May 25, 2009
Memorial Day is a national holiday, held on a Monday in order to make a 3-day weekend possible. This lets Americans drive home from a weekend vacation. The time spent in returning traffic lets Americans honor the military personnel who died in a series of avoidable wars.
Memorial Day used to be called Decoration Day. It began by Federal government decree shortly after the Civil War ended. It honored the dead of the Union Army, though not the dead of the Confederate Army.
Because I am a trained historian, I like to trace things back to their origins. Memorial Day is about memories of the fallen dead. Their deaths had their origins in a series of violations of the constitution. I mean a very early constitution: the second constitution in American history, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties (1641). (The first constitution was the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut [1639]. The document says 1638, but back then the first 10 weeks were dated by the previous year.)
Why the Massachusetts Body of Liberties? Because of Article 7.
No man shall be compelled to goe out of the limits of this plantation upon any offensive warres which this Comonwealth or any of our freinds or confederats shall volentarily undertake. But onely upon such vindictive and defensive warres in our owne behalfe or the behalfe of our freinds and confederats as shall be enterprized by the Counsell and consent of a Court generall, or by authority derived from the same.
The Puritans of Massachusetts understood the threat to liberty posed by military conscription. They put this limit on it: no foreign wars.
Fast forward to 1787: the United States Constitution. Article I, Section 8 defines the powers of Congress.
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
The Congress was not authorized to conscript members of the militia to serve in foreign wars.
The Confederacy drafted men to serve in the army (April 16, 1862). The Union followed suit (March 3, 1863). The Confederacy justified this constitutionally on the basis of repelling an invasion. The Union justified this on the basis of suppressing insurrections. Both sides then crossed the border of the other side's claimed territory. By the end, 600,000 did not return home alive.
World War I and World War II were fought with draftees. So was the Korean non-war. (Congress never declared war, as required by the Constitution.) So was the Vietnam non-war. (Same reason.)
It is a shame that Americans have such short memories on Memorial Day.
I will fly the flag today. I fly the flag for many reasons, depending on the holiday. On Memorial Day, I fly it for this one: because the draft is no longer the means of staffing America's military. I have written about how this took place.
If Washington ever pulls all of the troops and ships and planes out of the nation's 900+ foreign bases, selling the real estate to entrepreneurs in the host territories, that will be glorious. I will fly a larger flag.
"O say, can you see?" Only by faith. What is faith? "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen" (Hebrews 11:1).
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