Abraham Lincoln Quotes
There can be no army without men. Men can be had voluntarily or involuntarily. We have ceased to obtain them voluntarily: and to obtain them involuntarily, is the draft—the conscription.
This principle became the Civil War Draft. Ironically, when the draft was legislated by Congress, there were relatively few men drafted as enlistments increased. See {621897} .
Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (Republican, IL), September 1863
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Monroe was then Secretary of State and the U. S. was at war.
This was the inception of the Civil War draft.
The founder was Charles E. Coughlin, 1891-1979, a demagogic Catholic Priest who drafted the principles and invited others to join him. Hundreds of thousands did in this organization which began in idealism, and ended in scandal and hate mongering, so much so that Father Coughlin was ordered off the radio and out of politics by the Catholic Church. The National Union in 1936 had morphed into the Union Party which ran Presidential candidates in the 1936 election. In this principle there were two purposes: First to have the wealthy sacrifice something in time of war. Historically wealth could keep a man from the draft if he so wanted. Second, when the company went to war the argument went it was the rich who could profit who had more political influence and could make the war. This way, they would pay a high price and might oppose war. Many of Coughlin’s followers were pro-German and wanted to keep the country out of the European war.
This Biblical quotation has been used to justify and legitimize military conscription.
At the beginning of the Civil War Northern recruiting was easy
The Roman Senate elected two Counsels who were the Executive of the State. Gaius Marius was elected Counsel 7 times making him perhaps the most popular politician of the ancient world. Prior to his law, only Roman men who owned sufficient land could join the army.
During the Iraq war the enlistments of servicemen were unilaterally extended causing great controversy. However the concept of extension of a term of service in an emergency existed more than 60 years earlier.
Debs was jailed for sedition for this speech.
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War—its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
