essay
THE ARMY OF THE CONSTITUTION
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY SYSTEM
“. . .provide for the common defense . . .”
These words from the preamble of the Constitution give the government it established a clear military purpose – national security.
(Right) An officer and private of the Legion of the United States, circa 1794.
THE MILITIA: THE ORIGINAL COLONIAL DEFENSE SYSTEM
A Massachusetts militia muster in 1636.
THE MILITIA’S MEDIEVAL ROOTS
Saxon England makes its last stand at the Battle of Hastings, 1066, but the Saxon military system lived on under the Norman regime.
COST TURNS THE MILITIA INTO THE EXCLUSIVE PROVINCE OF WHITE MEN WITH PROPERTY
EXCLUDED FROM MILITIA SERVICE
Among those Americans eventually excluded from militia service were slaves, free blacks, apprentices, Indians, and the poorer members of white colonial society.
PROVINCIAL TROOPS REPLACE THE MILITIA
(Below) George Washington gained his early military experience as a Provincial officer from Virginia. (Right) Enlisted men from Pennsylvania’s Provincial Regiment, circa 1758.
PROVINCIAL TROOPS REPLACE THE MILITIA
With the decline of the militia, colonial governments turned to hiring Provincial soldiers and rangers who would be paid to serve set periods of time in frontier garrisons or units formed for offensive purposes.
BRITISH MILITARY PROTECTION UNAPPRECIATED
American colonists proved unappreciative after London sent enough British regulars to drive the French from North America during the Seven Years’ War and then left hundreds of Redcoats to guard the American frontier.
SOURCES OF BRITISH ANTI-MILITARISM
The military dictatorship established by Oliver Cromwell (left) after the English Civil War and the efforts of James II (right) to turn England into an autocratic Catholic state caused English and American Whigs to regard standing armies with suspicion.
AMERICAN ANTI-MILITARISM REINFORCED
The use of the British Army to uphold Parliament’s claimed right to tax the Thirteen Colonies gave Americans new reasons to mistrust standing armies, a view vividly represented by Paul Revere’s inflammatory engraving of the so-called Boston Massacre of
March 5, 1770.
THE NEW ENGLAND MILITIA CHALLENGE BRITISH POWER, APRIL 19, 1775
Massachusetts militia engage British regulars in a running fight as the Redcoats attempt to retreat from Concord, Massachusetts, back to Boston. The British attempt to seize Whig arms and military supplies stored at Concord sparked a series of armed clashes that quickly escalated into a rebellion that gripped all of the Thirteen Colonies.
THE BIRTH OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY
(Left) John Tumbull’s 1780 portrait of General George Washington with his slave and faithful wartime companion, William Lee. (Right) A modern painting of General Washington taking charge of his new army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1775.
SHORT-TERM ENLISTMENTS FOR THE NEW AMERICAN ARMY
When the Continental Congress first created the Continental Army, it originally opted for short-term enlistments, allowing troops, like these New Englanders at the siege of Boston in 1775, to take their discharge after eight to twelve months.
CONGRESS SWITCHES TO A LONG-TERM ARMY
After the British came close to crushing the Revolution during the New York Campaign of 1776, Congress decreed on September 16 that Continental troops should be recruited for terms of three years or the duration of the war.
AMERICA’S MULTI-CULTURAL ARMY, 1781
This watercolor by a French officer during the Yorktown Campaign illustrates the multi-cultural character of George Washington’s long-term Continentals. Note the black infantryman from Rhode Island at left and the frontier rifleman in the fringed rifle shirt second from right.
AN ENDURING RELIANCE ON THE MILITIA
A persistent shortage of trained Continental soldiers forced General George Washington (right) and other Continental commanders to swell the ranks of their field armies with sizeable drafts of militiaman.
THE MILITIA: GUARDIANS OF THE HOME FRONT
Although American militiamen occasionally performed well in major battles, they played an even more vital role in their home districts suppressing Loyalists, opposing British raiders and foraging parties, and guarding the coastline and the frontier.
CONGRESS: A WEAK CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, 1775-87
Congress became the rebellious Thirteen Colonies’ central government by default in 1775, and that arrangement was formalized by the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781.
