power to command men for the instant re-enforcement of the reduced and jaded regiments in the field. Moved by the same considerations, we addressed you on the 21st of July, in an argument favoring the same proposition, fortified by a careful compilation of statistics bearing upon it.

The object of the present communication is to urge that the loyal militia of the nation should be thoroughly organized under the inspection of Federal officers, medical and military, and that the States should be called upon the maintain in camps or other schools for the preparation of recruits for the army in the field, a constant force of at least a million.

We urge this as a measure necessary to satisfy the demands of the people, and as justified by proper consideration for the health of the army in the field.

Any doubt which may arise as to the propriety of our addressing you a statement of our conviction of the demands of the people in a matter of this nature will disappear when it is considered that, in speaking of the Sanitary Commission, we speak also for its thousand associate members, citizens of the most eminent discretion and patriotism throughout the land, and for hundreds of thousands of loyal men and women, who have made it their organ and mouthpiece with Government; who bestow upon it means of usefulness to the amount of millions, and to whom it is pledged to act which energy wherever it can, in all that concerns the health of the volunteer army.

In the theory of our Government every citizen is a soldier a the command of the President; and it is the duty of the President in time of war to command the soldier citizen, before the latter is bound to withdraw himself from his ordinary occupations in the peaceful organization of society. Hence, under ordinary circumstances, it is no reproach to the citizen that he fails to volunteer.

Yet it is a matter of regret that the re-enforcement of Army by volunteering has not of late been more rapid, and that the quality of the volunteers at present offering is not better than we have reason to fear that it is. We have earnestly sought to ascertain to what the comparatively slow progress of volunteering is due, when there is in no other respect evidence of want of patriotic spirit among the people. We are compelled, with all respect and deference, to state our deliberate conclusion that it is mainly due to a widespread want of confidence in the intention of the Government so to use the whole strength of the nation as to obtain the certainly of immediate and complete success in the movements in which the volunteers are to take part. Men will not volunteer for a lingering war. They will not volunteer if they believe that ten soldiers are to fall under typhoid fever to every one who falls in an advance upon the enemy. When your order, disposition to volunteer upon your mere invitation. And we think that we have indicated why this indisposition is to general as it is.

The question now arises: Will the order this day promulgated for a draft of 300,000 men to re-enforce the armies in the field satisfy the demands of the people and restore the needed confidence?

We answer, that in our judgment it does not reach the root of the difficulty.

That difficulty lies chiefly in the fact that the force of our armies engaged in active operations has always, in the end, proved to be insufficient for the work which has been imposed upon them; that regiments, when depleted by battle and disease, have remained long in their weak condition, and yet been required to perform guard and