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To: sargon

I don’t believe there was a draft during the Revolutionary War.


69 posted on 06/07/2016 5:53:39 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; thoughtomator; sargon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#Colonial_to_1862

In colonial times, the Thirteen Colonies used a militia system for defense. Colonial militia laws—and after independence those of the United States and the various states—required able-bodied males to enroll in the militia, to undergo a minimum of military training, and to serve for limited periods of time in war or emergency. This earliest form of conscription involved selective drafts of militiamen for service in particular campaigns. Following this system in its essentials, the Continental Congress in 1778 recommended that the states draft men from their militias for one year’s service in the Continental army; this first national conscription was irregularly applied and failed to fill the Continental ranks.

For long-term operations, conscription was occasionally used when volunteers or paid substitutes were insufficient to raise the needed manpower. During the American Revolutionary War, the states sometimes drafted men for militia duty or to fill state Continental Army units, but the central government did not have the authority to conscript except for purposes of naval impressment. President James Madison and his Secretary of War James Monroe unsuccessfully attempted to create a national draft of 40,000 men during the War of 1812. This proposal was fiercely criticized on the House floor by antiwar Congressman Daniel Webster of New Hampshire.


73 posted on 06/07/2016 7:00:55 PM PDT by Pelham (Barack Obama. When being bad is not enough and only evil will do)
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