We had about 32 years of the draft from about 1940/41 until 1973 and our country wasn’t being invaded.
Nope. But the US military was maintained in a wartime condition in case of the Cold War going hot. Its easy to see why, if you count the active, reserve and NG divisions at the time vs today.
Conscription existed in the American Civil War on the Union side, and as I recall reading history people could pay a certain sum to get out of it. Immigrants fresh off the boat at New York often found themselves in the Army too. There were anti-draft Riots.
There was a draft during World War I as well. That wasn’t very popular either.
“No right to yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater” was how a supreme court justice described anti war or anti draft demonstrations at the time. Wilson ran for a second term as president on “He Kept Us Out of War”.
Remember Attu and Kiska!