american resistance to a s

7/28/2019 American Resistance to a s

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ABOUT THEAUTHOR

Historian

Christopher

Hamner

teaches at

George

Mason University, serves

as Editor-in-Chief of

Papers of the War

Department, 1784-1800,

and is the author of

Enduring Battle: American

Soldiers in Three Wars,

1776-1945.

Home (/) History Content (/history-content) Ask a Historian (/history-content/ask-a-historian)

American Resistance to a Standing

Army

QuestionQuote from Madison: "The means of defence

against foreign danger, have been always the

instruments of tyranny at home. Among the

Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war,

whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout

all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext

of defending, have enslaved the people."

I understand what he means, but can you give some specific

examples of which events Madison was talking about. Can you give

other ancient examples where foreign wars are used as a type of

diversion?

Answer

In June of 1787, James Madison addressed the Constitutional

Convention in Philadelphia on the dangers of a permanent army. A

standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not longbe safe companions to liberty, he argued. The means of defense

against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of

tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to

excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all

Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have

enslaved the people. That Madison, one of the most vocal

proponents of a strong centralized governmentan author of the

Federalist papers and the architect of the Constitutioncould

evince such strongly negative feelings against a standing army


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The power of a standing

army, Adams counseled,should be watched with a

jealous Eye.

highlights the substantial differences in thinking about national

security in America between the 18th century and the 21st.

While polls today generally indicate that Americans think of the

military in glowing terms (rightly associating terms like sacrifice,

honor, valor, and bravery with military service), Americans of

the 18th century took a much dimmer view of the institution of a

professional army. A near-universal assumption of the foundinggeneration was the danger posed by a standing military force. Far

from being composed of honorable citizens dutifully serving the

interests of the nation, armies were held to be nurseries of vice,

dangerous, and the grand engine of despotism. Samuel Adams

wrote in 1776, such a professional army was, always dangerous to

the Liberties of the People. Soldiers were likely to consider

themselves separate from the populace, to become more attached

to their officers than their government, and to be conditioned to

obey commands unthinkingly. The power of a standing army,

Adams counseled, should be watched with a jealous Eye.

Experiences in the decades before the Constitutional Convention in

1787 reinforced colonists negative ideas about standing armies.

Colonials who fought victoriously alongside British redcoats in the

Seven Years War concluded that the ranks of British redcoats were

generally filled with coarse, profane drunkards; even the successful

conclusion of that conflict served to confirm colonists starkly

negative attitudes towards the institution of a standing army. The

British Crown borrowed massively to finance the conflict (the war

doubled British debt, and by the late 1760s, fully half of British taxrevenue went solely to pay the interest on those liabilities); in an

effort to boost its revenues, Parliament began to pursue other

sources of income in the colonies more aggressively. In the decade

before the Declaration of Independence, Parliament passed a series

of acts intended to raise money within the colonies.

That legislation further

aggravated colonists hostility

towards the British Army. As

tensions between the coloniesand the crown escalated,

many colonists came to view

the British army as both a

symbol and a cause of

Parliaments unpopular

policies. Colonists viewed the various revenue-generating acts as

necessitated by the staggering costs associated with maintaining a

standing army. The Quartering Act, which required colonists to

provide housing and provisions for troops in their own buildings,


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Madisons language

reflected a common

concern that the

maintenance of a standing

army in the new United

States would place

[financial] burdens on the

young government [of the

United States].

was another obnoxious symbol of the corrupting power represented

by the army. Many colonists held the sentiment that the redcoats

stationed in the colonies existed not to protect them but to enforce

the kings detestable policies at bayonet-point.

No event crystallized colonists antagonism towards the British

army more clearly than what became known as the Boston

Massacre. In March 1770, British regulars fired into a crowd ofcivilians, killing five. That event provided all the proof the colonists

needed of the true nature of the redcoats mission in the colonies.

Six years later, the final draft of the Declaration of Independence

contained numerous references to King Georges militarism

(particularly his attempts to render the army independent of

civilian authority, his insistence on quartering the troops among the

people, and his importation of mercenaries to compleat the works

of death, desolation, and tyranny); by the end of the War of

Independence, hatred of a standing army had become a powerful

and near-universal tradition among the American people; theprofessional British army was nothing less than a conspiracy

against liberty.

Colonists experiences with British troops, and the convictions that

sprang from them, help explain Madisons reference to armies

having traditionally enslaved the people they were commissioned

to defend. After winning their political independence, the

victorious colonies faced the difficult task of providing for their

own security in the context of a deep-seated distrust of a standing

military.

Madisons use of the imagery

of slavery points to the

multiple meanings of that

term in the 18th century. In

Madisons statement to the

Convention, it referred not to

the literal notion of armies

marching the citizenry

through the streets inshackles but to a kind of

metaphorical slavery. The

immense costs necessary to

raise and maintain a standing

army (moneys required for

pay, uniforms, rations,

weapons, pensions, and so

forth) would burden the populace with an immense and crippling

tax burden that would require the government to confiscate more


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and more of the citizenrys wealth in order to meet those massive

expenses. Madisons language reflected a common concern that the

maintenance of a standing army in the new United States would

place similar burdens on the young government; their experiences

with the British army under Parliament in the 1760s and 1770s

likewise led to concerns that the executive would use a standing

army to force unpopular legislation on an unwilling public in

similar fashion.

Other members of the founding generation worried that an armed,

professional force represented an untenable threat to the liberty of

the people generally. Throughout history, the threat of military

coupgovernments deposed from within by the very forces raised

to protect themhas been a frequent concern. In 1783, Continental

Army officers encamped at Newburgh circulated documents that

leveled a vague threat against Congress if the government

continued its refusal to pay the soldiers. Historians generally

conclude that a full-blown coup detat was never a realisticpossibility, but the incident did little to assuage contemporary

concerns about the dangers posed by a standing army.

The experience with professional armies during the 40 years before

the Constitutional Convention, and the values that sprang from

those experiences, helps explain why the founders never seriously

considered maintaining the Continental Army past the end of the

War of Independence. The beliefs that grew organically from their

experiences with the British also help explain Madisons passionate

anti-military rhetoric (he would later refer to the establishment of astanding army under the new Constitution as a calamity, albeit an

inevitable one); together, they cast a long shadow over the debates

surrounding the kind of military the new nation would provide for

itself.

For more information

Watch Professor Whitman Ridgway analyze the Bill of Rights

(http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-

of-historical-thinking/24424) in an Example of Historical

Thinking (http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-

of-historical-thinking)

Kohn, Richard H.Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the

Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783-1802.

(http://books.google.com/books?id=8F_fAAAAMAAJ) New

York: Free Press, 1975.

The Library of Congress. The Federalist Papers.


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(http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpapers.html) Last

accessed 6 May, 2011.

The National Archives. The Constitution.

(http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html)

Last accessed 6 May, 2011.


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http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24671 accessed on 1/29/2013

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