To preserve order and prevent desertion it instituted and maintained a system of guards and passports, not less obnoxious, certainly, than the worst thing of the sort ever devised by the most paternal of despotisms. Under pretense of enforcing the conscription law it established an oppressive system of domiciliary visits. It made of every man a soldier, and extended indefinitely every man's term of enlistment. It levied taxes of an extraordinary kind upon a people already impoverished almost to the point of starvation. It tolerated no questioning, brooked no resistance, listened to no remonstrance. Despotisms usually ground themselves upon the theories of extreme democracy.įounded upon a constitution which jealously withheld from it nearly all the powers of government, without even the poor privilege of existing beyond the moment when some one of the States composing it should see fit to put it to death, the Richmond government nevertheless grew speedily into a despotism, and for four years wielded absolute power over an obedient and uncomplaining people.
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