The delegates of the Constitutional Convention (the founding fathers/framers of the United States Constitution) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792 clarified whom the militia consists of; 

" Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."

Civilian control of a peacetime army

At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a political sentiment existed in the newly formed United States involving suspicion of peacetime armies not under civilian control. This political belief has been identified as stemming from the memory of the abuses of the standing army of Oliver Cromwell and King James II, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament. During the Congressional debates,James Madison discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:

The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors."- (Source I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789)

Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.

Tench Coxe, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:

The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them.

Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.

The shift from States' power to Federal power

A major concern of the various delegates during the constitutional debates over the Constitution and the Second Amendment to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation), to Federal control. Article 1 section 8 of the constitution. Congress shall have the power, 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; Article 1 section 2 of the constitution. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Political debate regarding compulsory militia service for pacifists

Concern over select militias

William S. Fields & David T. Hardy write:

While in The Federalist No. 46, Madison argued that a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 men would be offset by "a militia amounting to near a half million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves . . . ."  The Antifederalists were not persuaded by these arguments, in part because of the degree of control over the militia given to the national government by the proposed constitution. The fears of the more conservative opponents centered upon the possible phasing out of the general militia in favor of a smaller, more readily corrupted, select militia. Proposals for such a select militia already had been advanced by individuals such as Baron Von Steuben, Washington's Inspector General, who proposed supplementing the general militia with a force of 21,000 men given government- issued arms and special training.  An article in the Connecticut Journal expressed the fear that the proposed constitution might allow Congress to create such select militias: "[T]his looks too much like Baron Steuben's militia, by which a standing army was meant and intended."  In Pennsylvania, John Smiley told the ratifying convention that "Congress may give us a select militia which will in fact be a standing army," and worried that, [p.34] with this force in hand, "the people in general may be disarmed."  Similar concerns were raised by Richard Henry Lee in Virginia. In his widely-read pamphlet, Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Lee warned that liberties might be undermined by the creation of a select militia that "[would] answer to all the purposes of an army," and concluded that "the Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms."

Nineteenth century

Prior to the Civil War

1826 North Carolina militia roster.

---

(TEXT)"A List of that Part of the Militia Commanded by Elisha Burk an went after the Runaway Negroes"
(Roster list of 58 militia men, standard wage of 46½¢ per day.)
"The within is a True Return of that part of the Militia Commanded by Elisha Burk Which out after the Runaway Negros: Given under my hand this 15th day of August 1826"(signed) Elisha Burk Captain.

In 1794, a militia numbering approximately 13,000 was raised and personally led by President George Washington to quell the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote:

 "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."

In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.

In the War of 1812, the United States militia were often routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.

Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.

Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:

"The disasters of the militia may be ascribed chiefly to two causes, of which the failure to train the men is a principle one; but, the omission to train the officers is a so much greater, that I think the history of its conduct, where it has been unfortunate, will prove that its defects are attributable, more to their want of knowledge or the best mode of applying the force under their authority to their attainment of their object than to all others. It may almost be stated, as an axiom, that the larger the body of undisciplined men is, the less is its chance of success;..."

List of militia in the United States

U.S. federal militia forces

• United States National Guard

U.S. states' militia

• State defense forces
  • Naval Militia

See also

Footnotes

1. Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
2.  Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness,Military compensation background papers, Seventh edition, page 229. Department of Defense, 2005.
3. Beard, Charles Austin: Readings in American Government and Politics, Page 308. Macmillan, 1909. 
          "Sec. 1. That the militia...shall be divided into two classes...the organized militia, to be known as the National Guard...and the remainder to be known as the Reserve Militia."
4. Oxford English Dictionary, Draft Revision March 2002.
5. Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil, A History of American Distrust of GovernmentPage 27. New York, NY; Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84489-3
6. Sparks, Jared: "The Life of George Washington", page 70. F. Andrews, 1853.
7. Sparks, Jared: "The Life of George Washington", page 134-135. F. Andrews, 1853.
8. Shepherd, William (1834). A History of the American Revolution Page 67. London, England. Published I.N. Whiting
9. Sparks, Jared: "The Life of George Washington", page 135. F. Andrews, 1853.
10. Adams, John: Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, page 257. C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1841.
11. Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, Page 35. New York, NY; Simon & Schuster
12. Wills, Garry (1999). "A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government". New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. p. 36. (rebuttal of Wills book - page 16.)
13. Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
14. Sparks, Jared: The Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from His Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers. Boston, 1832.
15. Weatherup, Roy G.: Standing Armies and the Armed Citizens: An Historical Analysis of the Second Amendment. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly (Fall 1975), 973
16. ills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government, Page 37-38. New York, NY; Simon & Schuster
17. Militia Act of 1792
18. Wills, Garry (1999). A Necessary Evil, A History of American Distrust of Government. New York, NY; Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-684-84489-3
19. Fields, William S.; Hardy, David T. (Spring 1992). . Military Law Review.

