Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/75

 CH. XXI.] form; and as amended it seems to have encountered no opposition in the convention. It was, however, afterwards assailed in the state conventions, and before the people, with incredible zeal and pertinacity, as dangerous to liberty, and subversive of the state governments. Objections were made against the general and indefinite power to raise armies, not limiting the number of troops; and to the maintenance of them in peace, as well as in war.

§ 1177. It was said, that congress, having an unlimited power to raise and support armies, might, if in their opinion the general welfare required it, keep large armies constantly on foot, and thus exhaust the resources of the United States. There is no control on congress, as to numbers, stations, or government of them. They may billet them on the people at pleasure. Such an unlimited authority is most dangerous, and in its principles despotic; for being unbounded, it must lead to despotism. We shall, therefore, live under a government of military force. In respect to times of peace, it was suggested, that there is no necessity for having a standing army, which had always been held, under such circumstances, to be fatal to the public rights and political freedom.

§ 1178. To these suggestions it was replied with equal force and truth, that to be of any value, the power must be unlimited. It is impossible to foresee, or define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the national means necessary to satisfy them. The power must be co-extensive with all possible combinations of