Michigander
Member
I found an interesting article concerning the Militia and the Standing Army. I searched and did not find it posted here at THR so, here it is:
Militia and the Standing Army
by Kort E Patterson
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
Hubert H. Humphrey
It is increasingly claimed by those opposed to private ownership of firearms that the right to bear arms is not a right of the people. They claim that only the militia has the right to bear arms, and that the militia is now the part time soldiers of each state's National Guard. The current politically correct interpretation of the phrase "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," has drifted a long way from the intent of the original authors.
Those who insisted the phrase be included in the Bill of Rights had a well founded fear of standing armies. They knew how often standing armies, established in the name of defending against external enemies, had instead used the power with which they had been entrusted to enslave the very peoples they had pledged to protect. Those men of wisdom also recognized how the power of tyrants almost always required control over a standing army capable of imposing the tyrant's will on an unwilling populace. The Continental Congress had no intention of allowing the liberty they sought for Americans to be easily usurped - and they were also determined not to create the means for a tyrant to seize the reins of power from the people.
Modern politically correct accounts of the Revolutionary War paint a portrait of a mean spirited Congress that callously caused cruel hardships on General Washington's troops by refusing to properly support the Continental Army in the field. Popular history recounts Washington's many appeals to Congress for more money and equipment, but we're never told why Congress was so reluctant to supply Washington's needs. It's implied that the war could have been won in a shorter time and with far less trauma if Congress had just adequately funded the army.
One can hardly claim that the members of the Continental Congress had any less interest in winning the war than their soldiers in the field. After all, by becoming members of Congress the delegates had all signed their own death warrants and fully expected to be executed as rebels if the war was lost. Some of them were hanged by the British before the war was over.
Nor could it be said that supporting the Continental Army was a significant stress on the colonial economy. By the standards of modern total war where privation and suffering by the civilian population have become a standard strategic weapon, and it's taken for granted that the bulk of the nation's productivity will be redirected toward supporting the war effort, the colonies made only minimal concessions to supporting the army fighting for their freedom. To the contrary, while the war caused localized disruptions where fighting took place or where personal property could be easily seized or despoiled by the opposing armies, for the bulk of the economy it was little more than an inconvenience.
Why wasn't the civilian government willing to properly fund the army? Contrary to the politically correct version, it wasn't because of inability, accident, short sighted greed, or incompetence that Washington's troops were only supplied with the bare minimum needed to simply survive and never enough to become a "proper" fighting force. Congress intentionally restricted the resources of the Continental Army as a means of protecting itself and the principles for which the revolution was being fought from the Continental Army. They had no desire to create an American Caesar who, having triumphed over external enemies, would then use the army to seize power from his former masters.
The members of Congress had good reason to fear their own army only a little less than they feared the British. True to form, at the close of the war against the British, the officer corps of the Continental Army did attempt to betray the principles they had sworn to defend when they plotted to install Washington as monarch.
The moment when Washington refused the crown offered by the officer corps is possibly the single most critical moment in our nation's history. Every other revolution before and since has inevitably faced just such a moment of truth, and in every other case freedom and liberty have been betrayed. But Washington was a truly great man capable of vision far beyond his own personal interests.
In stark contrast to the lesser individuals who made up the officer corps, Washington truly believed in the principles he professed, and understood that those principles were far more important than the short sighted self-interest that so dominated the rest of the officer corps. Freedom survived the attempted treason of the officer corps only because Washington did what was unthinkable to the rest of the army leadership - he refused to betray his principles for personal gain.
Popular history continues to admit that Washington turned down the crown, but focuses entirely on the significance of Washington's actions and the personal integrity he demonstrated in refusing this great honor. Little attention is given to the hard fact that in spite of every effort by the Continental Congress, even the patriots who had gone to war to defend freedom and liberty were unable to resist the temptations of power.
While the attempted treason of the Colonial Army officer corps gets little attention from modern promilitary revisionists, it didn't go entirely unnoticed when it came time to write the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The attempted betrayal of the officer corps had confirmed the view that maintaining a standing army was too dangerous for a free nation to risk. The only military force that would not turn on the citizenry was one composed of the citizens themselves - a citizen militia.
The idea of a citizen militia was hardly a new concept in 1776. The early Romans believed that only those with a vested interest could be relied on to defend the loose coalition of Roman states. Serving in the militia was considered an honor and only landowners were allowed to participate in the citizen militia that provided for the common defense. Landless men and slaves were not considered to have sufficient motivation when defending land they didn't own to be reliable on the battlefield.
As long as defending the nation was a part time local distraction, it was possible for landowners to be both members of the citizen militia and continue to run their farms. However, the idea of the citizen militia had to be abandoned when the Romans switched from defending their own land to aggressive conquest of their neighbors. With the legions fighting in far flung provinces it was hardly possible for citizen soldiers to return home often enough to maintain their farms. The Romans also discovered that while landowners were highly motivated to defend their own property, they were far less motivated to conquer someone else's land. After all, those who had already established a working farm in one place were hardly interested in risking their lives to acquire additional acreage too far away from their current lands to be useful.
In order to change from a defensive force into the empire building Roman Legions that conquered the known world and periodically turned on Rome itself, the early Roman citizen militia had to become a full time paid professional army - a standing army. From that point on the Roman standing army became an ongoing danger to everyone both inside and outside of the empire. The Roman Emperors, most having gained their thrones by using the army to overthrow their predecessors, tried to retain their power by keeping the army busy building roads and walls far away from the capital when not engaged in fighting the empire's many well deserved enemies. But history indicates this ploy was not always successful. Nor was this a viable solution for the American colonies. The American frontier at the time of the Revolution was far too close to the capital to provide any protection from a general with ambitions.
During the Revolutionary War, the well practiced accuracy of independent frontiersmen had exacted a heavy toll on British regulars both formed up on the battlefield and traveling the roads. Hit and run attacks by irregulars firing from cover and then slipping away decimated British units trying to return to their bases after easily defeating the regulars of the Continental Army in traditional set piece battles. The standing army had been defeated in nearly every battle it fought, while the armed citizens who continually harassed the redcoats had bled the British until they reconsidered their priorities.
The British empire was not defeated by the tiny colonial standing army, but rather decided that with all of their other concerns around the world, subduing the armed and determined populace of the American colonies was simply not worth the cost. To this end it could be argued that the citizen militia had been as effective in defending the freedom of the citizens as the standing army.
Creating a standing army had been necessary if only as a measure of credibility in the minds of America's tradition bound European allies. But even there the existence of a citizenry already proficient in the use of arms made it possible to quickly raise the needed standing army in relatively short order.
The standing army, represented by the traitorous officer corps, had demonstrated that it remained a danger to the liberty of the citizens and their elected representatives after the war. The citizen army, represented by all the citizen soldiers who left their shops and farms to rally to the defense of the nation, and having done the job were anxious to get home and return to their former lives, were the real defenders of liberty and the only ones who could be trusted with real power.