Cullum, George and Wood, Eleazer:Campaigns of the War of 1812-1815, Against Great Britain: Sketched and Criticized.. J. Miller, 1879. J 
Sumner, William H.: An Inquiry Into the Importance of the Militia to a Free Commonwealth, Page 23. Cummings and Hillard, 1823.
20. Beckwith, George Cone: The Peace Manual: Or, War and Its Remedies. American Peace Society, 1847.
Story, Joseph: , page 265. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States. T. H. Webb & co., 1842.
 http://www.kansasguardmuseum.org/territorial.html
21. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3285
22. Catton, Bruce (2004). The Civil War, Pages 28-29. Mariner Books. ISBN 0-618-00187-5

Burgess, John Williams (1901). The Civil War and the Constitution, 1859-1865. Scribner's Sons. p. 173 C.
23. Catton, Bruce (2004). The Civil War, Page 39. Mariner Books. ISBN 0-618-00187-5
24. Singletary, Otis (1957). Negro militia and Reconstruction. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-313-24573-8
25. Dickerson, Donna Lee: The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865 to 1877 Page 371. Greenwood Press 2003. ISBN 0-313-32094-2
26. Dickerson, Donna Lee: The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865 to 1877 Page 372. Greenwood Press 2003. ISBN 0-313-32094-2
27. Rhodes, James Ford. (1906)History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850Pages 132-133. Macmillan & co., ltd.
J
28. Singletary, Otis (1957). Negro militia and Reconstruction, page 81. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-313-24573-8. Quoted from Congressional testimony, S. Rep. 527, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., P. 1801.
 
29. Singletary, Otis (1957). Negro militia and Reconstruction, page 85. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-313-24573-8
books.google.com
30. Perry, Ralph Barton: The Plattsburg Movement: A Chapter of America's Participation in the World War". E.P. Dutton & Company, 1921
"32 USC 102 General policy". law.cornell.edu. "Military Reserves Federal Call Up Authority". usmilitary.about.com.
31. "32 USC 101. Definitions (National Guard)". law.cornell.edu.
"10 USC 12401. Army and Air National Guard of the United States: status". law.cornell.edu.
32. See 10 U.S.C. § 311.
33. See 32 U.S.C. § 313; "WAIS Document Retrieval". frwevgate.access.gpo.gov.
arng.army.mil J
34. FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
35. Revised Code of Washington 38.04.030. Accessed viahttp://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=38.04.030
36. Mulloy, Darren. American Extremism: History, Politics and the Militia Movement, Routledge, 2004.
37. http://constitution.org/mil/ustx_law.htm

Historic

• Anti-Federalist Papers
• Federalist Papers
• Militia Act of 1792
• Militia Act of 1903
• National Defense Act of 1916
• National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933
• Total Force Policy of 1973
• United States Constitution

Further reading

External links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_organizations_in_the_United_States

1995 - MCVEIGHS PLACEMENT IN THE MILITIA MOVEMENT

McVeigh: An "outstanding" soldier

He would have military experience and be angry at the government for what happened at Waco.

Van Zandt (thought he) was right.

Solid student

Timothy McVeigh was born in 1968 and grew up the middle of three children in a conservative, rural community in Pendleton, New York, near the decaying industrial centre of Buffalo.

His father, Bill, like his father before him, worked at the General Motors radiator factory and provided conscientiously for his family, but was distant and unadventurous.

When he was 10, his mother, Mildred "Mickey" McVeigh, left home.

McVeigh says that while his sisters, then 12 and four, moved to Florida with their mother, he opted to live with his father "so he wouldn't be alone".

McVeigh was very bright, not top of his class, but a solid student.

Later, during 75 hours of interviews, he would tell journalists Lou Michael and Dan Herbeck - authors of American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing - that he always said the wrong thing to women he was trying to impress.

