITARY RECORDS

NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ON CIVIL WAR DRAFT

Transcribed by Sue Broadbooks, July 27, 2024

The Morning Democrat
Davenport, Iowa
Fri, Aug 15, 1862
Page 2

Beginning to See It.

      The editors who have treated the rebellion as a slight affair, that could be crushed away on you would brush sway cobwebs, are beginning to see their error and behold that the rebellion if of the most huge proportions possible. Hon. Wm. Allen, in his celebrated speech of 1850, that be delivered in Philadelphia, foretold this, and more too, as the result of civil war growing out of the slavery agitation. Forney's Press has been among the journals that have looked upon the suppression of the rebellion as a matter of easy accomplishment; but in its Saturday's issue it holds this language:

     We can not be at war, and such a war, and preserve the conditions of peace, Let there be direct war taxes and conscriptions. Let there be the plainest administrative promulgation of the nation's laws. Every resource must be made to contribute. If we can strike the enemy a , let us do it. Not by gradually making up our minds to do it, and as slowly and gingerly feeling our way towards it, but boldly, instantly. We are weak, and our foe knows it. He will not wait till we have recovered, but will swoop down on us before we have arranged in decent style the preliminaries of battle, and while we are deprecating the arming of everybody who can strike for the national salvation. Washington today in greater danger than it has ever been, and we are still dandling our doll - of conservatism and voluntary enlistment.

      We must first have a draft of a million men, half as reserves. Actual force is needed at once; money can come afterwards. But this good natured lethargy must be pushed away by the Executive, if the people will not banish it. Everything must be concentrated upon the one matter in hand. It is war - and a war now not so much for defeating the rebels as for defending ourselves. Let us have the draft.

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