On Mon, Jul 25, 2005 at 06:01:41PM -0400, Philip F. Lee wrote: > The power to call forth the militia, organizing and disciplining them > and governing those parts called to federal service is allocated to > Congress according to the US Constitution (see Section. 8. > > Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power ... > > Clause 15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws > of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; > > Clause 16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the > Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the > Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the > Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia > according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; ) > > I presume the states have similar powers to call forth the militia for > state service.
Most do. I am not aware of any exceptions. > I doubt the militia is empowered to call itself into service. I suspect they do. The militia in colonial times is descended in part from the ancient "hue and cry" system for calling out the neighborhood that goes back at least to Alfred the Great and maybe to the Saxon hundreds. In any case the militia, like the states, are anterior to and independent of the Constitution and the states. The clauses you quote above do not establish the militia (just as the Bill of Rights does not establish any rights). They merely specify the relationship the congress will have with the militia. "Gee, fellows, we'd really like to go out and oppose the British troops marching on Lexington and Concord with orders to confiscate our cannon, but we have to wait for the Constitution to be written so Congress can call us out..." I think the solution here is to recognize several militias: the federal militia, defined by the federal constitution; the state militias, defined by the state constitutions, and a general militia constituting the people at large and severally. A person may be a member of one, several or none. I would consider the militias operating at Lexington and Concord to be in the latter category. > > I suspect that all the "militia" groups really don't have any > organized armed drills unless the group is run by the state for > legal reasons. It's hard to tell what's "militia drill" and what isn't. If one of the purposes of the militia is to provide "first responder" defense, then self defense training is also militia training. -- Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign Looking for fine software \ / Respect for open standards and/or writing? X No HTML/RTF in email http://www.charlescurley.com / \ No M$ Word docs in email Key fingerprint = CE5C 6645 A45A 64E4 94C0 809C FFF6 4C48 4ECD DFDB
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