Newspapers again carried sections of classified
advertising calling for substitutes. Two of twelve
similar want ads in the New York Herald of October 29
read: "Three hundred and fifty dollars cash in hand paid
for substitutes. $350. Call at 74 Cortland St. upstairs
near West St. Barker and Spencer. $425. Substitutes
wanted this day, for the country. The highest cash
bounty
in the city will be paid down. Call early on Captain
Flanagan room 22 Tammany Hall, opposite City Hall...
Now the matter of conscription was one wherein Congress
had kept to itself certain very strict powers. The
President could be a dictator in enforcement of the
draft law, bust as to what that law provided--whether
the commutation should be $300, $500, $1,000, or whether
no man could buy exemption with money--Congress held the
powers and the President was no dictator at all. He was
limited to advising Congress what the draft law should
say. And so, Executive Document No. 97 went to Congress.
The first item in this document had the signature of
Abraham Lincoln, the date of June 8, 1864, the address "
To the Senate and House of Representatives," and the
text: "I have the honor to submit for the consideration
of Congress a letter and enclosure from the Secretary of
War,
with my concurrence in the recommendation therein made."
The letter enclosed, signed by Stanton and addressed "To
the President," recommended "a repeal of the clause in
the enrollment act commonly known as the $300 clause."
Any drafted man could hire an able-bodied substitute, at
a price arranged between himself and the substitute, a
current market figure in the substitute market which had
become wide and flourishing. Both the $300 bounty clause
and the substitute clause would be struck out by the
Schenck bill. To repeal the $300 clause and let the
substitute clause stand would run the price of
substitutes up beyond the reach of drafted men of
limited means. "The truth is," said Congressman Schenck,
"that so far as the $300 clause operates, it operates to
the protection of men of limited means, and therefore I
say that if you repeal it and go no further you leave
them a right to complain that you run up substitutes in
the market so as to make it impossible, for them to
obtain substitutes and compel them to go.
And in place of the $300 clause which was absolutely
repealed, a House and Senate conference bill, the act of
July 4, 1864, provided that the President had authority
to call for volunteers for one, two, or three years, the
one-year men to be paid $100 bounty, the two-year men
$200, the three-year men $300, each receiving the final
one-third installment of his bounty on completion of
service.
With the $300 clause done away with, any man drafted
must either go into the army himself or pay someone else
to go for him. Such a substitute had to be either an
alien, a veteran of two years' service, or a boy under
twenty. Hustlers in the business of finding substitutes
and selling them to those who wished to buy-- hustlers
came forward. "Wanted. Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotchmen,
Germans, Frenchmen, to enlist as volunteers." Thus one
amid columns of similar ads, paid for at regular rates,
in the New York Herald.
"Who wants a one-year substitute for eight hundred
dollars?" Thus another also paid for at regular rates.
"Forty-one were furnished by us on Monday," ran another.
"Thirty-four more are wanted at the same price, nine
hundred and fifty dollars each." Only four days after
the President's proclamation one New York Herald ad made
the appeal: "It is clearly to the interest of every man
liable to military duty to procure an alien substitute
at once and save dollars, cents and worry. The price of
substitutes will soon reach $1,200, because of the great
bounties that will be offered by cities, towns and
States."Prices for substitutes were boosted so high
that a Supervisors' Committee in New York City publicly
took steps to help those who desired at a low and
reasonable rate to make their purchases. By entering
their names in a book and paying $335 the committee
would serve them, the $300 being for the substitute, the
$35 for the person bringing the substitute. In
Philadelphia, the Citizens' Volunteer Substitute
Committee opened an exchange, received applications from
those seeking substitutes, urged aliens and veterans to
enlist as substitutes, offered $650 over and above the
government bounty and charged no commission nor
brokerage.
Six hundred dollars cash paid for substitutes," ran one
of many ads in newspapers of Cincinnati, where on August
20 prices went to $1,200 and $1,500 for substitutes.
The draft marched on. But not in the one large city most
hostile to Lincoln, not where draft and race riots the
year before had for three days overthrown the
Government, not in New York City. Harper's Weekly put it
briefly: "The War Department has credited New York City
with 18,448 men enlisted in the navy from April 15,
1861, to February 24,1864. There was a surplus over the
last draft of 1,137. This surplus, together amounts to
22,010. The quota of the city is 23,124, leaving a
balance in favor of the Government of 1,114 men. There
will therefore be no
draft in this city." In other words, if a boy from Ohio
or Iowa became a gunner or seaman on a warship, the
enlistment was credited to the quota of New York City if
that was where he signed the papers.
"The large sums offered in some places in the
competition for men have demoralized many of the people,
and the most atrocious frauds connected with the system
have become common. The men of some of the poorer
counties have been nearly exhausted by their volunteers
being credited to richer counties which paid higher
bounties. Of the number of men to whom bounties have
been paid, it is believed that not one-fourth have been
actually placed in the ranks of the army, and even those
who have joined it have probably not, on an average,
received for their own use one-half of the bounty paid
for them." One decision of the State supreme court had
held the draft law unconstitutional. Then a changed
court had reversed the decision.
When a Pennsylvania boy in a poor county enlisted as a
substitute, taking the bounty paid him by a man in a
rich county, the boy was credited as from the rich
county. And the poor county to maintain its quota had to
dig up someone else for the army.
(End of Article)
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