Selective Draft Law Cases - Significance, A "supreme And Noble Duty", Further Readings

appellants united joseph decision

Appellants

Joseph F. Arver, et al.

Appellee

United States of America

Appellants' Claim

That the Selective Draft Act of 1917 violated Article I, Section 8 and the First and Thirteenth Amendments, among other provisions of the Constitution.

Chief Lawyers for Appellants

T. E. Latimer, Edwin T. Taliferro, Harry Weinberger

Chief Lawyer for Appellee

John W. Davis, Solicitor General

Justices for the Court

Louis D. Brandeis, John Hessin Clarke, William Rufus Day, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph McKenna, James Clark McReynolds, Mahlon Pitney, Willis Van Devanter, Edward Douglass White (writing for the Court)

Justices Dissenting

None

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

7 January 1918

Decision

Denied the appellants' claim.

Related Cases

United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968).
Clay v. United States, 403 U.S. 698 (1971).
Rostker v. Goldberg, 453 U.S. 57 (1981).
Selective Service System v. Minnesota Public Interest Research Group, 468 U.S. 841 (1984).

Additional Topics

Selective Draft Law Cases - Significance

The case marked the Supreme Court's first hearing of a legal challenge to the federal government's power to draft men into the military. The Court's decision upheld that power. For most of its early history, the United States relied on volunteers to fight its wars. The first national draft, or conscription, occurred during the Civil War. Relative to the North, the Confederacy had a small populatio…

Selective Draft Law Cases - A "supreme And Noble Duty"

Joseph Arver was one of the many Americans who did not register for the draft. After his arrest, Arver, along with a number of other draft resisters from his home state of Minnesota, brought suit against the federal government. The Supreme Court heard the cases of the draft resisters together. Arver and the others argued that Congress had no explicit constitutional right to impose a draft, and eve…

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over 4 years ago

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