If such a wicked power can be raised on this continent, the Mayflower traversed its wintry sea in vain.

It was a Dutch ship, with twenty slaves, who were landed at Jamestown, in Virginia, and became the fatal seed of that Slavery which has threatened to overshadow the land.

Thus the same ocean, in the same year, bore to the Western Continent the Pilgrim Fathers, consecrated to Human Liberty, and also a cargo of slaves.

In the holds of those two ships were the germs of the present direful war, and the simple question now is between the Mayflower and the slave ship.

And yet it is proposed to bestow upon this whole class not only new license for their crimes, but a new lease of their power.

Not on any such ground do I present this amendment, but simply and distinctly on the duty of equalizing this burden, that it shall bear, so far as we can make it, with something like equality upon the rich and the poor.

Now I have to say that at present the burden is not equalized, and that it does not bear with anything like equality upon the rich and the poor.

You make the poor man pay three hundred dollars; but the rich man pays no more.

Such surrender would be only the beginning of long-continued, unutterable troubles, breaking forth in bloodshed and sorrow without end.

It seems to me that it should be the pride of our country, at this moment and on an occasion like this, that it is not to be deterred by history from an endeavor to equalize a burden upon the rich and the poor.

Because other nations have not undertaken to equalize this burden, is that a reason why we should not set the example?

I think this is the only method to equalize the burden, and satisfy all claims for justice and equitable dealing.

When any fixed sum is indicated as the commutation fee to exempt from actual military duty, it needs but little reflection to see that it indirectly imposes a premium upon property while it taxes the poor.

Why, three hundred dollars is no more to him than a three-penny loaf to the other person.

When a citizen is drafted as a soldier, and the question arises of his ransom by a pecuniary contribution, there is no element of equity which is not shocked, so my conscience tells me, if you fail to regulate the requirement of money…

What is there which a man will not give for his life?

What is there which a man, having the means, and indisposed to military exposure, will not pay for his exemption?

The rich man is drafted, and he pays three hundred dollars, which to him is nothing; he puts his hand into his purse, as you put yours into your pocket to find the change for a newspaper; whereas the poor man, perhaps, is driven to sell…

Suppose the Senator himself were drafted; indisposed, as he probably would be, to the toils of war, what is there that he would not consent to pay for exemption?

To him, under such circumstances, the required amount would be nothing; and yet to the poor man it is everything.

The proposition I present has in it two elements: the first is that it seeks justice; the second is that it provides a fund out of which bounties may be distributed by the Secretary of War among the men drafted and mustered into service.

Therefore I propose that every drafted person, before discharge from the draft, shall be held to contribute not merely a substitute, but a certain tithe of his annual gains.

It would, if I may so express myself, temper this terrible draft to the poor of the country.

Already I have exhibited the identity between Slavery and the Rebellion; and yet it is proposed to recognize Slavery in the Union, when such recognition will be plain recognition of the Rebellion.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.