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The Military & the Militia
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A standing army has always been
used by despots to enforce their rule and to keep their people under subjection. Its
existence was therefore considered a great threat to peace and stability in a republic and
a danger to the rights of the nation. Since every aspect of government was designed to
prevent the rise of tyranny, strict limits and control over the military were considered
absolutely necessary. It was essential that the military be subordinate to civilian
control.
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"The supremacy of the civil
over the military authority I deem [one of] the essential principles of our Government,
and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas
Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.
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"The freest governments in
the world have their army under absolute government. Republican form and principles [are]
not to be introduced into government of an army." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes
Concerning the Right of Removal from Office, 1780. Papers 4:282
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"[A commander who conducts
a] great military contest with wisdom and fortitude [will] invariably [regard] the rights
of the civil power through all disasters and changes." --Thomas Jefferson: Address to
George Washington, 1783.(*) Papers 6:413
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"Instead of subjecting the
military to the civil power, [a tyrant will make] the civil subordinate to the military.
But can [he] thus put down all law under his feet? Can he erect a power superior to that
which erected himself? He [can do] it indeed by force, but let him remember that force
cannot give right." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.(*) ME 1:209,
Papers 1:134
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"No military commander
should be so placed as to have no civil superior." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel
Smith, 1801. FE 8:29
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"It is probable... that not
knowing how to use the military as a civil weapon, [the civil authority] will do too much
or too little with it." --Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1789.
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"To carry on our war with
success, we want able officers, and a sufficient number of soldiers. The former,
time and trial can alone give us; to procure the latter, we need only the tender of
sufficient inducements and the assiduous pressure of them on the proper subjects."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Clarke, 1814. ME 14:79
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"Bonaparte will conquer the
world, if they do not learn his secret of composing armies of young men only, whose
enthusiasm and health enable them to surmount all obstacles." --Thomas Jefferson to
Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:116
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"There should be a school of
instruction for our navy as well as artillery; and I do not see why the same establishment
might not suffice for both. Both require the same basis of general mathematics, adding
projectiles and fortifications for the artillery exclusively, and astronomy and theory of
navigation exclusively for the naval students." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams,
1821. ME 15:334
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"Neither a nation nor those
entrusted with its affairs could be justifiable, however sanguine their expectations, in
trusting solely to an engine not yet sufficiently tried under all the circumstances which
may occur, and against which we know not as yet what means of parrying may be
devised." --Thomas Jefferson to Robert Fulton, 1807. ME 11:328
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"I believe now we should be
gainers were we to burn our whole navy, and build what we should be able on plans approved
by experience and not warped to the whimsical ideas of individuals, who do not consider
that if their projects miscarry their country is in a manner undone." --Thomas
Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, 1779. Papers 3:39
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"There are instruments so
dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of
their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be
restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an
instrument is a standing army." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323
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"I do not like [in the new
Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the
aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson to
James Madison, 1787. ME 6:387
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"Nor is it conceived needful
or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace for [defense against
invasion]." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:334
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"Standing armies [are]
inconsistent with [a people's] freedom and subversive of their quiet." --Thomas
Jefferson: Reply to Lord North's Proposition, 1775. Papers 1:231
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"The spirit of this country
is totally adverse to a large military force." --Thomas Jefferson to Chandler Price,
1807. ME 11:160
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"A distinction between the
civil and military [is one] which it would be for the good of the whole to obliterate as
soon as possible." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME
17:90
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"It is nonsense to talk of
regulars. They are not to be had among a people so easy and happy at home as ours. We
might as well rely on calling down an army of angels from heaven." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Monroe, 1814. ME 14:207
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"There shall be no standing
army but in time of actual war." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution,
1776. Papers 1:363
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"The Greeks and Romans had
no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans
by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such
engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier and
oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made
them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas
Cooper, 1814. ME 14:184
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"Bonaparte... transferred
the destinies of the republic from the civil to the military arm. Some will use this as a
lesson against the practicability of republican government. I read it as a lesson against
the danger of standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Adams, 1800. ME 10:154
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Against Forced Enlistment |
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"In this country, [a draught
from the militia] ever was the most unpopular and impracticable thing that could be
attempted. Our people, even under the monarchical government, had learnt to consider it as
the last of all oppressions." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1777. ME 4:286,
Papers 2:18
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"The breaking men to
military discipline is breaking their spirits to principles of passive obedience."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1788. ME 7:19
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"If no check can be found to
keep the number of standing troops within safe bounds while they are tolerated as far as
necessary, abandon them altogether, discipline well the militia and guard the magazines
with them. More than magazine guards will be useless if few and dangerous if many. No
European nation can ever send against us such a regular army as we need fear, and it is
hard if our militia are not equal to those of Canada or Florida." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison, 1788.
