Conscription in the United States

Although it has not been applied in recent American history, U.S. federal law continues to allow for compulsory conscription for militia service under emergency or extraordinary security conditions.

The 1789 constitution lists among of the enumerated powers of Congress the ability to create its own armies and navy for unlimited purposes, and to fund and regulate state militias that could be called up only for federal law enforcement and domestic defense.

[13][14] The Confederacy had far fewer inhabitants than the Union, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis proposed the first conscription act on March 28, 1862; it was passed into law the next month.

Another popular means of procuring a substitute was to pay a soldier whose period of enlistment was about to expire—the advantage of this method was that the Army could retain a trained veteran in place of a raw recruit.

[21] The act established a "liability for military service of all male citizens"; authorized a selective draft of all those between 21 and 31 years of age (later from 18 to 45); and prohibited all forms of bounties, substitutions, or purchase of exemptions.

Along with a general opposition to American involvement in a foreign conflict, Southern farmers objected to perceived unfair conscription practices that exempted members of the upper class and industrial workers.

[24] [citation needed] Forms of resistance ranged from peaceful protest to violent demonstrations and from humble letter-writing campaigns asking for mercy to newspapers demanding reform.

In 1917, a number of radicals and anarchists, including Emma Goldman, tried to challenge the new draft law in federal court, arguing that it was a direct violation of the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude.

To do more than state the proposition is absolutely unnecessary in view of the practical illustration afforded by the almost universal legislation to that effect now in force.Conscription was unpopular from left-wing sectors at the start, with many Socialists jailed for "obstructing the recruitment or enlistment service".

Working where Congress would not, it gathered a cadre of officers for its nascent Joint Army-Navy Selective Service Committee, most of whom were commissioned based on social standing rather than military experience.

One national survey found that 67% of respondents believed that a German-Italian victory would endanger the United States, and that 71% supported "the immediate adoption of compulsory military training for all young men".

After the Pearl Harbor attack the STSA was further amended (December 19, 1941), extending the term of service to the duration of the war plus six months and requiring the registration of all men 18 to 64 years of age.

On December 5, 1942, presidential Executive Order 9279 closed voluntary enlistment for all men from the ages of 18 to 37 for the duration of the war, providing protection for the nation's home front manpower pool.

Organized draft resistance also developed in the Japanese American internment camps, where groups like the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee refused to serve unless they and their families were released.

300 Nisei men from eight of the ten War Relocation Authority camps were arrested and stood trial for felony draft evasion; most were sentenced to federal prison.

Congress further tweaked this act in 1950 although the post–World War II surplus of military manpower left little need for draft calls until President Truman's declaration of a national emergency in December 1950.

[55][64][65] President Kennedy's decision to send military troops to Vietnam as advisors was a signal that Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey needed to visit the Oval Office.

The large cohort of Baby Boomers who became eligible for military service during the Vietnam War allowed a steep increase in the number of exemptions and deferments, especially for college students.

Besides being able to avoid the draft, college graduates who volunteered for military service (primarily as commissioned officers) had a much better chance of securing a preferential posting compared to less-educated inductees.

The majority of service members deployed to South Vietnam were volunteers, even though [clarification needed] hundreds of thousands of men opted to join the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard (for three or four year terms of enlistment).

[74][75] He had become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, based upon a paper by Martin Anderson of Columbia University, and in part due to the efforts of ardent anti-draft activist-economist and Nobel laureate, Milton Friedman.

[102] Some collateral sanctions formerly in effect have been repealed: "From 1982 to 2021, males were required to register with Selective Service System to receive Title IV Federal student aid....

"[103] In 1951, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), a two-year program to train doctors, veterinarians, statisticians, and other health workers in epidemiology.

Eligible health workers drafted into general military service during the Korean and Vietnam Wars could instead enlist in the EIS to guard against potential biological warfare.

[109] 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.

[113] Since the reinstatement of draft registration in 1980, the Supreme Court has heard and decided four cases related to the Military Selective Service Act: Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981), upholding the Constitutionality of requiring men but not women to register for the draft; Selective Service v. Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), 468 U.S. 841 (1984), upholding the Constitutionality of the first of the federal "Solomon Amendment" laws, which requires applicants for Federal student aid to certify that they have complied with draft registration, either by having registered or by not being required to register; Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598 (1985), upholding the policies and procedures which the Supreme Court thought the government had used to select the "most vocal" nonregistrants for prosecution, after the government refused to comply with discovery orders by the trial court to produce documents and witnesses related to the selection of nonregistrants for prosecution; and Elgin v. Department of the Treasury, 567 U.S. 1 (2012), regarding procedures for judicial review of denial of Federal employment for nonregistrants.

[141] On December 21, 2006, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, when asked by a reporter whether the draft should be reinstated to make the military more equal, said, "I think that our society would benefit from that, yes sir."

Nicholson proceeded to relate his experience as a company commander in an infantry unit which brought together soldiers of different socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels, noting that the draft "does bring people from all quarters of our society together in the common purpose of serving".

In 2024, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 was proposed that males "between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six, shall be automatically registered" with Selective Service.

[156][157] Today, non-citizen males of appropriate age in the United States, who are permanent residents (holders of green cards), seasonal agricultural workers not holding an H-2A Visa, refugees, parolees, asylees, and illegal immigrants, are required to register with the Selective Service System.