Conscription

“ For a discussion of the military features of conscription and of other forms of recruiting see Army, §§ 40 ff. The present article deals with the economic and social aspects of compulsory military service, for which, generally and non-technically, the word “conscription” is used more commonly than any other. The word occurs for the first time in France in the law of the 19th Fructidor (1798) , which prescribes the liability of les défenseurs conscrits to serve if required from their twentieth to twenty-fifth year of age. ”

“ The answer which the facts supply does not seem to be in any doubt. We need conscription to bring this war to a victorious conclusion. We need conscription no less in order that we may impose terms of lasting peace. ”

“ It is easy to be seen how this principle of conscription could be applied to infinitely nobler ends—to the building up of a beautiful civilization—and might make the country adopting it in less than half a century as beautiful as ancient Attica or majestic as ancient Egypt. ”

“ The full history of the conscription movement in the British Empire has not been written, perhaps never will be. But enough is known to put lovers of democracy on their guard. The democratic element in Great Britain has, in the main, opposed conscription, while some of its chief supporters are members of the aristocracy and military officers. ”

“ Conscription followed victory and victory and conscription debased the human species. "The human harvest was bad." The first consul became the emperor. The servant of the people became the founder of the dynasty. Again conscription after conscription. "Let them die with arms in their hands. Their death is glorious, and it will be avenged. You can always fill the places of soldiers." These were Napoleon's words when Dupont surrendered his army in Spain to save the lives of a doomed battalion. ”

“ The conscription law was passed on September fifth, 1798, and compelled the service of all young men, or at least of as many as the government saw fit to draw, between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. ”

“ Let me emphasize that it is conscription for war under the conditions of the second half of the twentieth century that we are talking about. The question as to whether sometime and under some circumstances we might accept conscription for some conceivable purpose not related to war, is not here at stake. ”

“ Berkman's Offending Article.
The article on registration, which is the one specifically referred to in the complaint reads:
Registration is the first step of conscription. The war shouters and their prostitute press, bent on snaring you into the army, tell you that registration has nothing to do with conscription. They lie. Without registration, conscription is impossible. Conscription is the abdication of your rights as a citizen. Conscription is the cemetery where every vestige of your liberty is to be buried. Registration is its undertaker. ”

“ The conscription, which compels the peasant, who has drawn the fatal number, to leave his native fields and his mistress, is an important and disturbing influence in the rural life of France, and finds a frequent place in its folk-song. Sometimes it is taken gayly, and the lover departs in high spirits, singing along the road to the garrison with his companions, and promising fidelity to his mistress to whom he hopes soon to return. ”

“ Conscription is essential to the proper organisation not only of our manhood, but also of our national resources. [9] Judging by the increasing size, frequency, and shrillness of recent recruiting advertisements, conscription would seem to be equally essential in order to secure the number of recruits necessary for making good the wastage of war, even in the present preliminary stage of the war. And morally, conscription is essential in order that the whole nation may realise, before it is too late, the life-or-death nature of the present struggle ”

“ That conscription is democratic. The argument is plausible. "All men with certain exceptions, such as those physically unfit, must undergo military training, and in the event of war risk life and limb. What can be fairer?" Why have three recent British Trades Union Congresses, representing millions of individuals, declared strongly against it? ”

“ The advantages of conscription are many. It brings half-breeds from all parts of the Republic in touch with civilization, it teaches them obedience, respect for their superiors, and, above all, how to shoot. ”

“ So the boys at home don't all take kindly to being conscripted, eh? Well, I wish for a lot of reasons that the conscription might be as complete and far-reaching as it is in, for instance, France. I think for one thing that universal conscription is the final test of democracy. Again, I think it would do every individual in the nation good to find out that there was something a little bit bigger than he—something that neither money, nor politics, nor obscurity, nor the Labor Union, nor any one else could help him to wriggle out of. ”

“ The French conscription was yet more severely felt by the extreme rigour of its conditions. No distinction was made betwixt the married man, whose absence might be the ruin of his family, and the single member of a numerous lineage, who could be easily spared. ”

“ Bragg, and a general order is published to-day virtually abolishing the Bureau of Conscription. The business is mostly turned over to the commanders of the Reserves; and conscription is to be executed by Reserve men unfit for duty in the field. All the former conscript officers, guards, details, clerks, etc. fit to bear arms, are to go into the ranks.
“When the cat’s away, the mice will play,” is an old saying, and a true one. I saw a note of invitation to-day from Secretary Mallory to Secretary Seddon, inviting him to his house at 5 p.m. to partake of “pea-soup” with Secretary Trenholm. ”

“ Fred asked what proportion of the male population was taken for the army every year by means of the conscription.
"As before stated, every able-bodied man is liable," was the reply; "but it is generally found that a conscription of four in a thousand will produce from ninety thousand to one hundred thousand men. ”

“ Regarded as a compromise between universal and voluntary service, conscription still maintains a precarious existence in Europe. As the cardinal principle of recruiting armies, it is completely obsolete. ”

“ If the State is to continue its functions we shall have to commandeer people for its service in times of peace as is done in times of war. There is hardly an argument which could be used to defend military conscription which could not be equaled with as powerful an argument for civil conscription. ”

“ Conscription is no new thing. Every Roman citizen, with few exceptions, was liable for service between the ages of 17 and 46; every foot soldier had to serve in 20, and every horseman in 10, campaigns. ”

