ance, and relieved us from the pain and suspense of four years of war.

China, the most despotic of governments, has no military strength; numbering 400,000,000 people, she has been twice conquered by a few despised Tartars.

In Persia the Shah can lop off the heads of his subjects or wall them up alive at his pleasure, and yet it has been said that a single foreign battalion could overthrow his throne, while a brigade would starve in his dominions.

In seeking to avoid the dangers of weakness and despotism the author would not have it imagined that his work will produce immediate effect, or that his system will be adopted in five, ten, or even twenty years. Such a revolution in our military policy must be preceded by a change in popular sentiment

Foreign governments for more than a hundred years have recognized us as a nation, but, strange to say, a fact patent to all the world is as yet recognized by scarcely a majority of our people.

Our forefathers hated Great Britain because she repeatedly subverted the government of the colonies. A large portion of their descendants, confusing states rights with state sovereignty, look upon the general government as equally hostile to the states. When this feeling is abandoned; when it is understood that the life of the state is bound up in the life of the nation; when it is appreciated that republicanism, state and national, guaranteed by the constitution, is the natural bulwark against the two forms of despotism-absolute monarchy on the one side and absolute democracy on the other-then, and not till then will the view of the author be accepted.

EVOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD.

BY D. H. BOUGHTON.

[Daniel Hall Boughton, major United States army, instructor in law in the United States Infantry and Cavalry School and Staff college; born in Minnesota, Aug. 27, 1858; appointed a cadet in the United States Military academy, Sept. 1873; second lieutenant, 1st cavalry, 1877; first lieutenant, 1884; captain, 1895; major 1st cavalry, 1903; transferred to 11th cavalry, 1904; he is one of the best known authorities in America on military law.]

It does not require a close study of the military policies of the American people to discern that they are by tradition and custom opposed to a large standing army, and that in times of war or other emergency, when the civil government can no longer enforce the laws, they place their main reliance upon what may be broadly termed the citizen soldiery of the republic. Centuries of oppression suffered by their European ancestors, traceable to irresponsible power backed by the force of arms, has taught them to safeguard their liberties by limiting the size of the nation's standing army, and reserving to themselves in their sovereign capacity the right to keep and bear arms.

In the Declaration of Independence we find one of the principal complaints of the colonists against Great Britain was that the latter kept up standing armies in time of peace to overawe the people. And when that declaration had been made a living reality by an appeal to arms extending through eight long years of suffering and death, and a strong, centralized, constitutional government had sprung from the weakness and inadequacy of the union under the articles of confederation, we find the fears of the people crystallized in the second amendment to the constitution of the new nation:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

This was a constitutional expression of a right which the people then enjoyed, and which they not only reserved to themselves but made its abuse on the part of the new government impossible by this constitutional prohibition. So long, then,

as our government is a government of, for, and by, the people, so long must its ultimate reliance repose upon the intelligence, integrity, and patriotism of its citizen soldiery; and when that support shall fail, be it through commercial venality springing from selfishness and greed, or through the waning of national patriotism, then we may look to see the union pass away.

John Quincy Adams, in his message to congress, March 4, 1825, referred to the militia in these terms:

"The organization of the militia is yet more indispensable to the liberties of the country. It is only by an effective militia that we can, at once, enjoy the repose of peace, and bid defiance to foreign aggression; it is by the militia that we are constituted an armed nation, standing in perpetual panoply of defense, in the presence of all the other nations of the earth."

Four years later, Andrew Jackson, in his inaugural message, spoke as follows:

"The bulwark of our defense is the national militia, which in the present state of our intelligence and population, must render us invincible. So long as it (the constitution) is worth defending, a patriotic militia will cover it with an impenetrable aegis. Partial injuries and occasional mortifications, we may be subjected to, but a million of armed freemen, possessed of the means of war, can never be conquered by a foreign foe."

It is true that the people conferred upon the federal government the power to raise and support armies distinct from those that might be formed by calling forth the militia, but they hedged it about with limitations, and their representatives have always jealously opposed any attempt to augment the standing army beyond the minimum number that to them appeared imperatively necessary. After the revolution the regular or standing army was reduced to eighty men. At the outbreak of the rebellion it numbered about 18,000. the rebellion and until the beginning of the Spanish-American war it was kept at about 25,000. When a nation situated as is ours, beyond the danger of immediate attack, adopts a military policy to maintain but a small regular establishment, and to depend upon its citizen soldiery, either as militia or

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volunteers, such policy is not open to criticism. But when a nation with such a policy fails to adequately provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining its citizen soldiery in a manner making it available in times of national crises, such a policy becomes a national menace and invites the destruction of the very liberties it is supposed to maintain.

The constitution confers upon congress the following power in regard to the militia:

"To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions."

This provision states all the purposes for which the militia may be called into the service of the federal government, and makes it impossible for the latter to use this force as a means of conquest or domination of a foreign country. Indeed, according to the weight of authority, the president cannot constitutionally order the militia to invade foreign territory. However, as the best means of repelling an invasion may be by carrying war into the enemy's country, it is conceivable that a liberal construction of the above provision might permit the militia to be so used. Had the constitution stopped here it is not difficult to see that the nation in placing its reliance upon the citizen soldiery would have been leaning upon a slender reed. One hundred years of experience has amply shown that had the organization, arming, and disciplining the militia been left to the several states, some of them in all probability would now be without any organized militia at all, and others would have but indifferent forces, differently armed, organized, and equipped, and with varied systems of drill regulations. It is unnecessary to comment upon the result of calling such heterogeneous forces together in defense of the union. Nor, fortunately, was this danger unforeseen at the beginning. Those great men whose united labors gave us the constitution (the greatest document probably that has ever emanated from the brain of man) fully comprehended the necessities of the situation and provided for them by incorporating in the constitution the further provision giving congress 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