Militia law

“ Our militia law is obsolete and worthless. The organization and armament of the National Guard of the several States, which are treated as militia in the appropriations by the Congress, should be made identical with those provided for the regular forces. ”

“ If the law give him ample compensation for every damage that he sustains, in consequence of a trespass on his lands, what right has he to complain?
The law authorises the King, in case of invasion, or apprehended invasion, to call upon all his people to take up arms in defence of the country. The Militia Law compels every man, in his turn, to become a soldier. ”

“ If, at any time, our rulers should have unjust and iniquitous designs against our liberties, and should wish to establish a standing army, the first attempt would be to render the service and use of militia odious to the people themselves—subjecting them to unnecessary severity of discipline in time of peace, confining them under martial law, and disgusting them so much as to make them cry out, "Give us a standing army!" ”

“ Many of the States in this time of increasing civic disorder have had to give their attention to the suppression of mobs, and correspondingly we very generally find new complete codes governing the militia. Thus statutes are frequent exempting a private soldier from prosecution for murder when he fires under the orders of his commanding officer ”

“ I believe a more perfect law should be enacted, which will secure a more thorough organization of the State militia.
"The spirit of our institutions and the temper of our people are hostile to a standing army, and I am opposed to any policy, State or National, looking to governing the people by bayonet; yet in the most highly civilized communities a trained militia, recruited from the intelligent and industrious classes, is an almost indispensable auxiliary to the civil power in the interests of peace and good order." ”

“ But a militia would be useless unless the citizens were enabled to exercise themselves in the use of warlike weapons. To preserve this privilege, and to secure to the people the ability to oppose themselves in military force against the usurpations of government, as well as against enemies from without, that government is forbidden by any law or proceeding to invade or destroy the right to keep and bear arms. ”

“ If instances be required to show the necessity for such general law, it is sufficient to mention that in one case I have been informed by the Governor of a State that the law does not permit him to call the militia from one county for service in another, so that a single brigade of the enemy could traverse the State and devastate each county in turn without any power on the part of the Executive to use the militia for effective defense ”

“ Not as part of the War System, but only as an agent for preserving domestic peace, and for sustaining the law, is the militia entitled to support. And here arises the important practical question,—interesting to opponents of the War System as to lovers of order,—whether the same good object may not be accomplished by an agent less expensive, less cumbersome, and less tardy, forming no part of the War System, and therefore in no respect liable to the doubts encountered by the militia. ”

“ It requires a superintending power, in order to call forth the resources of all to protect all. If this be not done, each state will fall a sacrifice. This system merits the highest applause in this respect. The honorable gentleman said that a general regulation may be made to inflict punishments. Does he imagine that a militia law is to be ingrafted on the scheme of government, so as to render it incapable of being changed? The idea of the worthy member supposes that men renounce their own interests. ”

“ Our men of education and high social position, instead of aiding to make the militia system respectable by the personal performance of military duty and by using their influence to give tone and character to the service, have evaded its requirements on themselves, and have aided in sinking it into disrepute and contempt. And here is where our militia laws are imperfect. They have done but little toward cherishing the military spirit, developing the military virtues, or securing an effective military force ready at any time to take the field. ”

“ Congress made the private militia system, the evil consequences of which were so manifest in these tragedies, a subject of investigation, while public sentiment more strongly than ever reprobated, on the one hand, violence by strikers or strike sympathizers, and, on the other, the employment of armed men, not officers of the law, to defend property. ”

“ This could plausibly be read to support only a right to bear arms in a militia—but that is a peculiar way to make the point in a constitution that elsewhere repeatedly mentions the militia explicitly. See §§14, 18, 35, in 5 id., 2789, 2791, 2793. Many colonial statutes required individual arms-bearing for public-safety reasons—such as the 1770 Georgia law that "for the security and defence of this province from internal dangers and insurrections" required those men who qualified for militia duty individually "to carry fire arms" "to places of public worship." ”

“ The steamer Isabel carried Anderson and his men to the Baltic, and at nightfall they were on their way north.
April 15th, the day after the surrender, the President issued his proclamation calling “forth the militia of the several states of the Union” to the number of seventy-five thousand men, in order to suppress “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law,” and “to cause the laws to be duly272 executed.” ”

“ The militia being always to be regarded as the great bulwark of defense and security for free states, and the Constitution having wisely committed to the national authority a use of that force as the best provision against an unsafe military establishment, as well as a resource peculiarly adapted to a country having the extent and the exposure of the United States, I recommend to Congress a revision of the militia laws for the purpose of securing more effectually the services of all detachments called into the employment and placed under the Government of the United States. ”

