#24-25: A standing army is needed

Should America keep trained soldiers and military equipment ready at all times? Or should it avoid the expense and the risk of insurrection, by relying on volunteers if and when crises arise? These are the questions addressed in Federalist 24 and 25.

It shouldn’t have been a difficult question. Standing armies were everywhere. Most of the states had permanent militias. The Articles of Confederation allowed for a permanent national army. The nations of Europe at that time all had standing armies. The Iroquois and Shawnee and Delaware and Cherokee and Creek nations that hemmed in the 13 states to the west were skilled fighters.

Hamilton wrote that the nation would be “naked and defenseless” if it imposed a rule on itself that none of its enemies abided by:

We must expose our property and liberty to the mercy of foreign invaders, and invite them by our weakness to seize the naked and defenseless prey, because we are afraid that rulers, created by our choice, dependent on our will, might endanger that liberty, by an abuse of the means necessary to its preservation.

And Hamilton reminds readers that the threat from outside is real. America was surrounded by hostile neighbors.

Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security. On one side of us, and stretching far into our rear, are growing settlements subject to the dominion of Britain. On the other side, and extending to meet the British settlements, are colonies and establishments subject to the dominion of Spain. . . The savage tribes on our Western frontier ought to be regarded as our natural enemies, their natural allies, because they have most to fear from us, and most to hope from them.

 Twice in these two essays, Hamilton describes the Indian nations as tools in the hands of the British or Spanish. He seems not to realize or to admit that they had motives of their own. The Indian nations wanted to keep their land. If they cooperated with England or France or Spain, it was because they believed those nations were less likely to supplant them.

Anyway, having reminded readers that danger was close at hand, Hamilton observed that the Constitution already contained a safeguard against abuse of the military found in no other nation’s laws. It separated the power to fund the army from the power to use it, giving the first to Congress and the second to the president.

Next, he deals with opposition to keeping armies long after the danger has passed. He says it is practically impossible to say exactly when a sufficient threat has arisen, or when it has passed:

 When armies are once raised what shall be denominated "keeping them up," contrary to the sense of the Constitution? What time shall be requisite to ascertain the violation? Shall it be a week, a month, a year? Or shall we say they may be continued as long as the danger which occasioned their being raised continues? This would be to admit that they might be kept up IN TIME OF PEACE, against threatening or impending danger, which would be at once to deviate from the literal meaning of the prohibition, and to introduce an extensive latitude of construction. Who shall judge of the continuance of the danger?

 In my short narrative of the constitutional convention I mention that the delegates didn’t all agree on the key issues. Here’s a case where even the three authors of the Federalist Papers didn’t agree. Hamilton has argued here in favors of a standing national army. One of the sharpest critics of a standing army was James Madison, who, at one point in the constitutional debates had said:

The means of defence agst. 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. 

American mythology teaches that the delegates and the states were unanimous in support of the Constitution. That appears to be true because (eventually) all 13 states approved it. But a closer look shows that there was much acrimony during and after the Constitutional Convention. Even among the authors of the Federalist Papers, that disagreement persisted. Hamilton disliked much about the Constitution and he the Federalist essays were his attempt to put a big-government spin in the document, while Madison tried to emphasize the checks and balances.

Discuss:

• Should America keep up its military forces continuously? Should they be larger or smaller than they are now?

• Do you think the American military has diminished your freedom, as Madison feared it would?