AMERICA’S FIRST CONSTITUTION TRIES TO PROVIDE “FOR THE COMMON DEFENCE”
(Left) John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, the man who originated that phrase.
CONGRESS QUICK TO DISCHARGE CONTINENTAL ARMY
(Left) General Washington decorates two gallant enlisted men just before their discharge from his cantonment at Newburgh, New York. (Below) Washington bids farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern before relinquishing his command.
WASHINGTON’S “SENTIMENTS ON A PEACE ESTABLISHMENT”
At the invitation of Congressman Alexander Hamilton (below), General Washington recommended that Congress leave the newly independent United States with a standing army of 2,631 officers and men.
CONGRESS REPLACES THE CONTINENTAL ARMY WITH THE
1ST AMERICAN REGIMENT,
JUNE 3, 1784
On June 2, 1784, Congress discharged the last regiment in the Continental Army. The following day, it authorized the 1st American Regiment – 700 men to be drawn from the militias of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.
THE 1ST AMERICAN REGIMENT TOO SMALL TO SAFEGUARD THE FRONTIER
Under strength, poorly supplied, and frequently unpaid, the 1st American Regiment provided nothing more than a token American military presence at a string of frontier posts in the Ohio Valley.
SHAYS’ REBELLION AND THE SPECTER OF MOB RULE
Though Massachusetts militia easily crushed Shays’ Rebellion, the disturbance made influential and affluent Americans like George Washington decide a stronger national government was necessary to preserve law and order.
VETERANS DOMINATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
Thirty of the fifty-five delegates had fought in the War of Independence.
EDMUND JENNINGS RANDOLPH’S AGENDA
Governor Edmund Jennings Randolph of Virginia, a former Continental Army officer, persuaded his fellow delegates to not merely revise the Articles of Confederation, but to create a strong new constitution.
SOME FOUNDERS ARGUE FOR A MODEST STANDING ARMY
George Washington of Virginia, Alexander Hamilton of New York, and William Paterson of New Jersey all spoke out at the Constitutional Convention on the necessity of a regular army to protect Americans from outside threats and preserve internal security.
DEBATE AND WRANGLING SHAPE THE CONSTITUTION
ELBRIDGE GERRY ATTEMPTS TO LIMIT THE PEACE ESTABLISHMENT
Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (seen below as a young man and at right in old age) vainly proposed that the U.S. Army be limited to 2,000 to 3,000 troops in peacetime.
VIRGINIA’S GEORGE MASON PROPOSES FEDERAL REGULATION OF STATE MILITIAS
HAMMERING OUT THE MILITIA CLAUSE
(Clockwise starting at right) Edmund Randolph of Virginia, James Madison of Virginia, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, and Rufus King of Massachusetts played a leading role in the debate over the relationship between the federal government and state militias.
THE CONSTITUTION SIGNED,
SEPTEMBER 17, 1787
23 REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS SIGN THE CONSTITUTION
(Left) An ill John Dickinson had a colleague affix his signature to the document. (Right) William Jackson, the convention’s secretary, was not a delegate, but he signed the Constitution anyway.
ANTI-FEDERALIST VOICES
Some of the Anti-Federalist voices who took alarm at the military clauses in the Constitution were (left to right) James Winthrop of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia, and Luther Martin of Maryland.
“SHOT BY A HIRED SOLDIERY”
British soldiers shoot down rampaging Londoners during the bloody Gordon Riots of 1780. Patrick Henry feared the Constitution would cause the repetition of such scenes in America.
ANTI-FEDERALIST VOICES
Some of the Anti-Federalist voices who took alarm at the military clauses in the Constitution were (left to right) James Winthrop of Massachusetts, Patrick Henry of Virginia, and Luther Martin of Maryland.
“THE PURGINGS OF THE JAILS”
These British cartoons from the 1770s and 1780s reflected the American view that standing armies drew their recruits from the dregs of society.
CREDITING THE MILITIA WITH WINNING THE WAR
New England militiamen overrun their German opponents at the Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777.
