Over 19,, or almost half, of those who have died in action there were under Can we really maintain that these young men did not deserve the right to vote?
But Senator Kennedy argued against an amendment, worried the ratification process would be too slow and further disenfranchise those who would benefit. President Richard Nixon, in April , said he supported the idea of lowering the voting age but only through a constitutional amendment. The Supreme Court settled the argument. President Nixon affixing his signature to signify that he was witness to the certification of ratification of the 26th amendment which gives year-olds the right to vote, on July 5, On June 22, , Nixon signed the Voting Rights Act of , which extended the Voting Rights Act and included a provision that lowered the voting age.
Its constitutionality was quickly challenged, and in Oregon v. Mitchell the Court deemed unconstitutional lowering the voting age to 18 in state and local elections but affirmed that change for federal elections.
An amendment was now all but necessary to reconcile the inconsistency. The 26th Amendment , ensuring the "right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age," passed the Senate on March 10 and, 13 days later, the House of Representatives Beginning in , students began burning their draft cards as acts of defiance.
By the later years of the war in the early s, draft resistance reached its peak. In , there were more conscientious objectors than actual draftees, all major cities faced backlogs of induction-refusal legal cases, and the Selective Service later reported that , persons were reported delinquent during the entire war period. So great were the numbers of draft resisters that in , President Carter passed a general amnesty to all those who had fled abroad in defiance of the draft, allowing them to return to the United States, and out of , accused draft offenders, less than 9, were convicted.
Max Cleland, who lost three limbs to a hand grenade blast in Vietnam and went on to represent his native Georgia in the U. The Coast Guard tweeted that aircrew members conducted a medical evacuation of a man and an year-old girl. San Diego may be the epicenter of the phenomenon, with high housing costs and multiple military bases within driving distance American Military History.
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Bill Ayers, a UM student activist who was arrested in a sit-in at the Selective Service Office, discussed how conscription can actually benefit society in a interview. First, he argued, because the draft affects the people around an individual, they are more likely to pay attention to the foreign policy decisions being made by the government.
Therefore, Americans in the era of the draft were much more actively engaged in politics and in questioning the true consequences of foreign policy decisions. On December 1, , the first draft lottery since began, but college deferments were kept intact.
Anti-war activists recognized the draft lottery system did not produce truly random results. The draft received even more resistance as dissenters became more frustrated with the system. Finally, Nixon ended the draft in January , but by then the war was almost over. Citations for this page individual document citations are at the full document links.
Michael S.
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