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Conscription in the United States

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Conscription
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1780 caricature of a press gang
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The United States has employed conscription (mandatory military service, also called "the draft") several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War. The U.S. discontinued the draft in 1973. Today, the Selective Service System remains in place as a contingency; young men are required to register so that a draft can be more readily resumed. The U.S. armed forces are now designated as "all-volunteer", although, in 2004 as well as during the 1991 Gulf war, some enlisted personnel were involuntarily kept in the Army after their initial commitments had expired.

History

Early drafts

The United States first employed a form of conscription during the War of 1812. The imposition of a draft touched off the New York Draft Riots in July 1863. The Confederate States instituted conscription in 1862, and resistance was both widespread and violent, with ironic comparisons made between conscription and slavery[1]. Both sides permitted conscripts to hire substitutes. In the Union, many states and cities offered bounties and bonuses for enlistment. They also arranged to take credit against their quota for freed slaves who enlisted.

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New York City newspaper ads offering bounties to enlist 1865

The World Wars and the Korean War

Conscription was next used after the United States entered World War I in 1917. The first peacetime conscription came with the Selective Service Act of 1940, which established the Selective Service System as an independent agency. The duration of service was originally twelve months. It was expanded to eighteen months in 1941. When the United States entered World War II, service was required until six months after the end of the war. The first draft number ever picked for World War II was 158, picked by a blindfolded Henry Stimson out of a goldfish bowl.

The wartime draft was extended by Congress, but it expired in 1947. In 1948 the draft was re-instated. It was expanded by the Universal Military Training and Service Act in 1951, in response to the manpower needs caused by the Korean War.

The Cold War

In the first and only instance of U.S. conscription during a major peacetime period, the draft continued on a more limited basis during the late 1950's and early 1960's in between the Korean and Vietnam War. While a far fewer percentage of eligible males were conscripted compared to war periods, draftees were expected to serve for two years. Elvis Presley was one of the most famous people drafted during this period, and he submitted.

Vietnam War

There was some opposition to the draft even before the major U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. For example, Senator Barry Goldwater proposed ending the draft during his unsuccessful 1964 campaign as the Republican candidate for President. As U.S. troop strength in Vietnam increased, more and more young men were drafted for service there. The draft was unpopular both for its impact on those drafted and as a focal point for opposition to a controversial war. Conscription ended in 1973.

Post-Vietnam standby draft

In 1980, Congress re-instated the requirement that young men register with the Selective Service System. Currently, male U.S. citizens and many male aliens living in the U.S., if age 18 through 25, are required to register with the Selective Service System, which describes its mission as "preparing to manage a draft if and when Congress and the President so direct." [2]

Legality

In 1918, the Supreme Court ruled that the World War I draft did not violate the United States Constitution. Arver v. United States, 245 U.S. 366 (1918) ([3]). The Court detailed its conclusion that the limited powers of the federal government included conscription. Its only statement on the Thirteenth Amendment issue that had also been raised was:

Finally, as we are unable to conceive upon what theory the exaction by government from the citizen of the performance of his supreme and noble duty of contributing to the defense of the rights and honor of the nation as the result of a war declared by the great representative body of the people can be said to be the imposition of involuntary servitude in violation of the prohibitions of the Thirteenth Amendment, we are constrained to the conclusion that the contention to that effect is refuted by its mere statement.

Later, during the Vietnam War, a lower appellate court also concluded that the draft was constitutional. United States v. Holmes, 387 F.2d 781 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 391 U.S. 936 (1968) ([4]). (Justice William O. Douglas, in voting to hear the appeal in Holmes, agreed that the government had the authority to employ conscription in wartime, but argued that the constitutionality of a draft in the absence of a declaration of war was an open question, which the Supreme Court should address.) The Supreme Court has also upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion of women from the registration requirement. Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981) ([5]).

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Arver, some people (such as Ayn Rand in her 1967 article, "The Wreckage of the Consensus") continued to argue that the draft was prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment.

During the World War I era, the Supreme Court allowed the government great latitude in suppressing criticism of the draft. Examples include Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919) ([6]) and Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325 (1920) ([7]). In subsequent decades, however, the Court has taken a much broader view of the extent to which advocacy speech is protected by the First Amendment. Thus, in 1971 the Court held it unconstitutional for a state to punish a man who entered a county courthouse wearing a jacket with the words "Fuck the Draft" visible on it. Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971) ([8]). Nevertheless, protesting the draft by the specific means of burning a draft registration card can be constitutionally prohibited, because of the government's interest in prohibiting the "nonspeech" element involved in destroying the card. United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968) ([9]).

Selective Service Reforms

The Selective Service System has maintained that they have implemented a number of reforms that would make the draft more fair and equitable.

Some of the measures they have implemented include:

  • Before Vietnam a young man could get a deferment by showing that he was a full time student making satisfactory progress towards a degree. Now if called a man could normally only defer induction to the end of the semester. If the man is a senior he can defer until the end of the academic year.
  • The government has said that draft boards are now more representative of the local communities in areas such as race and national origin.
  • A lottery system would be used to determine the order of people being called up. Previously the oldest men who were found eligible for the draft would be taken first. In the new system, the men called first would be those who are or will turn 20 in the calendar year or those whose deferments will end in the calendar year. Each year after the man will be placed on a lower priority status until his liability ends.