He left school in 1986 and dropped out of college soon after.

Survivalist

The economy was in a slump, the radiator factory had stopped hiring and McVeigh took a series of dead-end jobs, working in a burger bar and as a security guard in Buffalo.

He began collecting guns while still at school and after he left devoured right-wing, pro-militia magazines like Solider of Fortune and Spotlight.

McVeigh embarked on a flirtation with the militia movement, which believes that ordinary Americans are under imminent threat of attack, from nuclear war, communists or central government.

He began to stockpile food, water and guns and in 1988 he and a friend bought 10 acres of woodland where they practised shooting and planned to build a bunker.

At 20 he joined the army - one of the reasons being, according to Michael and Herbeck, to improve his shooting and survival skills.

It gave him an environment where he could indulge his passion for guns and in many ways he became the perfect soldier.

Colleagues say he was polite, efficient and a top marksman. He kept a spare uniform just so that he could look smart at inspections and showed more interest in cleaning his collection of guns than girls or beer.

The 'perfect soldier'

In 1992 he was sent to the Gulf as a gunner, where he won praise and respect from those around him and earned both the Combat Infantry Badge and Bronze Star.

He won a commendation for his action in shooting an Iraqi tank commander more than a mile away, armed with his favourite weapon - a small cannon.

The book says he was satisfied at hitting the target but adds McVeigh got no thrill out of the act of killing.

He admits to killing two Iraqis, but was upset at what he saw as the needless death of countless Iraqis at the end of the Gulf War.

The army, he says, taught him how to switch off his emotions.

McVeigh was tipped for promotion and on his return, he tried to join the elite Green Berets. He took a battery of IQ, personality and aptitude tests, but, out of condition from lack of exercise in the Gulf, found the physical rigours of the training camp too tough and dropped out after two days.

Disillusioned, he went back to the regular army but soon gave up and returned to live with his father.

Borrowing a page from US foreign policy, I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile, by bombing a government building and the government employees within that building who represent that government

Timothy McVeigh

McVeigh took a series of dead-end jobs and followed gun shows across the country.

Drifting between Pendleton and the homes of his ex-army chums: Terry Nichols in Decker, Michigan; and Michael Fortier in Klingman, Arizona, he made some money selling guns at gun fairs.

There he would certainly have come into contact with anti-tax, anti-government, racist and militia groups, but there is nothing to suggest that he ever signed-up to any of them.

Motive

McVeigh was distressed by the 1992 catastrophe at Ruby Ridge - a siege and shootout where federal officials shot and killed the wife of survivalist Randy Weaver and their 14-year-old son.

But it was the storming of the Branch Davidian compound at Waco the following year that provoked him into acting on his frustrations.

McVeigh travelled to Waco to see the siege for himself and was horrified by the final showdown when federal troops fired tear gas and a massive fire engulfed the compound.

Both events have been painted by militia movements as evidence of a federal clampdown, with more to come.

While on death row, McVeigh asked a friend to pass on to a London newspaper a three-page letter detailing why he carried out the bombing.

"Borrowing a page from US foreign policy, I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile, by bombing a government building and the government employees within that building who represent that government."

No remorse

To the end, he has been aware of his media profile.

His request to have his execution broadcast on national television was turned down, but he has been corresponding with journalists by e-mail and personally invited the writer Gore Vidal, on assignment for Vanity Fair, to witness his execution.

He has also played down the roles of his co-conspirators, although Fortier went with him to reconnoitre the building and Nichols helped make the fuel-oil and fertiliser explosives.

McVeigh emerged at his trial as intelligent and sane. He has never expressed remorse, although he has hinted that he regrets the deaths of the 19 children.

After examining him in prison, psychiatrist Dr John Smith concluded that prisoner 12076-064 was a decent person who had allowed rage to build up inside him to the point that he had lashed out in one terrible, violent act.

NOTE:  SOME OF US HAVE A DIFFERENT TAKE ON THE MCVEIGH ISSUE

WAS MCVEIGH USED AS A PATSY?  http://www.greatdreams.com/mcveigh-patsy.htm

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE 1995 BOMBING IN OKLAHOMA - WHICH WAS BLAMED ON WHAT HAPPENED AND WACO AND JANET RENO PUTTING HER MARK ON KILLING ALL THOSE INNOCENT PEOPLE!

