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N0KFQ > TODAY 08.05.12 18:06l 39 Lines 1730 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 22094_KB0WSA
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - May 8
Path: IZ3LSV<IW0QNL<IK6ZDE<I0OJJ<VE3UIL<N0KFQ<KB0WSA
Sent: 120508/1648Z 22094@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.49
May 8, 1792:
Militia Act establishes conscription under federal law
On this day in 1792, Congress passes the second portion of the
Militia Act, requiring that every free able-bodied white male
citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or
shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five
years be enrolled in the militia.
Six days before, Congress had established the president's right
to call out the militia. The outbreak of Shay's Rebellion, a
protest against taxation and debt prosecution in western
Massachusetts in 1786-87, had first convinced many Americans that
the federal government should be given the power to put down
rebellions within the states. The inability of the Continental
Congress under the Articles of Confederation to respond to the
crisis was a major motivation for the peaceful overthrow of the
government and the drafting of a new federal Constitution.
The Militia Act was tested shortly after its passage, when
farmers in western Pennsylvania, angered by a federal excise tax
on whiskey, attacked the home of a tax collector and then, with
their ranks swollen to 6,000 camped outside Pittsburgh,
threatened to march on the town. In response, President
Washington, under the auspices of the Militia Act, assembled
15,000 men from the surrounding states and eastern Pennsylvania
as a federal militia commanded by Virginia's Henry Lee to march
upon the Pittsburgh encampment. Upon its arrival, the federal
militia found none of the rebels willing to fight. The mere
threat of federal force had quelled the rebellion and established
the supremacy of the federal government.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA
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