JAMES MONROE FAVORS A STRENGHTHENED MILITIA
Though a Continental Army veteran, James Monroe of Virginia believed that a reformed militia was preferable to a standing army controlled by the federal government.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON: CHAMPION OF A STRONG AMERICAN MILITARY
Alexander Hamilton of New York devoted eight of the more than fifty essays that he wrote for The Federalist to military affairs. He managed to refute every anti-Federalist argument against allowing the federal government to firm steps relating to military preparedness.
THE ARGUMENT OF PREPAREDNESS
Hamilton argued that America needed a regular army so it could be instantly prepared to ward off foreign threats.
“War, like most other things, is a science. . . .”
Alexander Hamilton argued that maintaining a regular army was essential to national security because it took time, training, and experience to mold men into competent soldiers.
HAMILTON DEFENDS THE MILITIA CLAUSE
(Left) A grenadier from the New York City Independent Militia, 1773. (Below) A modern reconstruction of a member of the Philadelphia Associators’ Artillery, 1775.
THE BILL OF RIGHTS RESTRAINS FEDERAL MILITARY POWERS
James Madison, seen here as a young man in 1783 (left) and middle-aged (right), wrote the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
WASHINGTON’S MODEST MILITARY POLICY
Initially, the Washington Administration followed a cautious military policy, expanding the U.S. Army from 840 to 1,216 men in April 30, 1790. (Left) Washington’s first inauguration in New York City in 1789. (Right) U.S. Artillerymen, circa 1786-94.
DEFEAT IN THE NORTHWEST, 1790
Brigadier General Josiah Harmar’s punitive expedition of 353 regulars and 1,133 militia failed to intimidate the Ohio Indians. In two sharp battles, the militiamen fled, leaving seventy-five regulars to be slaughtered.
(Left) Soldiers of the 1st American Regiment, circa 1786-87.
THE ARMY ENLARGED
Eager to avenge Harmar’s blunders, Congress added a second infantry regiment to the regular army and authorized a “Corps of Levies,” 2,000 citizen soldiers recruited for six months. Major General Arthur St. Clair (right), the governor of the Northwest Territory, received the mission of subduing the Ohio Indians.
ST. CLAIR’S DEFEAT SHAKES THE NATION
One thousand Ohio Indians overran St. Clair’s unfortified and unwary camp on November 3, 1791, killing 657 of the 1,400 men present and routing the rest.
WASHINGTON AND KNOX RESTRUCTURE THE
U.S. ARMY
President George Washington (left) and Secretary of War Henry Knox (right).
ANTHONY WAYNE CREATES THE LEGION OF THE UNITED STATES
Major General Anthony Wayne (left) and infantrymen of the Legion (right).
WAYNE’S LEGION VICTORIOUS AT FALLEN TIMBERS, AUGUST 20, 1794
Wayne’s aggressive tactics win the day for the Legion of the United States.
HENRY KNOX PROPOSES FEDERAL MILITIA REGULATION, JANUARY 1790
(Left) Secretary of War Henry Knox. (Right) Volunteer militiamen of the Richmond Blues.
HAMILTON AND WASHINGTON CONFRONT THE WHISKEY REBELLION
Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (left) urged President George Washington (right) to use force to suppress the Whiskey rebels in western Pennsylvania.
A MASSIVE SHOW OF FORCE
Washington decided to awe the Whiskey rebels by federalizing 15,000 militia from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia and sending them into western Pennsylvania. (Above and below right) President Washington reviews his militia army at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
RESTRAINED USE OF FORCE
At Carlisle, Washington turned over command of his federalized militia army to Governor Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee of Virginia (bottom right), but admonished the latter that his mission was to re-establish civil authority and not institute martial law.
HAMILTON GOES TOO FAR
During the Quasi-War with France, Hamilton (left) prevailed on Congress to create a large standing army with himself as acting commander. The public saw this as a Federalist attempt to crush political opposition, and that damaged the popularity of President John Adams (right).
FEDERALISTS DESIRE A LARGE ARMY TO CRUSH JEFFERSONIAN RADICALISM
(Left) A Federalist political cartoon depicting Jefferson as a traitor to his country and its freedoms.
A POLITICIZED OFFICER CORPS
Thomas Jefferson inherited a standing army with an officer corps full of Federalists, such as Captain John Pratt of the 1st U.S. Infantry Regiment (left) and Major David Van Horne (right).