Thomas Jefferson lobbied heavily to ban a professional, standing army, and pushed for the creation of a universal and classified militia system that obligated every physically capable male to render service.
Though he failed to have such a clause written into the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights, Jefferson continued to push for a universal and classified militia until his death in 1826.
Where there is no oppression there will be no pauper hirelings.We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.
We can never be safe till this is done.The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army.
This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so.Led by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, the Federalists believed that a professional, standing army under the control of the federal government was necessary.
To this purpose there must be dock-yards and arsenals; and for the defense of these, fortifications, and probably garrisons...To oblige the great body of the yeomanry and of the other classes of citizens to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people and a serious public inconvenience and loss.
It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of this country to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of a million pounds.
To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable extent would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured.
But through the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia.
The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate size, upon such principles as will really fit it for service in case of need.
By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia ready to take the field whenever the defense of the state shall require it.
To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
The political spin from the incident was that militias could not be relied upon and controlled, despite the exceptional circumstances that caused some of the Massachusetts militiamen to rebel in the first place.
The Legion defeated the Western Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, thus affirming the place for a federally controlled, standing army in the new country, ostensibly to fight Native Americans on the Frontier.
The 1792 Act codified the responsibility of all Americans in providing for the Nation's defense and mandated that every physically capable male between the ages of 18 and 45 be available for military service.
The 1940 Selective Service Act was significant because it was the first time in US History that conscription was enacted in peacetime, in spite of opposition from religious groups.
Following World War II, US Army end strength dropped from 8 million in the spring of 1945 to 684,000 by 1 July 1947, a reduction of 89 divisions to 12.
Spurred by tremendous public pressure to "bring the boys home," Congress had little interest in considerations for future conflicts.
[3]To offset the rapid disintegration of the Army, General George C. Marshall hoped President Harry S. Truman and Congress would enact Universal Military Training (UMT), requiring all young men to receive one year of military training so the Army could expediently ramp up in time of war.
This never happened, but when Army end-strength fell to a dismal 538,000 soldiers in June 1948, Congress begrudgingly passed the Selective Service Act of 1948.
Nuclear deterrence aside, The United States' occupation of Germany and Japan during this time was made possible by the absence of any insurgency, or a Soviet invasion.
[citation needed] Despite General Marshall's unsuccessful promotion of Universal Military Training immediately following World War II, he would get another opportunity when he became the 3rd Secretary of Defense in September 1950.
In the summer of 1950, the initial actions of the Korean War (including Task Force Smith) painfully demonstrated the US military's lack of preparedness.
Though the immediate problem was addressed, Marshall sought a permanent solution for national defense, and pushed strenuously for UMT.
Eisenhower's "New Look" defense policy shifted back to a reliance on airplanes and atom bombs, thus further decreasing the possibility of universal military service.
In turn, soldiers were placed in exceedingly difficult circumstances that maximized hazards and multiplied provocations for misconduct and breaks in discipline.
Combined with the gaining influence of the Military-Industrial Complex, the country was gradually sold on the virtues of a technologically driven, professional military.
In 1974, President Gerald Ford granted amnesty to all draft evaders, and terminated the Selective Service Act (started in 1917) with Proclamation 4360, March 25, 1975.
On January 7, 2003, Senator Ernest F. Hollings (South Carolina) and Representative Charles Rangel (New York) introduced the Universal National Service Act of 2003 (S. 89 / H.R.
[6] In January 2008, various military, civic, education, and social justice leaders, including R. Sargent Shriver (founder of the Peace Corps), Alan Khazei and Michael Brown (founders of City Year), and Shirley Sagawa (1st Director of AmeriCorps), in conjunction with 106 private organizations, started the Service Nation Campaign.