Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Standing Army

  • Constitution Sunday: “Brutus” X

    New York Journal

    January 24, 1788

    History is replete with military coups. At a time when a country’s government has grown weak, the temptation to make drastic change can become overwhelming. Sometimes, rather than wait for the next election, the military makes its move—to the detriment of the democracy, the people, and the chances for protecting the people’s rights. There are some who believe that the best way to prevent such coups is to prohibit having a standing army altogether. In 1788, an author, using the pen name Brutus, saw that the liberties of the people faced imminent threat if there was a “large standing army” allowed in the United States and made the case that the Constitution should prohibit such an army as it created too much of a danger to the viability of the Republic.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist XLI [James Madison]

    Independent Journal (New York)

    January 19, 1788

    Engineering a coup can be difficult. Usually, it requires a military to not only lose faith in the civilian government but to organize an overthrowing of that government. Democratic republics fear this prospect as much as any other type of government. Although democratic republics are better suited for allowing their citizens to vent their anger—through the vote, protest, and other expressions of speech—and presumably have a healthier, happier citizenry as a result, the threat still lingers. And during any period of American history, the potential for a standing army—one of permanence and at times one of substantial size—has raised the specter of a military coup on top of the obvious dedication of resources needed to support a standing army.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Thomas Dawes, Jr. on Legitimate Standing Armies

    Massachusetts Ratifying Convention

    January 24, 1788

    The Constitution empowers Congress to “raise and support Armies” with the limitation that any appropriation of money for raising and supporting armies must be limited to a two-year term (Article I, Section 8, Clause 12). At the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, there was debate as to whether that authority should exist at all and whether it should be housed with Congress.

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  • Constitution Sunday: “Brutus” VIII

    “Brutus” VIII

    New York Journal, January 10, 1788

    In the draft of the Constitution was a clause that permitted the federal government to “borrow money on the credit of the United States, and to raise and support armies.” The author of an article in the New York Journal, using the pseudonym Brutus (undoubtedly referring to one of Julius Caesar’s assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus), warned of the consequences flowing from that clause. Not only did it leave open the possibility of the national debt growing so large as to exceed the country’s ability to repay, it allowed an “indefinite and unlimited” power to raise armies regardless of whether the country was at war.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Reply to Mason’s “Objections”: “Civis Rusticus”

    Reply to Mason’s “Objections”: “Civis Rusticus”

    Virginia Independent Chronicle (Richmond), January 30, 1788

    Following are excerpts of an article written in response to George Mason’s article listing the objections to the Constitution:

    “5th. Had the convention left the executive power indivisible, I am free to own it would have been better, than giving the senate a share in it (more…)

  • Constitution Sunday: Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “A Democratic Federalist”

    Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “A Democratic Federalist”

    Pennsylvania Herald (Philadelphia), October 17, 1787

    Following are excerpts from the article, published in response to James Wilson’s speech: (more…)