Antifederalist No. 28

THE USE OF COERCION BY THE NEW GOVERNMENT 
                           (PART III)



This essay was published in either the (Philadelphia) Freeman's 
Journal; or, The North-American Intelligencer, January 16, 1788. 



         The Congress under the new Constitution have the power 
"of organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and of 
governing them when in the service of the United States, giving 
to the separate States the appointment of the officers and the 
authority of training the militia according to the discipline 
prescribed by Congress." Let us inquire why they have assumed 
this great power. Was it to strengthen the power which is now 
lodged in your hands, and relying upon you and you solely for aid 
and support to the civil power in the execution of all the laws 
of the new Congress?  Is this probable?  Does the complexion of 
this new plan countenance such a supposition?  When they 
unprecedently claim the power of raising and supporting armies, 
do they tell you for what purposes they are to be raised?  How 
they are to be employed?  How many they are to consist of, and 
where to be stationed?  Is this power fettered with any one of 
those restrictions, which will show they depend upon the militia, 
and not upon this infernal engine of oppression to execute their 
civil laws?  The nature of the demand in itself contradicts such 
a supposition, and forces you to believe that it is for none of 
these causes-but rather for the purpose of consolidating and 
finally destroying your strength, as your respective governments 
are to be destroyed.  They well know the impolicy of putting or 
keeping arms in the hands of a nervous people, at a distance from 
the seat of a government, upon whom they mean to exercise the 
powers granted in that government.  They have no idea of calling 
upon or trusting to the party aggrieved to support and enforce 
their own grievances, (notwithstanding they may select and 
subject them to as strict subordination as regular troops) unless 
they have a standing army to back and compel the execution of 
their orders. It is asserted by the most respectable writers upon 
government, that a well regulated militia, composed of the 
yeomanry of the country, have ever been considered as the bulwark 
of a free people.  Tyrants have never placed any confidence on a 
militia composed of freemen.  Experience has taught them that a 
standing body of regular forces, whenever they can be completely 
introduced, are always efficacious in enforcing their edicts, 
however arbitrary; and slaves by profession themselves, are 
"nothing loth" to break down the barriers of freedom with a gout.  
No, my fellow citizens, this plainly shows they do not mean to 
depend upon the citizens of the States alone to enforce their 
powers. They mean to lean upon something more substantial and 
summary.  They have left the appointment of officers in the 
breasts of the several States; but this appears to me an insult 
rather than a privilege, for what avails this right if they at 
their pleasure may arm or disarm all or any part of the freemen 
of the United States, so that when their army is sufficiently 
numerous, they may put it out of the power of the freemen militia 
of America to assert and defend their liberties, however they 
might be encroached upon by Congress.  Does any, after reading 
this provision for a regular standing army, suppose that they 
intended to apply to the militia in all cases, and to pay 
particular attention to making them the bulwark of this 
continent?  And would they not be equal to such an undertaking?  
Are they not abundantly able to give security and stability to 
your government as long as it is free? Are they not the only 
proper persons to do it?  Are they not the most respectable body 
of yeomanry in that character upon earth?  Have they not been 
engaged in some of the most brilliant actions in America, and 
more than once decided the fate of princes?  In short, do they 
not preclude the necessity of any standing army whatsoever, 
unless in case of invasion? And in that case it would be time 
enough to raise them, for no free government under heaven, with a 
well disciplined militia, was ever yet subdued by mercenary 
troops. 
    The advocates at the present day, for a standing army in the 
new Congress, pretend it is necessary for the respectability of 
government.  I defy them to produce an instance in any country, 
in the Old or New World, where they have not finally done away 
the liberties of the people.  Every writer upon government--
Locke, Sidney, Hampden, and a list of others have uniformly 
asserted, that standing armies are a solecism in any government; 
that no nation ever supported them, that did not resort to, rely 
upon, and finally become a prey to them.  No western historians 
have yet been hardy enough to advance principles that look a 
different way.  What historians have asserted, all the Grecian 
republics have verified.  They are brought up to obedience and 
unconditional submission; with arms in their bands, they are 
taught to feel the weight of rigid discipline; they are excluded 
from the enjoyments which liberty gives to its votaries; they, in 