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"Our duty is... to act upon
things as they are and to make a reasonable provision for whatever they may be. Were
armies to be raised whenever a speck of war is visible in our horizon, we never should
have been without them. Our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have
never happened instead of being reserved for what is really to take place." --Thomas
Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:424
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"[Montesquieu wrote in his
Spirit
of the Laws,
XIII,c.17:] 'As soon as one prince augments his forces, the rest, of
course, do the same; so that nothing is gained thereby but the public ruin.'"
--Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
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"The following [addition to
the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me:... All troops of the United States shall stand
ipso
facto
disbanded at the expiration of the term for which their pay and subsistence
shall have been last voted by Congress, and all officers and soldiers not natives of the
United States shall be incapable of serving in their armies by land except during a
foreign war." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:451, Papers 15:368
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"Every rational citizen must
wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other
element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion
bloodshed; a land force would do both." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1786. ME
5:386
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"I am for relying for
internal defense on our militia solely till actual invasion, and for such a naval force
only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced;
and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment; nor
for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us,
will grind us with public burthens and sink us under them." --Thomas Jefferson to
Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77
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"A navy is a very expensive
engine. It is admitted that in ten or twelve years a vessel goes to entire decay; of, if
kept in repair, costs as much as would build a new one; and that a nation who could count
on twelve or fifteen years of peace, would gain by burning its navy and building a new one
in time. Its extent, therefore, must be governed by circumstances." --Thomas
Jefferson to John Adams, 1822. ME 15:402
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"Collisions... between the
vessels of war of different nations... beget wars and constitute the weightiest objection
to navies." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1822. ME 15:403
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A Well-Organized and Armed
Militia
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"For a people who are free
and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. It
is, therefore, incumbent on us at every meeting [of Congress] to revise the condition of
the militia and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every
point of our territories exposed to invasion... Congress alone have power to produce a
uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defense. The interests which they so
deeply feel in their own and their country's security will present this as among the most
important objects of their deliberation." --Thomas Jefferson: 8th Annual Message,
1808. ME 3:482
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"None but an armed nation
can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all
times important, but especially so at a moment when rights the most essential to our
welfare have been violated." --Thomas Jefferson to -----, 1803. ME 10:365
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"It is more a subject of joy
that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies. But
it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was
the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free State. Where there is
no oppression there can be no pauper hirelings." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe,
1813. ME 13:261
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"A well-disciplined militia,
our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve
them, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our Government, and consequently [one
of] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st
Inaugural, 1801.
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"A militia so organized that
its effective portions can be called to any point in the Union, or volunteers instead of
them to serve a sufficient time, are means which may always be ready yet never preying on
our resources until actually called into use. They will maintain the public interests
while a more permanent force shall be in course of preparation. But much will depend on
the promptitude with which these means can be brought into activity. If war be forced upon
us in spite of our long and vain appeals to the justice of nations, rapid and vigorous
movements in its outset will go far toward securing us in its course and issue, and toward
throwing its burdens on those who render necessary the resort from reason to force."
--Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806. ME 3:425
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"Militia do well for hasty
enterprises but cannot be relied on for lengthy service and out of their own
country." --Thomas Jefferson to North Carolina Assembly, 1781. FE 2:480, Papers 5:54
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"[The] governor [is]
constitutionally the commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man
in it able to bear arms." --Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811.
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"Uncertain as we must ever
be of the particular point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us,
the only force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them, is the body
of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these, collected from the parts most
convenient, in numbers proportioned to the invading foe, it is best to rely, not only to
meet the first attack, but if it threatens to be permanent, to maintain the defence until
regulars may be engaged to relieve them." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message,
1801. ME 3:334
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Every Citizen Given Military
Training
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"We must train and classify
the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate
education. We can never be safe till this is done." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Monroe, 1813. ME 13:261
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"[Congress should] consider
whether it would not be expedient, for a state of peace as well as of war, so to organize
or class the militia as would enable us, on a sudden emergency, to call for the services
of the younger portions, unencumbered with the old and those having families...
