karn (11/05/82)
If I understand the meaning of the term "amendment", it implies that it supersedes or overrides that which it amends. True, the original US Constitution gives the Congress power to raise a military; however, the 13th amendment prohibits "involuntary servitude". If a military draft isn't "involuntary servitude", what is? One can argue about whether it has to be allowed out of "practical necessity", but I don't see how you can argue that it isn't involuntary and that it isn't servitude. It certainly meets the definition in my Websters', the courts' interpretations notwithstanding. Before the Civil War, the courts interpreted the Constitution as allowing slavery out of "practical necessity". Domestic slavery as such no longer exists not because of some great moral awakening on the part of the government and the people, but because of technological advances which made our standard of living possible without slave labor. It might also have just been coincidence that the industrial revolution really took off not long after slave labor had been abolished. "Necessity is the mother of invention." I suspect that alternate methods of fighting wars would be invented (have already been invented?) if the draft was outlawed. Or maybe we wouldn't fight them in the first place. The "constitution" of the USSR reads in much the same way as ours; the difference is all in the interpretation. Phil Karn