The life and public services of Abraham Lincoln ... together with his state papers, including his speeches, addresses, messages, letters, and proclamations, and the closing scenes connected with his life and death. By Henry J. Raymond. To which are added anecdotes and personal reminiscences of President Lincoln, by Frank B. Carpenter.

STATE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 403
began to return from Pennsylvania. In the street-fights
which occurred, many of the defenders of law and order
lost their lives, while a far larger number of the rioters
were killed. The bands of rioters were finally dispersed,
and the peace of the city was restored.
During these occurrences the draft was necessarily suspended; and on the 3d of August, Governor Seymour
addressed a long letter to the President, asking that further proceedings under the draft might be postponed until
it should be seen whether the number required from the
State of New York could not be raised by volunteering,
and also until the constitutionality of the law could be
tested in tle judicial tribunals of tie country. The
Governor pointed out an alleg(ed injustice in the application of the law, by which, in four districts of the State of
New York, a far higher quota in proportion to the population was required than in the other districts of the State;
and this was urged as an additional reason for postponing
the farther execution of the law.
To this appeal the President, on the 7th of August,
made the following reply:ExrOUTIVZ MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 7, 1868.
His Excellency HORATIO SEYMOUR,
Governor of New York, Albany, N. Y.:
Your communication of the 3d inst. has been received and attentively
considered. I cannot consent to suspend the draft in New York, as you
request, because, among other reasons, TIME is too important. By the
figures you send, which I presume are correct, the twelve districts represented fall in two classes of eight and four respectively.
The disparity of the quotas for the draft in these two classes is certainly
very striking, being the difference between an average of 2,200 in one
class, and 4,864 in the other. Assuming that the districts are equal, one
to another, in entire population, as required by the plan on which they
were made, this disparity is such as to require attention. Much of it,
however, I suppose will be accounted for by the fact that so many more
persons fit for soldiers are in the city than are in the country, who have
too recently arrived from other parts of the United States and from Europe
to be either included in the Cdnsus of 1860, or to have voted in 1862.
Still, making due allowance for this, I am yet unwilling to stand upon it
as an entirely sufficient explanation of the great disparity. I shall direct