CHAPTER X. THE MILITARY. General JOHN C. BLACK, United States Commissioner of Pensions. HE framers of the Federal Constitution had presented to THE them a difficult task in determining the precise relations which should exist between the State and its military arm. The fathers, as we reverently and affectionately designate them, had passed through the war of the Revolution when for years almost the sole expression of federal existence was in the armies of the Continental line. They had seen the goverment of every State fugitive before the triumphant armies of the King; and had followed the seat of federal authority in its peripatetic round in search of a continued existence. Every patriot community had been invaded and laid waste; there remained scarce a city or town that had not been occupied by a royal garrison; fire and sword had visited almost every county of the young confederation; the functions of Congress were exhausted by the passage of brave resolutions, the pledge of revenues that did not exist, and the mortgage of a credit founded only in the patriotic hope of the rebellious colonies. The army in the field, through all privations, kept the American Union safe for the future. to At the end of their long service the troops, without sufficient clothing and without pay, were restored the ranks of civil life, and under these circumstances they became a threat to the institutions which they had so heroically preserved. Kept from the extreme act of violence and treason, however, by the firmness of Washington and his great compatriots, as well as by the nobler emotions of their own hearts, they returned at last to the states from which they had been drawn. During the progress of the war of the Revolution, great difficulty had, at various times, arisen from the lack of power in the Federal Government to call directly upon the Militia of the Nation, that was to be, for their services. They had to make all the calls through embryotic states, and the continental union found itself at the mercy of detached colonies, kept together by a political compact, always dissoluble at pleasure among sovereigns, and in such straits that the change of administration in any of the important colonies, as New York or York or Pennsylvania, might have resulted in the withdrawal of such colony from the compact, and a refusal of its contingent of troops to serve, and the disablement thereby of the continental armies and that of the government that was to be. Had Washington been less great, less wise, less patriotic; or on the other hand had any colony believed its political interests would have been better subserved by the reinstatement of its relations with Great Britain, inevitable ruin would have befallen the experiment. Therefore, the framers of the Constitution addressed themselves to present a system of government which would on the one hand. free the Union from the peril of an unwilling state, and on the other hand from the power of an ambitious chief. They set themselves to the formation of a military system which, while drawn from the states, should when once organized be independent of them; and which after it had become federal and committed to the commandership of a single man should still be within the control of the co-ordinate branches of governmentthe judicial, executive and legislative branches. They succeeded in this great enterprise; they created a military system which never has nurtured an unholy ambition or bred an usurper, and at the same time has been as strong as the strength of every freeman in the land. Το secure the power of self-preservation—a right inherent in governments and men-the Federal Constitution placed the whole machinery for the creation of armies in the Congress. Whatever may be argued as to the effect of the "Common defense and general welfare" clause, there can be no doubt that in the creation, maintenance, government and regulation of the military forces the Constitution makes the Congress supreme. And it further extends that power to all arms-bearing citizens and makes them subject to the |