General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A not so well regulated militia of one just killed twelve souls and wounded seventy people. [View all]caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Last edited Mon Jul 23, 2012, 01:12 AM - Edit history (1)
During the Revolution a draft wasn't practical since a third of the population opposed the Colonies, and there were no bureaus of government in place to carry it out regardless, because they lost those when they dissolved the Tory governments. They also had no tax revenue for the effort. There was no reason conscription would have helped them, so they had not much reason to think about it and it was rather easy to oppose. Unlike, say, slavery, which was definitely an affront to liberty and freedom. But getting rid of it . . . would have been hard.
Notice the difference between their position and say, that of The Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. He instituted a draft. Reluctantly, but he did.
In Revolutionary France, which was just as much an emphasis on freedom if not more, yes, they had conscription.
So, to say they would have abhorred a draft, probably, but not as much as they would have abhorred losing to the British if it had come to that.
There's another argument I'll make here: the Founders have been dead for almost 200 years. Regardless of their accomplishment, there's no reason we should be stuck with the decisions they made and the opinions they held. Nor do we have to presume that the future they foresaw was anything like the world now. Furthermore, there's no reason to worship those guys. None.
This applies to gun rights, too. You don't have to refer to the Founders to assert an individual right to keep and bear arms. However, logic says you can't refer to them when talking about unregulated or privatized militias. We don't know exactly what all the authors of the Constitution meant by "well-regulated militia," but it's certain they didn't mean the direct opposite.