Militias dwindle since Oklahoma City bombing

By Andrew Wolfson, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal and John Masson, The Indianapolis Star

Six years after the Oklahoma City bombing made the word "militia" part of the American lexicon, the number of such groups has dwindled dramatically. The reasons, say militia watchdogs: Crackdowns by law enforcement officials, and members weary of waiting for a revolution that never came. The most recent figures by the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose tracking of hate groups is highly respected, show the number of militia groups dropping from a peak of 370 in 1996 to 68 in 1999.

But militias continue to be strong in some parts of the country, including the South, the Midwest and some of the mountain states of the West, say private watchdog groups and militia leaders.

``We are having a resurgence of new members," said Stan Wilson, who commands the militia in Hancock County east of Indianapolis, which describes itself as a moderate group.

Militia membership jumped immediately after Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building April 19, 1995, then began to decline, according to the FBI and private watchdog organizations.

No direct links were found between the bombing that killed 168 people and the militia movement, although McVeigh, scheduled to be executed in Terre Haute, Ind., on May 16, attended a few militia meetings in Michigan.

Still, ``We got painted with the same broad brush" after the bombing, said Phillip Crousore, regimental commander of Indiana's Tippecanoe County militia — and the image stuck of militia members as mad bombers.

Militias, many of which offer paramilitary training to rebuff expected government attacks, are part of what is known as the patriot movement. The New York-based Anti-Defamation League — ADL — says the movement includes a collection of groups, many more extreme than militias, known as "sovereign citizens," tax protesters, Christian patriots, Christian Identity groups and white supremacists.

While many remaining militias disclaim violence and terrorism, experts say some of the more extremist organizations still present a grave threat. Over the past three years, several militia leaders have been charged and convicted in conspiracies to bomb government buildings and utilities, and to assassinate state and federal officials, including judges and senators.

The ADL cautions on its Militia-Watchdog.org Web site that even though most militia groups claim they only operate defensively, ``The extremely high levels of paranoia most such groups possess means that they often think they are acting justifiably when they are not. And even groups that may not pose a danger can spawn individuals committed to violent or extreme acts."

The Southern Poverty Law Center says the patriot movement ``is a shadow of its former self," a decline it attributes to several factors, including the arrest of hundreds of members in the past few years. And many members and would-be militia members have lost interest — ``too bored, too tired, too worried about doing possible jail time."

Even so, SPLC says, the radical right is not going away. Instead, ``right-wing extremists are increasingly joining race-based hate groups or taking up lone-wolf-type terrorist activity."

While most militia groups don't espouse racial bigotry, FBI Director Louis Freeh warned at a 1999 congressional hearing on counter-terrorism that "hate philosophies" had "begun to creep into the militia movement."

Before the Oklahoma City bombing — the worst act of terrorism on American soil — most law enforcement and media organizations ignored militias, writing them off as ``overgrown boys playing with guns in the woods," said Ken Stern, an analyst for the American Jewish Committee.

And while publicity about the bombing, including suggestions that it was militia-based, initially attracted more members to the movement, it eventually had the opposite effect.

``When you shine a light on something like that, it's often like flipping on the light when you come into the kitchen," said Devin Burghart, who heads a Chicago think-tank. ``The cockroaches tend to scatter."

But even with a decline of members, there are militias in virtually every state, says the ADL. And their numbers, according to the FBI, grew in the early 1990s as a reaction to fears the government was about to confiscate citizens' weapons.

Just weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing, Freeh and then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the FBI's 56 field offices to open lines of communication with militias, and meetings were held in many cities that Indianapolis Special Agent Doug Garrison said helped calm tensions.

"It was just to let them know ... we weren't the big, bad FBI lurking behind every tree and interested in what they were doing on weekends when they were out having meetings," Garrison said.

"Most of the militia people don't view Tim McVeigh as a hero. He's a killer of innocent people. I don't think there's much disagreement on that," he said.

NOTE:  THE MILITIA GROUPS WENT INTO HIDING AND WHO CAN BLAME THEM, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY DON'T TRUST THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.

HERE IS ONE REASON:

THEN WE HAVE THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ISSUE

GUN RIGHTS

NOTE:  WE HAVE 765 PAGES ABOUT GUNS ON OUR SITE:

HERE ARE JUST A FEW