A Revised Draft

^{Category: Religious Liberty}

Iraq War critic Rep. Chuck Rangel (D-NY), who represents New York's 15th District. Image courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Talk of the draft has surfaced once again now that Rep. Chuck Rangel (D-NY), who has proposed draft reinstatement laws as a means of discouraging elective wars, stands to inherit the chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee as part of the House of Representatives' new Democratic majority.

While there is virtually no chance that the draft bill will pass (it was defeated 402-2 the last time it came up for a vote), it has resurrected public interest the history of draft law and conscientious objector status. Let's take a look at how American conscientious objectors have been accommodated, and sometimes most emphatically not accommodated, over the past 350 years.

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• History of Conscientious Objectors