Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
reply to post by hawkiye

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Who was President during the War of 1812 again?

Seriously, you are waaay out of your depth on this. I applaud your consistency though, it shows you are willing to embarrass yourself trying to feign knowledge.

Conscription (Military Draft) In The Civil War

THERE WAS NO GENERAL MILITARY DRAFT UNTIL THE CIVIL WAR. The Confederacy passed its first of 3 conscription acts 16 April 1862, and scarcely a year later the Union began conscripting men. Government officials plagued with manpower shortages regarded drafting as the only means of sustaining an effective army and hoped it would spur voluntary enlistments.

But compulsory service embittered the public, who considered it an infringement on individual free will and personal liberty and feared it would concentrate arbitrary power in the military. Believing with some justification that unwilling soldiers made poor fighting men, volunteer soldiers despised conscripts. Conscription also undercut morale, as soldiers complained that it compromised voluntary enlistments and appeared as an act of desperation in the face of repeated military defeats.

Conscription nurtured substitutes, bounty-jumping, and desertion. Charges of class discrimination were leveled against both Confederate and Union draft laws since exemption and commutation clauses allowed propertied men to avoid service, thus laying the burden on immigrants and men with few resources. Occupational, only-son, and medical exemptions created many loopholes in the laws. Doctors certified healthy men unfit for duty, while some physically or mentally deficient conscripts went to the front after sham examinations. Enforcement presented obstacles of its own; many conscripts simply failed to report for duty. Several states challenged the draft's legality, trying to block it and arguing over the quota system. Unpopular, unwieldy, and unfair, conscription raised more discontent than soldiers.

Under the Union draft act men faced the possibility of conscription in July 1863 and in Mar., July, and Dec. 1864. Draft riots ensued, notably in New York in 1863. Of the 249,259 18-to-35-year-old men whose names were drawn, only about 6% served, the rest paying commutation or hiring a substitute.

The first Confederate conscription law also applied to men between 18 and 35, providing for substitution (repealed Dec. 1863) and exemptions. A revision, approved 27 Sept. 1862, raised the age to 45; 5 days later the legislators passed the expanded Exemption Act. The Conscription Act of Feb. 1864 called all men between 1 7 and 50. Conscripts accounted for one-fourth to one-third of the Confederate armies east of the Mississippi between Apr. 1864 and early 1865.

Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust

Like all enumerated powers literalists, you are ignoring the necessary and proper clause. If selective conscription is necessary and proper, they can do it

Put not your faith in men, but bind them down with the chains of the constitution.” Thomas Jefferson
{in the Kentucky Resolutions 1798} {Issue #57}

Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
reply to post by hawkiye

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Yeah, debunked that one already. Try again.

Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
reply to post by hawkiye

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Thomas Jefferson would disagree with you.

He stated, "It is every Americans' right and obligation to read and interpret the Constitution for himself."

Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
reply to post by hawkiye

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Did I say he was a strict constructionist?

It's a paraphrase of his letter to Samuel Kercheval.

This thread isn't about what Thomas Jefferson's position was. It's about Selective Service and the draft.

Unless you have any more nonsense to post about that I think it's all wrapped up.

Originally posted by GreenGlassDoor
reply to post by hawkiye

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It's a common quote attributed to Jefferson. I just happen to know what it's from.

Your assumption is that you are free. You are not. You never were. That is just something they tell you in school to simplify the reasoning between subject and citizen in 5th grade civics. The difference, in grown up terms, is you get limited participation in the decision making of the country, but it doesn't negate having responsibility to uphold that system. That is the exchange. Participation means that the American system can call upon you. Simply, "freedom isn't free."

Hence the Founders found it reasonable to draft people into service during times of need to protect that system.

While you quote people who were morally opposed to conscription that facts are that they happened and it is legal. Their opinions are still just opinions and do not hold the gravity of law.

You're opposed to the draft. Fine. I can respect that. You and Thoreau can go to jail for refusing to participate. Whatever. Have all the moral objections you want. You're entitled to do so. Fight to change the system. But don't pass off your opinion as the correct legal discourse. It's not.

The reality being an American isn't what you think it is. There is a price imposed for being one.

edit on 6-12-2012 by GreenGlassDoor because: (no reason given)

Although, even if that clause were lacking, common sense would tell one that the power to enact laws furthering the enumerated powers was implied. This is where literalists, as I use the term, part ways with reality.

They do not take into account other parts of the text which would tend against their favored interpretation of their selection. This is especially shameful when the disregarded portion tells you how the text as a whole is to be interpreted, as the Constitution does via the Necessary and Proper Clause. 

Why is how they did it before Lincoln relevant?