However, as there has been no draft since the end of the Vietnam War, it remains to be seen how any future drafts would be conducted.

Perception of the Draft as Unfair

Some people feel that the draft is fundamentally unfair (or illegal) because only males must register with the Selective Service. Many masculists as well as feminists hold this view. For example, the feminist organization NOW passed a resolution in 1980 opposing males-only draft registration as discriminatory and the ACLU's Women's Rights Project provided aid to the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Rostker v. Goldberg, in which the plaintiff unsuccessfully challenged males-only draft registration. Congress retains the right to conscript women, and considered doing so during the Second World War.

The draft has been perceived by some as unfairly targeting the poor and lower middle classes. Because of college deferments, children of wealthy and upper middle class families that could afford to send them to college could avoid the draft. The fact that President Clinton had been attending college during the time period in which conscription was active and received a collegiate deferment caused controversy during his campaigns and during his time in office.

Some children of wealthy families wished to avoid a perception of avoiding military service. Those individuals would often sign up for the National Guard. The fact that some were able to use their family's connections to gain a position when spots in the guard were limited also led to a perception that the wealthy were using the National Guard to ensure that their children were assigned low risk duty in the states.

Also, the draft system itself in the United States was not entirely a fair and impartial system. There have been cases where local draft boards misused their authority in the past.

While the government had instituted reforms to deal with what were perceived to be the worst abuses, some people feel that more can still be done. Others feel that any military draft is inherently unfair because only a small percentage of eligible draftees are needed at only one time. One leading opponent of military draft restoration, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said "The draft hurts military efficiency by substituting well motivated volunteers for unmotivated draftees, undermines military pay and benefits by removing the need to attract volunteers, and creates anxiety and unrest among tens of millions of people who will never serve. It is a dangerous pseudo-solution to a non-existent problem."

The provisions for conscientious objection to the draft have also been viewed as unfairly descriminatory, favoring religious objection over non-religious objection, and favoring those who value peace and non-violence over those who value freedom. Alternative mandatory service can assuage objections based on peace and non-violence, but does nothing for those whose objections arise from strongly held convictions about freedom. Many who object to the draft find it directly conflicts with the liberty clause they committed themselves to in the Pledge of Allegiance. The counter argument to this position is that with rights, come inherent responsibilites. A person unwilling to make at least some sort of contribution (alternate service at a minimum) has effectively devalued their own freedom, since they have deemed it unworthy of any effort on their part to preserve it.

Conscription controversies in 2004

There has been no serious attempt to reinstate inductions since the effort to enforce the draft registration law was abandoned in 1986. [10]

However it became a political device to attack the President in 2003 when two Democrats introduced legislation that would draft both men and women into either military or civilian government service, and Republicans brought the bill up for a vote in the House of Representatives. The bill was defeated, 2-402.

In 2004 the platforms of both the Democratic and Republican Parties opposed military conscription, but beither party moved to end draft registration. John Kerry in one debated criticized Bush's policies, "You've got stop-loss policies so people can't get out when they were supposed to. You've got a backdoor draft right now."

Kerry was referring to Bush's extension of "stop-loss" orders, which have extended the enlistment periods of some military personnel after the expiration of the commitments they originally made. Some of these involuntary extensions have been for as long as two years. The Pentagon states that 20,000 soldiers have been affected so far. [11]

The mentions of the draft during the Presidential campaign led to a resurgence of anti-draft and draft resistance organizing. [12] One poll of young voters in October 2004 found that 29% would resist if drafted. [13]

Civilian service

Conscription, as described above, has been used nationally only to provide men to the military. The most common form of compulsory civilian service in the U.S. is the much shorter obligation of jury duty.

Mandatory public service of a non-military nature is required as part of the high school curriculum in many school districts across the nation. Since 1992, the state of Maryland has required a total of 75 hours of "developmentally appropriate service-learning activities" over the course of grades 6 through 10. [14] During the 2004 campaign, Kerry proposed a similar program nationwide, to be implemented by each school district but federally funded. He added an additional voluntary option for students to receive four years of college tuition in exchange for a commitment to two years of national service. [15]

Mandatory full-time service on a national scale has been proposed many times, and was backed by, for example, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Recent proposals have been modeled after the Americorps program, but necessarily much larger in scale when made mandatory. Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution estimates the cost for a program of one year for all high school graduates at $25 billion. [16], [17]

The draft and immigration

Selective Service (and the draft) in the United States is not limited to citizens. Permanent residents in the United States (holders of green cards) who are males of appropriate age, are required to enlist in Selective Service. Refusal to do so is grounds for denial of a future citizenship application. In addition, immigrants who seek to naturalize as citizens must, as part of the Oath of Citizenship, swear to the following:

... that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; [18]

Non-citizens who serve in the United States military enjoy several naturalization benefits which are unavailable to non-citizens who do not, such as a waiver of application fees. [19] Non-citizens who are killed in combat while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces may be posthumously naturalized, which may be beneficial to surviving family members.

See also

Further reading

  • Halstead, Fred. GIs speak out against the war: The case of the Ft. Jackson 8. 128 pages. New York: Pathfinder Press. 1970.
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