henry (11/06/82)
The way I understand it, the various bits of language in the US Constitution that have been interpreted as providing justification of the draft were originally intended as nothing of the sort. The clause authorizing the maintenance of a standing army, for example, was primarily intended as an affirmation that Congress DID have the right to maintain a national army. There were those who held that this should be a state monopoly -- the individual states did control the militia units. Remember that the Constitution was, to a large extent, the first solid declaration of central authority over the states. Up to that point, the states were very nearly independent nations, as the term "state" implied. (By contrast, the "right to keep and bear arms in [one's] own defence" was not an affirmation of the right to own guns -- this was taken for granted in those days -- but an affirmation that the people DID have the right to organize as militia. [Militiamen normally provided their own weapons and equipment.] The purpose here was to guard against the hazards to freedom that unopposed national armies could present.)