Able-bodied men, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six years, which the last census
shows we may now count within our limits, will furnish a competent number for offence or
defence in any point where they may be wanted, and will give time for raising regular
forces after the necessity of them shall become certain; and the reducing to the early
period of life all its active service cannot but be desirable to our younger citizens, of
the present as well as future times, inasmuch as it engages to them in more advanced age a
quiet and undisturbed repose in the bosom of their families." --Thomas Jefferson: 5th
Annual Message, 1805. ME 3:389
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"[One measure] which I
pressed on Congress repeatedly at their meetings... was to class the militia according to
the years of their birth, and make all those from twenty to twenty-five liable to be
trained and called into service at a moment's warning. This would have given us a force of
three hundred thousand young men, prepared by proper training for service in any part of
the United States; while those who had passed through that period would remain at home,
liable to be used in their own or adjacent States. [This] would have completed what I
deemed necessary for the entire security of our country." --Thomas Jefferson to
Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:368
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"I pressed on Congress
repeatedly at their meetings... measures [which would have] left... the whole territory of
the United States organized by such a classification of its male force, as would give it
the benefit of all its young population for active service, and that of a middle and
advanced age for stationary defence." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810.
ME 12:368
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"Two measures will enable us
to... defend ourselves. 1. To organize the militia into classes, assigning to each class
the duties for which it is fitted (which, had it been done when proposed years ago, would
have prevented all our misfortunes), abolishing by a declaratory law the doubts which
abstract scruples in some, and cowardice and treachery in others, have conjured up about
passing imaginary lines, and limiting, at the same time, their services to the contiguous
provinces of the enemy. The 2nd is the [financial] ways and means." --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1814. ME 14:202
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"I think the truth must now
be obvious that our people are too happy at home to enter into regular service, and that
we cannot be defended but by making every citizen a soldier, as the Greeks and Romans who
had no standing armies; and that in doing this all must be marshaled, classed by their
ages, and every service ascribed to its competent class." --Thomas Jefferson to John
Wayles Eppes, 1814.
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"Against great land armies
we cannot attempt defense but by equal armies. For these we must depend on a classified
militia, which will give us the service of the class from twenty to twenty-six, in the
nature of conscripts,... to be specially trained. This measure, attempted at a former
session, was pressed at the last, and might, I think, have been carried by a small
majority. But considering that great innovations should not be forced on a slender
majority, and seeing that the general opinion is sensibly rallying to it, it was thought
better to let it lie over to the next session, when, I trust, it will be passed."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Armstrong, 1808.
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"Convinced that a militia of
all ages promiscuously are entirely useless for distant service, and that we never shall
be safe until we have a selected corps for a year's distant service at least, the
classification of our militia is now the most essential thing the United States have to
do. Whether on Bonaparte's plan of making a class for every year between certain periods,
or that recommended in my message, I do not know, but I rather incline to his."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1807. ME 11:202
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"In the beginning of our
government we were willing to introduce the least coercion possible on the will of the
citizen. Hence a system of military duty was established too indulgent to his indolence.
This [War of 1812] is the first opportunity we have had of trying it, and it has
completely failed--an issue foreseen by many, and for which remedies have been proposed.
That of classing the militia according to age and allotting each age to the particular
kind of service to which it was competent was proposed to Congress in 1805 and
subsequently; and on the last trial was lost, I believe, by a single vote. Had it
prevailed, what has now happened would not have happened. Instead of burning our Capitol,
we should have possessed theirs in Montreal and Quebec. We must now adopt it, and all will
be safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814. ME 14:185
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"It is very much the good to
force the unworthy into their due share of contributions to the public support, otherwise
the burden on them will become oppressive, indeed." --Thomas Jefferson to Garret
Vanmeter, 1781. ME 4:417, Papers 5:566
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"Militia duty becoming
burthensome it is our duty to divide it as equally as we can." --Thomas Jefferson to
James Innes, 1781. Papers 4:686
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ME, FE = Memorial Edition, Ford Edition. |
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