“ The experience of other countries proves, therefore, that England will sooner or later adopt the principle of conscription or cease to waste blood and money in Continental quarrels. The conscription will be for her the only possible way of obtaining an army at all, or one at all commensurate with those of her possible European rivals. ”

“ When we consider the strong opposition manifested in many districts of the country to the system of conscription, and the many influences which are resorted to by those who seek to escape service, there is much cause to fear that the effect of these provisions will be to deplete our reduced forces to a serious extent, and I hope it will be the pleasure of Congress to repeal this section or materially to modify its provisions. ”

“ A conscription law of the most sweeping kind, which made every man a soldier, was thus in force, and it becomes possible to understand the large numbers of the armies put into the field by a state of no great extent. ”

“ With the beginning of the third year of the war, more energetic measures to fill the armies were seen to be necessary; and after very hot and acrimonious debate for about a month, Congress, on March 3, 1863, passed a national conscription law, under which all male citizens between the ages of twenty and forty-five were enrolled to constitute the national forces, and the President was authorized to call them into service by draft as occasion might require. ”

“ All national guards between the ages of eighteen and forty were put in requisition. Every department had to furnish a definite contingent; if the voluntary system failed to make up the required number, conscription was resorted to. ”

“ In view of the large conscription recently ordered by the enemy and their subsequent call for volunteers, to be followed if ineffectual by a still further draft, we are admonished that no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective force as promptly as possible. ”

“ They are not at all sentimental about the thing; they know very well that there is a world of difference between conscription to protect your masters’ interests, and conscription to protect your own. They have no apologies to offer. ”

“ Each State may and does call upon every man now to serve in the militia and when occasionally the national government chooses, it calls upon every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five to go into service under a conscription. ”

“ Those who had no land were now distinguished from the land-owning plebeians. For the purposes of conscription, the city was divided into four Tribes, or wards. Every four years a census was to be taken.
MAGISTRATES.—When the kingship was abolished, and under the system that followed, the two Consuls were to be patricians. They exercised regal power during their term of office. They appointed the senators and the two Quaestors, who came to have charge of the treasury, under consular supervision. ”

“ His first object was to improve the finances; his second, to tranquillize La Vendée; his third, to detach Russia from the allies; his fourth, Immense Military Preparations. to raise armies equal to the crisis; and all these measures he rapidly accomplished. One hundred and twenty thousand men were raised by conscription, without any exemption from either rank or fortune, and two hundred and fifty thousand men were ready to commence hostilities. The first consul suppressed the liberty of the press, fixed his residence in the Tuileries, and established the usages and ceremonial of a court. ”

“ CONSCRIPTION ACT PASSED BY CONFEDERATE CONGRESS—GENERAL BRAGGS'S OPERATIONS IN KENTUCKY AND EAST TENNESSEE—BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE—GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE CONFEDERATE CHARGE—BATTLE OF IUKA—BATTLE OF STONE RIVER, OR MURFREESBORO'—ESTRANGEMENT BETWEEN GRANT AND ROSECRANS—BATTLE OF CORINTH—CONFEDERATE RETREAT—HEAVY LOSSES ON BOTH SIDES.
The Confederate Congress in 1862 passed a sweeping conscription act, forcing into the ranks every man of military age. ”

“ Some who had been the kings went back and forth with delight among the bodies to set up conscription, whereby they had the advantage that every deceased soldier could come back to life and be useful for military service again. ”

“ The conscription was from tribes and centuries combined. In the thirty tribes, one man was always called from each century of the juniores, from each century therefore thirty men. Each following class had to furnish more troops ”

“ All investigations of opinions and votes given prior to the restoration are forbidden: the same oblivion is required from the tribunals and from citizens. Article 11. The conscription is abolished. The method of recruiting for the army and navy is determined by the law. Forms of the Government of the King. Article 12. The person of the king is inviolable and sacred. His ministers are responsible. To the king alone belongs the executive power. Article 13. The king is the supreme head of the state ”

“ The most there, and in the army, will be for too great a liberty; but the assembly, the city, and the body of all the ministry in the kingdom, are passionately opposite to such an evident breach of our covenant.
* * * *
A Postscript. March 31, 1836.
For the time our Commissioners can think on no private thing; for every day they attend, five or six hours together, a solemn debate, with a number of the chief of both Houses of parliament, about the propositions of peace to be sent to the King. A little time will shew much. We are in great doubts. ”

“ The assembly of the barons, the curia regis, whether the great assembly of all the barons of the kingdom, meeting on occasions by special summons, or the smaller assembly in constant attendance on the king, was the primitive and undifferentiated machine by which government was carried on. If the baronage was faithful to the crown, or if the crown held the baronage under a strong control, the realm enjoyed good government and the nation bore with comparatively little suffering the burdens which were always heavy. ”

“ But in a large state there arise many men of various dispositions. At some other period, and under another consul, who, like the present, may have an army at his command, some false accusation may be credited as true; and when, with our example for a precedent, the consul shall have drawn the sword on the authority of the senate, who shall stay its progress, or moderate its fury?
Our ancestors, conscript fathers, were never deficient in conduct or courage; nor did pride prevent them from imitating the customs of other nations, if they appeared deserving of regard. ”

“ Resolved, That it is expedient that, on the second Monday of May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held in Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions thereon as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union. ”

“ They were elected because the people believed them to be the very best statesmen they could select for the office. For a time every foreign consul except four was a soldier. Two-thirds of Congress had been in the army. ”