From: "E.J. Totty", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
re: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/fedindex.htm
Having reviewed Federalist Paper #29,
I find myself somewhat confused, but nonetheless
quite understanding of what George Steffner,
([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote quite recently.
Perhaps this extracted quote might help:
[...]
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.
[...]
I suppose to fully understand that, you had to be there.
What I make of #29 is this: Use the militia to take over
the country? What, are you crazy? We can't much depend on them
now, how the hell do you expect to organize them to act in concert
to fight each other?!!
I can't quite extract the meaning denoted by George,
except from one comment made early on:
[...]
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.
[...]
What I get from that is that if there is a pretext for calling
the militia forth, its most natural duty would be to defend against
external threats.
However, Hamilton is being evasive here, since later on
he also mentions suppression of insurrection. My feeling is that in
the nature of defence, the <idea> conveyed was that of force against
external threats, i.e., where 'national security' is invoked, one tends
to think in terms of external threats, as opposed to say, internal
security, which would have rightly been the purview of the states
themselves.
I any case, I suppose George's interpretation works as
well as any I've read. I would have liked a rather clearer picture.
ET
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