throwing the influence of your high position against the Government in a conflict for its existence.

The call which has been made for service is for one-fifth part of the arms-bearing population between twenty and thirty-five years of age, and of the unmarried between thirty-five and forty-five.

The insurgent authorities at Richmond have not only called into service heretofore the entire class between eighteen and thirty- five, but are now extending the enrollment to classes more advanced in age. The burden which the loyal States are called on to sustain is not, in proportion to population, one-tenth part as onerous as that which has been assumed by the seceded States. Shall not we, if necessary, be ready to do as much for the preservation of our political institutions as they are doing to overthrow and destroy them-as much for the cause of stable government as they for the cause of treason and for the disorganization of society on this continent? I say the disorganization of society, for no man of reflection can doubt where secession would end if a Southern Confederacy should be successfully established. I cannot doubt that the people of this patriotic State, which you justly say has done so much for the country during the existing war, will respond to the call now made upon them. The alacrity and enthusiasm with which they have repeatedly rushed to arms for the support of the Government, and the defense of the national flag from insult r degradation, have exalted the character and given new vigor to the moral power of the State, and will inspire our descendants with magnanimous resolution for generations to come. This example of fidelity to all that is Honorable and elevated in public duty must not be tarnished. The recent riots in this city, coupled as they were with the most atrocious and revolting crimes, have cast a shadow over it for the moment.

But the promptitude with which the majesty of the law was vindicated and the fearlessness with which a high judaical functionary is pronouncing judgment upon the guilty, have done and are doing much of efface what under a different course of action might have been an indelible stain upon the reputation of the city. It remains only for the people to vindicate themselves from reproach in the eyes of the country and the world, by a cheerful acquiescence in the law. That it has defects, is generally conceded; that it will involve cases of personal hardship, is not disputed.

War, when waged for self-defense, for the maintenance of great principles and for the national life is not exempt from the sufferings inseparable from all conflicts which are decided by this shock of armies; and it is by our firmness and our patriotism in meeting all the calls of the country upon us that we achieve the victory and prove ourselves worthy of it and the cause in which we toil and suffer.

Whatever defects the act authorizing the enrollment and draft may have, it is the law of the land, framed in good faith by the representatives of the people, and it must be presumed to be consistent with the provisions of the Constitution until pronounced in conflict with them by competent judicial tribunals.

Those, therefore, who array themselves against tit, are obnoxious to far severer censure than the ambitious or misguided men who are striving to subvert the Government, for the latter are acting by color of sanction under legislatures and conventions of the people in the States they represent. Among us, resistance to the law by those who claim and enjoy the protection of the Government has no semblance of justification, and becomes the very blackest of political crimes, not