Reply #38: Since you are playing amateur historian, you might at least [View All]

[hansberrym]

get your facts straight, and try to draw logical conclusions from evidence that you can muster to support your claims.

You made a number of assertions in your original post that simply do not fit the historical facts, and which are not supported by the sources that you cited (of course you make mostly vague references, not not actual quotes from the original sources).

Now rather than replying to my counter-arguments, you spin off on a tangent. Could it be that you know that your arguments are horseshit and you do not wish to defend them?

Where is that mention of a "State militia" in the federalist papers?
After 5 or 6 months, I would have thought that you would have found at least one mention of a "state militia" by now.


From Federalist 28:
The obstacles to usurpation and the facilities of resistance increase with the increased extent of the state, provided the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them. The natural strength of the people in a large community, in proportion to the artificial strength of the government, is greater than in a small, and of course more competent to a struggle with the attempts of the government to establish a tyranny. But in a confederacy the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely the masters of their own fate. Power being almost always the rival of power, the general government will at all times stand ready to check the usurpations of the state governments, and these will have the same disposition towards the general government. The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized! (end quote)


1) What are the people defending?
Answer: "...the citizens understand their rights and are disposed to defend them..."


2) Do the citizens have thier only defense as part of a state militia?

No,

"The people, by throwing themselves into either scale, will infallibly make it preponderate. If their rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress. How wise will it be in them by cherishing the union to preserve to themselves an advantage which can never be too highly prized!"


and

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo. The smaller the extent of the territory, the more difficult will it be for the people to form a regular or systematic plan of opposition, and the more easy will it be to defeat their early efforts. Intelligence can be more speedily obtained of their preparations and movements, and the military force in the possession of the usurpers can be more rapidly directed against the part where the opposition has begun. In this situation there must be a peculiar coincidence of circumstances to insure success to the popular resistance."



As in Federalist 46 (attributed to Madison), Federalist 28 (Hamilton)
argues that the federalist system is an aid the people in that it provides a defense against invasion/usurpation of thier rights by either the national or state governments. The right of defense belongs to the people, and it thier rights the people would be defending, whether they were organized by a state government in opposition to the federal, or whether they were fighting against a state government that had tried to invade thier rights.