consequence, hate and envy the rest of the community in which 
they are placed, and indulge a malignant pleasure in destroying 
those privileges to which they never can be admitted.  "Without a 
standing army," (says the Marquis of Beccaria), "in every society 
there is an effort constantly tending to confer on one part the 
height and to reduce the other to the extreme of weakness, and 
this is of itself sufficient to employ the people's attention."  
There is no instance of any government being reduced to a 
confirmed tyranny without military oppression.  And the first 
policy of tyrants has been to annihilate all other means of 
national activity and defense, when they feared opposition, and 
to rely solely upon standing troops.  Repeated were the trials, 
before the sovereigns of Europe dared to introduce them upon any 
pretext whatever; and the whole record of the transactions of 
mankind cannot furnish an instance, (unless the proposed 
constitution may be called part of that record) where the motives 
which caused that establishment were not completely disguised.  
Peisistratus in Greece, and Dionysius in Syracuse, Charles in 
France, and Henry in England, all cloaked their villainous 
intentions under an idea of raising a small body as a guard for 
their persons; and Spain could not succeed in the same nefarious 
plan, until thro' the influence of an ambitious priest (who have 
in all countries and in all ages, even at this day, encouraged 
and preached up arbitrary power) they obtained it.  "Caesar, who 
first attacked the commonwealth with mines, very soon opened his 
batteries." Notwithstanding all these objections to this engine 
of oppression, which are made by the most experienced men, and 
confirmed by every country where the rays of freedom ever 
extended-yet in America, which has hitherto been her favorite 
abode; in this civilized territory, where property is so 
valuable, and men are found with feelings that win not patiently 
submit to arbitrary control; in this western region, where, my 
fellow countrymen, it is confessedly proper that you should 
associate and dwell in society from choice and reflection, and 
not be kept together by force and fear-you are modestly requested 
to engraft into the component parts of your constitution a 
Standing Army, without any qualifying restraints whatever, 
certainly to exist somewhere in the bowels of your country in 
time of peace.  It is very true that Lawyer [James] Wilson-member 
of the Federal Convention, and who we may suppose breathes in 
some measure the spirit of that body-tells you it is for the 
purpose of forming cantonments upon your frontiers, and for the 
dignity and safety of your country, as it respects foreign 
nations.  No man that loves his country could object to their 
being raised for the first of these causes, but for the last it 
cannot be necessary.  God has so separated us by an extensive 
ocean from the rest of mankind; he hath so liberally endowed us 
with privileges, and so abundantly taught us to esteem them 
precious, it would be impossible while we retain our integrity, 
and advert to first principles, for any nation whatever to subdue 
us.  We have succeeded in our opposition to the most powerful 
people upon the globe; and the wound that America received in the 
struggle, where is it?  As speedily healed as the track in the 
ocean is buried by the succeeding wave.  It has scarcely stopped 
her progress, and our private dissensions only, at this moment, 
tarnish the lustre of the most illustrious infant nation under 
heaven. 
     You cannot help suspecting this gentleman [James Wilson], 
when he goes on to tell you "that standing armies in time of 
peace have always been a topic of popular declamation, but Europe 
hath found them necessary to maintain the appearance of strength 
in a season of the most profound tranquility." This shows you his 
opinion-and that he, as one of the Convention, was for 
unequivocally establishing them in time of peace; and to object 
to them, is a mere popular declamation.  But I will not, my 
countrymen-I cannot believe you to be of the same sentiment.  
Where is the standing army in the world that, like the musket 
they make use of, hath been in time of peace brightened and 
burnished for the sake only of maintaining an appearance of 
strength, without being put to a different use-without having had 
a pernicious influence upon the morals, the habits, and the 
sentiments of society, and finally, taking a chief part in 
executing its laws? . . . 
     If tyranny is at all feared, the tyranny of the many is to 
be guarded against MORE than that of a single person. The 
Athenians found by sad experience, that 30 tyrants were thirty 
times worse than one.  A bad aristocracy is thirty times worse 
than a bad monarchy, allowing each to have a standing army as 
unrestricted as in the proposed constitution. 
     If the people are not in general disposed to execute the 
powers of government, it is time to suspect there is something 
wrong in that government; and rather than employ a standing army, 
they had better have another.  For, in my humble opinion, it is 
yet much too early to set it down for a fact, that mankind cannot 
be governed but by force.