is now actively going on throughout the State, and particI am advised that large numbers are now volunteering. Whatever credit shall hereafter be allowed to this State, it is certain that there is a balance in its favor. It is but just that the delinquent States should make up their deficiency before New York, which has so freely and generously responded to the calls of the Government, shall be refused the opportunity to continue its voluntary support of the armies of the Union.

There is another point which profoundly excites the public mind, which has been brought to your attention by persons from this and other States. Our people have been taught that laws must be upheld and respected at every cost and every sacrifice; that the conscription act, which demands their persons and perhaps their lives, must be promptly obeyed, because it is a statute of our Government. To support the majesty of law, a million of men have gone forth from Northern homes to the battle-fields of the South; more than 300,000 have bene laid in bloody graves or have perished in lingering disease. The guilt of the rebellion consists in raising an armed band against constitutional or legal obligations. The soldier who has given up his life, the capitalist who has contributed his treasure, the mechanic and the laborer who have paid to the tax gatherer the earnings of their toil have cheerfully made these sacrifices, because they saw, in the power of laws, not only obligations to obedience but protection to their rights, to their persons, and to their homes. It is this protection to their relights, to their persons, and to their homes. It is this protection which alone gives value to government. It is believed by at least one-half of the people of the loyal States that the conscription act, which they are called upon to obey because it stands upon the statute book, is in itself a violation of the supreme constitutional law. There is a fear and suspicion that while they are threatened with the severest penalties of the law, they are to be deprived of its protection. In the minds of the American people, the duty of obedience and the right ot 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, and to deny redress for wrongs, we have reason to fear the most ruinous results. These disasters may be produced as well by bringing laws into contempt, and by a destruction of respect for the decisions of courts, as by open resistance. This Government and our people have more to fear from an acquiescence in the disorganizing teachings that war suspends their legal rights or destroys their legal remedy than they have to fear from resistance to the doctrine that measures can be enforced without regard to the decisions of judicial tribunals.

The refusal of governments to give protection excites citizens to disobedience. The successful execution of the conscription act depends upon the settlement by judicial tribunals of its constitutionality. With such decisions in its favor, it will have a hold upon the public respect and deference which it now lacks. A refusal to submit it to this test will be regarded as evidence that it wants legality and binding force. A measure so unusual in the history of this country, which jars so harshly with those ideas of voluntary action which have so long prevailed in this community, and which have been so conspicuous in the conduct of this war, should go forth with all the sanctions of every department of our Government-the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial. With such sanctions it would overcome the hostility which it naturally creates in the minds of a