Conscription

Abstract

"The print may have appeared soon after the Confederate Congress passed a national conscription act on April 16, 1862, to strengthen its dwindling army of volunteers...." Courtesy of Library of Congress. [4]Conscription of male citizens to supply North Carolina's military forces began early in the colonial era. Enacted first as a frontier necessity, the principle of universal service became enshrined in American tradition. Prior to the Civil War a weak central government relied on the states for soldiers. Despite national conscription laws in both North and South during the Civil War [5], the federal government did not assume total control over the nation's military until the twentieth century. Conscription played a large role in America's transformation into a global superpower, but the bitter legacy of the Vietnam War effectively ended the draft.