The Draft and Selective Service

The federal government first drafted soldiers during the Civil War under the Enrollment Act of March 3, 1863, which allowed men to hire substitutes or pay a fee and set off deadly riots in New York City that July. The Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917, created a system of local draft boards for World War I, and the Selective Training and Service Act of September 16, 1940, began the first peacetime draft in American history. Conscription continued through the Korean and Vietnam wars, when deferments for students and others and a lottery introduced in 1969 became intensely controversial.

The draft ended when induction authority expired on July 1, 1973, and the military became an all-volunteer force. Registration was suspended in 1975 but restored by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and almost all men living in the United States, citizens and noncitizens alike, must register within 30 days of turning 18. Failure to register can bar men from federal jobs and some state benefits. The Selective Service System, a small independent agency, maintains the database and plans for a draft that would require new authorization by Congress.

In Rostker v. Goldberg in 1981, the Supreme Court upheld registration of men only, citing the exclusion of women from combat, but after combat roles opened to women in 2015, a national commission in 2020 recommended including women, and Congress has debated the change without enacting it. Recent defense bills have also considered replacing self-registration with automatic registration using federal data. Supporters of registration say it provides an essential insurance policy for a national emergency, while critics say it is outdated and unfair, and some argue it should be abolished.