Citizenship and compulsory military service: The revolutionary origins of conscription in the United States

This article seeks to clarify the origins of citizen service in the United States. It departs from the premise that military service compelled by the state and performed as an obligation of citizenship may be understood as co nstitutive of citizen service. Based on this analytic distinction, the arti cle develops one central argument. Citizen service was first realized in th e United States during the American Revolution, but not, as might be expect ed, in the compulsory militia dating from the colonial period. Rather, citi zen service was realized first in the form of the federally mandated conscr iption of American national citizens into the Continental Army, a peculiarl y Revolutionary contribution to the War of Independence. Citizen service's Revolutionary birth in national conscription, then, helps to recast the ver y roots of the American military tradition.