University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2019 Courtroom Wars: Constitutional Battles over Conscription in the Civil War North Nicholas Matthew Mosvick University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Mosvick, Nicholas Matthew, "Courtroom Wars: Constitutional Battles over Conscription in the Civil War North" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1572. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1572 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COURTROOM WARS: CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLES OVER CONSCRIPTION IN THE CIVIL WAR NORTH A dissertation submitted to the University of Mississippi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Nicholas Matthew Mosvick May 2019 Copyright © 2019 by Nicholas Mosvick All rights reserved. ABSTRACT In February 1863, Congress considered a bill to create for the first-time conscription at the national level. Democratic politicians vigorously protested that the proposed act was unconstitutional and destroyed the state militias. When Congress passed the Enrollment Act, commonly known as the “Conscription Act,” on March 3, 1863, outcry from Democrats about the unconstitutionality of national conscription immediately followed. In New York and Pennsylvania, Democratic newspaper editors and politicians decreed the act the worst among the Lincoln war measures in threatening to subvert the constitutional republic and to transform the United States into a despotism under the control of an autocratic President.