FEDERALIST No. 29

Concerning the Militia

From the Daily Advertiser.

Thursday, January 10, 1788

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

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.''

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.

In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the

militia to execute the laws of the Union, it has been remarked that

there is nowhere any provision in the proposed Constitution for

calling out the POSSE COMITATUS, to assist the magistrate in the

execution of his duty, whence it has been inferred, that military

force was intended to be his only auxiliary. There is a striking

incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes

even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very

favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors.

The same persons who tell us in one breath, that the powers of the

federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the

next, that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the

POSSE COMITATUS. The latter, fortunately, is as much short of the

truth as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd to doubt,

that a right to pass all laws NECESSARY AND PROPER to execute its

declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of

the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution

of those laws, as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws

necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes

would involve that of varying the rules of descent and of the

alienation of landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in

cases relating to it. It being therefore evident that the

supposition of a want of power to require the aid of the POSSE

COMITATUS is entirely destitute of color, it will follow, that the

conclusion which has been drawn from it, in its application to the

authority of the federal government over the militia, is as uncandid

as it is illogical. What reason could there be to infer, that force

was intended to be the sole instrument of authority, merely because

there is a power to make use of it when necessary? What shall we

think of the motives which could induce men of sense to reason in

this manner? How shall we prevent a conflict between charity and

judgment?

By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy,

we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in

the hands of the federal government. It is observed that select

corps may be formed, composed of the young and ardent, who may be

rendered subservient to the views of arbitrary power. What plan for

the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national

government, is impossible to be foreseen. But so far from viewing

the matter in the same light with those who object to select corps

as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified, and were I to deliver

my sentiments to a member of the federal legislature from this State

on the subject of a militia establishment, I should hold to him, in

substance, the following discourse:

``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.

``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.''

Thus differently from the adversaries of the proposed

Constitution should I reason on the same subject, deducing arguments

of safety from the very sources which they represent as fraught with

danger and perdition. But how the national legislature may reason

on the point, is a thing which neither they nor I can foresee.

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.

In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a

man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or

romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to

the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes ``Gorgons, hydras,

and chimeras dire''; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents,

and transforming everything it touches into a monster.

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.

In times of insurrection, or invasion, it would be natural and

proper that the militia of a neighboring State should be marched

into another, to resist a common enemy, or to guard the republic

against the violence of faction or sedition. This was frequently

the case, in respect to the first object, in the course of the late

war; and this mutual succor is, indeed, a principal end of our

political association. If the power of affording it be placed under

the direction of the Union, there will be no danger of a supine and

listless inattention to the dangers of a neighbor, till its near

approach had superadded the incitements of selfpreservation to the

too feeble impulses of duty and sympathy.

PUBLIUS.