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Persuasive Essay On Conscription

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The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in American history. In four years, almost a total of 600,000 would perish in the war. As if that number wasn’t staggering enough, hundreds of thousands additional soldiers would be injured and wounded. The effects of the Civil War are continuously discovered throughout the decades, and these effects echoed in the Southern States more so than the North. In 1863, the Union instituted conscription, also known as the draft, to meet the demand of troops for the war. Within this system, it was mandatory for any white man between the ages of twenty and forty-five to be drafted for military services. There was conscription on both sides, the Union and Confederacy. However, the controversial issue with…show more content…
The Twenty Negro law was modified in May 1863, seven months after it was fashioned, which defined more guidelines to prevent fraud and reduce the outrage and animosity towards the wealthy population. An example of such a preventative guideline such as requiring all overseers to have held that position prior to the law taking effect. This does not ease the tensions between the working class and the wealthy, it instead resulted in a major increase in violence. In July 1863, the New York Draft Riots erupted. Impoverished white working men rampaged factories and led violent attacks against African Americans. Senator James echoed this issue to Confederate President Jefferson Davis “Never did a law meet with more universal odium than the exemption of slave-owners. Its injustice, gross injustice, is denounced even by men whose position enables them to take advantage of its privileges. Its influence on the poor is most calamitous… it has aroused a spirit of rebellion”. Another Conscription Act arose in February 1864 which reduced the number of slaves to fifteen from the original twenty. This sparked even more outrage. Decreasing the number from twenty to fifteen was nothing less than a false attempt to pacify the cries of those who could meet the exemption criteria. At best, this move could be considered condescending. The probability that there were Southerners who had between fifteen to nineteen slaves and actually benefited from this
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