“ Under these views and restrictions, the States have succeeded well, thus far,-over half a century,-in suppressing domestic violence in other ways than by martial law. The State courts, with the aid of the militia, as in Shays' rebellion and the Western insurrection, could, for aught which appears, by help of the posse comitatus, or at least by that militia, have in this case dispersed all opposition. ”

“ The state legislature, when providing for the state army, authorized the governor to exempt from militia duty all railway, express, steamboat, and telegraph employees, but even the fire companies had to serve as militia. [185] The operation of the enrolment law stripped the land of men of militia age, and on November 17, 1862, the legislature ordered to duty on the public roads men from sixteen to eighteen years of age, and forty-five to fifty-five, and later all from sixteen to fifty as well as all male slaves and free negroes from fourteen to sixty years of age. ”

“ If ever they attempt to harass and abuse the militia, they may abolish them, and raise a standing army in their stead. There are various ways of destroying the militia. A standing army may be perpetually established in their stead. I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army. The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless—by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia ”

“ There is no such connection between the sections which prohibit any body of men, other than the organized militia of the state and the troops of the United States, from associating as a military company and drilling with arms in any city or town of the state, and the sections which provide for the enrollment and organization of the state militia, as makes it impossible to declare one, without declaring both, invalid. ”

“ President, I wish to call the attention of the Senate to the propriety and constitutionality of calling out this detachment of militia at a time when no enemy menaced an invasion. The constitution only authorizes the General Government to call out the militia to suppress insurrection, enforce the laws, and repel invasion. ”

“ There is something so preposterous, and so full of mischief, in the idea of dragging the militia un necessarily from one end of the continent to the other, that I think there can be no ground of apprehension. If you limit their power over the militia, you give them a pretext for substituting a standing army. If you put it in the power of the state governments to refuse the militia, by requiring their consent, you destroy the general government, and sacrifice particular states. The same principles and motives which produce disobedience to requisitions, will produce refusal in this case. ”

“ You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies; their garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Congress, also, in another part of this plan: they will therefore act as they think proper: all power will be in their own possession. You cannot force them to receive their punishment: of what service would militia be to you, when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? for, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not furnish them. ”

“ Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed? The general government ought, at the same time, to have some such power. But we need not give them power to abolish our militia. If they neglect to arm them, and prescribe proper discipline, they will be of no use. ”

“ Where will be the boasted militia of the gentleman? Can one million of militia be overpowered by thirty thousand regulars? If so, how can we rely on them against a foe invading our country? Sir, I have no such contemptuous idea of our militia—their untaught bravery is sufficient to crush all foreign and internal attempts on their country's liberties. But we have not yet come to the end of the chapter of dangers. The gentleman's imagination, so fruitful on this subject, conceives that our constitution is not calculated for war, and that it cannot stand its rude shock. ”

“ And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. ”

“ A free people are naturally jealous of the exercise of military power; and the power to call the militia into actual service is certainly felt to be one of no ordinary magnitude. But it is not a power which can be executed without a correspondent responsibility. It is, in its terms, a limited power, confined to cases of actual invasion, or of imminent danger of invasion. If it be a limited power, the question arises, by whom is the exigency to be judged of and decided? ”

“ Till there be a necessity for an army to be raised, militia will do. And when an army will be raised, the militia will still be employed, which will render a less numerous army sufficient. By these means, there will be a sufficient defence for the country, without having a standing army altogether, or oppressing the people. The worthy member has said, that it ought to be a part of the Constitution that the militia ought not to go out of the state without the consent of the state legislature. What would be the consequence of this? The general defence is trusted to the general government. ”

“ [ In cases of invasion or insurrection, if the town-officers neglect to furnish the necessary stores and ammunition for the militia, the township may be condemned to a fine of from $200 to $500. It may readily be imagined that in such a case it might happen that no one cared to prosecute; hence the law adds that all the citizens may indict offences of this kind, and that half of the fine shall belong to the plaintiff. See Act of March 6, 1810, vol. ”

“ The states neglect their militia now, and, the more they are consolidated into one nation, the less each will rely on its own interior provisions for its safety, and the less prepare its militia for that purpose; in like manner, as the militia of a state would have been still more neglected than it has been, if each county had been independently charged with the care of its militia. The discipline of the militia is evidently a rational concern, and ought to be provided for in the national Constitution. ”