Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v1.djvu/391

Rh to numbers, and without any restriction in time of peace. Thus, sir, this plan of government, instead of guarding against a standing army,—that engine of arbitrary power, which has so often and so successfully been used for the subversion of freedom,—has, in its formation, given it an express and constitutional sanction, and hath provided for its introduction. Nor could this be prevented. I took the sense of the Convention on a proposition, by which the Congress should not have power, in time of peace, to keep imbodied more than a certain number of regular troops, that number to be ascertained by what should be considered a respectable peace establishment. This proposition was rejected by a majority, it being their determination that the power of Congress to keep up a standing army, even in peace, should only be restrained by their will and pleasure.

This section proceeds, further, to give a power to the Congress to provide for the calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. As to giving such a power there was no objection; but it was thought by some that this power ought to be given with certain restrictions. It was thought that not more than a certain part of the militia of any one state ought to be obliged to march out of the same, or be employed out of the same, at any one time, without the consent of the legislature of such state. This amendment I endeavored to obtain; but it met with the same fate which attended almost every attempt to limit the powers given to the general government, and constitutionally to guard against their abuse: it was not adopted. As it now stands, the Congress will have the power, if they please, to march the whole militia of Maryland to the remotest part of the Union, and keep them in service as long as they think proper, without being in any respect dependent upon the government of Maryland for this unlimited exercise of power over its citizens—all of whom, from the lowest to the greatest, may, during such service, be subjected to military law, and tied up and whipped at the halbert, like the meanest of slaves.

By the next paragraph, Congress is to have the power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States.

For this extraordinary provision, by which the militia—the only defence and protection which the state can have for the security of their rights against arbitrary encroachments of the general government—is taken entirely out of the power of their respective states, and placed under the power of Congress, it was speciously assigned, as a reason, that the general government would cause the militia to be better regulated and better disciplined than the state governments, and that it would be proper for the whole militia of the Union to have a uniformity in their arms and exercise. To this it was answered, that the reason, however specious, was not just—that it would be absurd that the militia of the western settlements, who were exposed to an Indian enemy, should either be confined to the same arms or exercise as the militia of the Eastern or Middle States—that the same penalties which would be sufficient to enforce an obedience to militia laws in some states, would be totally disregarded in others—that, leaving the power to the several states, the would respectively best know the situation and circumstance of their citizens, and the regulations that would be necessary and sufficient to effect a well-regulated militia in each—that we were satisfied the militia had heretofore been as well disciplined as if they had been under the regulations of Congress—and that the states would now have an additional motive