Analysis: An Antidraft Call to Action
"Analysis: An Antidraft Call to Action" addresses the contentious issue of military conscription during the Vietnam War, targeting young men of draft age and urging them to resist the draft. The petition argues that the Vietnam War is both illegal and immoral, and calls for potential draftees to actively defy military service requirements. It highlights the tightening draft laws of the period, which limited exemptions for college students and increased the urgency for protest against conscription. The petition not only expresses ethical objections to the war but also emphasizes the importance of civil disobedience, encouraging individuals to return and destroy their draft cards as a form of protest.
The document reflects a broader movement among academics and students who believed the draft was an abuse of governmental power, particularly as public sentiment shifted against the war. It illustrates the tension between First Amendment rights and federal draft laws, presenting a compelling case for individual conscience over legal obligation. This call to action is framed within a historical context of escalating antiwar protests and serves as a significant example of the overlap between ethical considerations and political resistance during a tumultuous era in American history.
Analysis: An Antidraft Call to Action
Date: 1967
Author: Anonymous
Genre: petition; political tract; address
Summary Overview
The document reprinted here is a petition addressed mainly to young men of draft age during the Vietnam War. It was intended to call potential draftees and citizens not only to protest, but to refuse the military draft. It outlines, in several numbered points, why the war in Vietnam could be considered illegal and immoral and why, therefore, it was appropriate to refuse to be a part of it. The document does not only call for people to speak up or to march as a means of demonstrating their opinion, but rather to actively go against the federal code in defying the requirement of military service. The actions proposed in the petition were illegal at the time, and anyone carrying them out could be, and usually was, prosecuted in a court of law by the United States government. The petition outlines ethical and moral objections to the Vietnam War that many of the war's opponents agreed with.
Defining Moment
This document was printed at a time when the war in Vietnam and the corresponding protests at home were increasing dramatically. More and more young men were needed to fight in Southeast Asia, and more and more people rebelled against conscription and the war in general. The draft laws required that any American male citizen between the age of 18 and 26 register and hold a draft card so that he could be selected, according to date of birth, to serve up to four years in the military. Avoiding registration, disregarding one's draft status, or fleeing military service if selected, were illegal acts and subject to a variety of punishments. Before 1967, there had been a few ways in which a person could legally avoid serving, but by the time the following call for resistance was printed, federal regulations had tightened, significantly limiting those options. For example, college-aged students who planned to go on to graduate school could no longer claim exempt status on the basis of their educational path.
As this petition shows, many opponents began to believe that the draft during the Vietnam years was an abuse of power because it forced young men to fight in a war that was widely considered illegal and immoral. The perceived illegal role of the United States in the conflict in Southeast Asia lay at the heart of the antidraft movement and was pivotal to many of the antiwar protests taking place at this time. The petition is a well organized, well argued example of a statement by one of these protest groups—in this case, professors from all around the country. The document outlines the main issues arising from the Vietnam War and how potential draftees could address them.
Author Biography
This petition was put together in response to one of a number of changes to the United States' policy on draft exemptions, most of which narrowed the number of young men who could be exempted from service. A group of professors decided to speak out against this change. Named the University Committee on War and Peace, this “faculty antiwar group”—as the University of Pennsylvania newspaper The Daily Pennsylvanian called them—visited academic institutions as far apart as the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Harvard University in Massachusetts, bringing together students and professors to resist the draft and work toward a peaceful resolution of the war. The group worked to collect the draft card of any student who turned one in and to publicize the message that the act sent.
Document Analysis
This document is a petition, officially called “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” that circulated around many colleges and appealed directly to potential draftees—that is, young men between the ages of 18 and 26. The document focuses on two main issues: the immorality and illegality of the Vietnam conflict and the tension between guaranteed First Amendment rights and federal laws concerning draft service. By outlining personal freedoms and perceived illegal actions by the American government, the petition presents a many-layered picture of why this group was protesting the Vietnam War and why the collection and destruction of draft cards was central to its purpose.
The first major focus of the petition is the legality of the conflict and the personal morality of those drafted into service. As the petition states (in points two and three), those who signed their name to the petition did so to indicate that they no longer agreed that the United States was acting in a legal manner and in accord with the regulations set down by the United Nations and the Geneva Convention. The authors go so far as to compare the leaders and some of the soldiers with Nazi war criminals who were tried after World War II in the Nuremberg trials. Such strong statements demonstrate the contempt with which the authors held the US government and its involvement in Vietnam. They desire to have nothing to do with the conflict and encourage others to stand against it, too. They also state quite forcefully that the war as immoral, especially when it forces young men who object to the violence to participate in it. The authors believe that those who disapprove of the war on moral grounds should be exempt from service.
A second major focus is the tension between the petitioners' First Amendment rights and the legal ramifications of not adhering to laws regarding the draft. While the ability to protest and speak out about a war deemed unjust and illegal is protected by the First Amendment (freedom of speech), the active avoidance of service as mandated by the government is punishable under federal law. The petition goes beyond simple objection to the laws covering the draft; it also calls on its readers to engage in acts of civil disobedience. In this case, such disobedience most often occurred when faculty members of the University Committee on War and Peace collected the draft cards of participating students and burned or otherwise destroyed them. For that reason, many of the authors and signatories were punished for their involvement. In the eyes of the law, they had crossed the line between speaking and acting in defense of their beliefs.
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Berrigan, Daniel, Robin Anderson, & James L. Marsh. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004. Print.
Foley, Michael Stewart. Confronting the War Machine: Draft Resistance during the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Print.
Kaye, David. “April Is a Big Antiwar Month on Campus and in Nation.” The Daily Pennsylvanian [Philadelphia] 2 Apr. 1968, 84th ed.: 1, 4. Print.
Kent, Stephen A. From Slogans to Mantras: Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001. Print.
Useem, Michael. Conscription, Protest, and Social Conflict: the Life and Death of a Draft Resistance Movement. New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1973. Web.