Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/90

 it was like calling spirits from the vasty deep—anybody can call the spirits but they won’t come.

The Governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut positively refused to furnish their quotas of the 100,000 militia authorized by the Act of April 10, 1812. They claimed that state militia could only be employed in the service of the United States for three purposes—executing the laws of the Union, suppressing insurrection, and repelling invasion. These governors wanted to know precisely where their men were to be used, and how. President Madison could not order the state militia into national service without forcing individual men to become deserters from their states, because the law made no exception if a man left the state service to enter the service of the nation. These governors were able to paralyze for the time being the military power of their respective states, and defeat the plans of the general government. Every wheel had to stop while the Supreme Judicial Court solemnly