Bring back state militias: Jon Dougherty calls for constitutional troops separate from feds

Now that terrorism has finally come to the United States, most analysts believe it's a shoo-in more attacks are being planned and will eventually be carried out. That's scary stuff, but reality often can be frightening.

Nevertheless, Americans are a robust people and when threatened are pretty scary themselves. Just ask the now-retreating al-Qaida and Taliban forces running from our special operations troops in Afghanistan and beyond.

But because of this renewed threat, it's time to revive a constitutional concept that would provide us better protection on a personal level: the reintroduction of true constitutional state militias.

Much of the modern-day battle over the meaning of the Second Amendment has pertained to gun control or, more appropriately, fighting gun control. But the same amendment also maintains that arms should be possessed by "the people" in order to equip "a well-regulated militia" that is "necessary to the security of a free state. …"

Now, how many constitutional heroes do we have left in our statehouses, state capitols and state government apparatuses? This idea will demonstrate that once and for all.

First off, the National Guard is not a true constitutional state militia, federal laws saying so notwithstanding. Guard units fall under the command of state governors and state adjutants general, unless or until they are called into national service by the federal government.

A true constitutional state militia is beholden not to the central government, but only to its particular state. And imagine the kind of military force each state could bring to bear in this ongoing and soon-to-escalate fight against terrorism.

As it stands, according to a recent USA Today investigative report, National Guard units are unprepared in many ways for this mission. Gutted by years of neglect and poor funding via the Clinton administration, most Guard units are in no way prepared to protect assets deployed in their respective states. Many cannot even effectively support federal Army and Air Force units (and aren't supposed to anyway – that is the job of each service branch's reserve forces).

But each state already has a mandate to build its own military units from the ground up and to get it right from the beginning. That means, of course, cutting out the bloated Washington military bureaucracy that currently hampers the Defense Department and prevents it from doing anything quickly, efficiently or well.

How well could another 10,000-20,000 troops augment existing state and local police, fire and emergency units? How much more quickly could they deploy in the event of an attack? How much simpler could the chain of command be than governor-unit commander-troops?

Also, state militias can also be used to protect state assets from specific threats, such as illegal immigration and penetration by terrorist groups.

Then there is the other reason why genuine state militias are needed: The more Washington usurps power from the states and the people in its quest to become today's Roman Empire, the more local and state governments are going to need a little muscle.

Whether state governments are liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, supporters of the welfare state or advocates of self-improvement – they have a right, under our founding principles, to manage themselves as they and their people see fit.

When threats surface, such as terrorism, immigration or too much centralized power, state governments have a right to defend themselves. But as it stands, there are no true constitutional state militias to help state governments assert needed control.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution provides this authority, but so far only one state – Texas – has a genuine state guard.

In this age of growing central government power and dangerous threats from outside and inside, it only makes sense for citizens of each state to push their leaders to adopt a military force dedicated to only protecting the home front – not someone else's borders 10,000 miles away – and which can actually be deployed in time to do some good.

Just a question, clueless as I am. The Constitution forbids states from raising "armies", but all but requires them to raise "militias", yet it doesn't provide any definition to distinguish between the two. At what point does a militia cross the line from being a militia to being an army?

Here are some quotes from The Federalist, where the Founding Fathers discussed the difference between armies and militias.

In The Federalist #8, Alexander Hamilton states the fear of having a standing army.

quote:
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it. Their existence, however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most, problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied, must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy. It is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.

The expedients which have been mentioned would soon give the States or confederacies that made use of them a superiority over their neighbors. Small states, or states of less natural strength, under vigorous governments, and with the assistance of disciplined armies, have often triumphed over large states, or states of greater natural strength, which have been destitute of these advantages. Neither the pride nor the safety of the more important States or confederacies would permit them long to submit to this mortifying and adventitious superiority. They would quickly resort to means similar to those by which it had been effected, to reinstate themselves in their lost pre-eminence. Thus, we should, in a little time, see established in every part of this country the same engines of despotism which have been the scourge of the Old World. This, at least, would be the natural course of things; and our reasonings will be the more likely to be just, in proportion as they are accommodated to this standard.

A militia of the people, or Posse Comitatus would be a counter-balance to a standing army. In The Federalist #29, Hamilton states the need for a militia to be regulated by the States, not the Federal government:

quote:
THE power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy.
It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense. It would enable them to discharge the duties of the camp and of the field with mutual intelligence and concert; an advantage of peculiar moment in the operations of an army; and it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions which would be essential to their usefulness. This desirable uniformity can only be accomplished by confiding the regulation of the militia to the direction of the national authority. It is, therefore, with the most evident propriety, that the plan of the convention proposes to empower the Union "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, RESERVING TO THE STATES RESPECTIVELY THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS, AND THE AUTHORITY OF TRAINING THE MILITIA ACCORDING TO THE DISCIPLINE PRESCRIBED BY CONGRESS."

Hamilton then argues that the formation of the militia by itself should be enough to prevent a standing army from forming.

quote:
Of the different grounds which have been taken in opposition to the plan of the convention, there is none that was so little to have been expected, or is so untenable in itself, as the one from which this particular provision has been attacked. If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security. If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

Hamilton now argues that it is impractical to expect a militia to act as a standing army.

quote:
``The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

Hamilton then reasons that if there should be a need for a standing army, there should at least also be a disciplined militia to offset the power of the army.

quote:
"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

Finally, Hamilton supposes that a militia under the control of the States would resist the temptation of a Federal authority using it for it's own purposes.

quote:
There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia, that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery; whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians; as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price; or as the serious offspring of political fanaticism. Where in the name of common-sense, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests? What reasonable cause of apprehension can be inferred from a power in the Union to prescribe regulations for the militia, and to command its services when necessary, while the particular States are to have the SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE APPOINTMENT OF THE OFFICERS? If it were possible seriously to indulge a jealousy of the militia upon any conceivable establishment under the federal government, the circumstance of the officers being in the appointment of the States ought at once to extinguish it. There can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia.
A sample of this is to be observed in the exaggerated and improbable suggestions which have taken place respecting the power of calling for the services of the militia. That of New Hampshire is to be marched to Georgia, of Georgia to New Hampshire, of New York to Kentucky, and of Kentucky to Lake Champlain. Nay, the debts due to the French and Dutch are to be paid in militiamen instead of louis d'ors and ducats. At one moment there is to be a large army to lay prostrate the liberties of the people; at another moment the militia of Virginia are to be dragged from their homes five or six hundred miles, to tame the republican contumacy of Massachusetts; and that of Massachusetts is to be transported an equal distance to subdue the refractory haughtiness of the aristocratic Virginians. Do the persons who rave at this rate imagine that their art or their eloquence can impose any conceits or absurdities upon the people of America for infallible truths?

If there should be an army to be made use of as the engine of despotism, what need of the militia? If there should be no army, whither would the militia, irritated by being called upon to undertake a distant and hopeless expedition, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery upon a part of their countrymen, direct their course, but to the seat of the tyrants, who had meditated so foolish as well as so wicked a project, to crush them in their imagined intrenchments of power, and to make them an example of the just vengeance of an abused and incensed people? Is this the way in which usurpers stride to dominion over a numerous and enlightened nation? Do they begin by exciting the detestation of the very instruments of their intended usurpations? Do they usually commence their career by wanton and disgustful acts of power, calculated to answer no end, but to draw upon themselves universal hatred and execration? Are suppositions of this sort the sober admonitions of discerning patriots to a discerning people? Or are they the inflammatory ravings of incendiaries or distempered enthusiasts? If we were even to suppose the national rulers actuated by the most ungovernable ambition, it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs.

Here is a link to the entire set of Federalist Papers.

-PJ

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