Often times in order for humankind to process the cognitive skills to actually learn, as unfortunate as it appears revisiting the past is at times when many people learn from prior generation’s mistakes. That is what our article is about today – we hope to bring to you a historical insight of the events that occurred in the years of 1812 – 1814 during none other than James Madison’s presidency.
Therefore, sometimes when we the people of this great nation are underhanded and usurped by our own federal government it gives great attention to looking back at much earlier times when the several states maintained their own militiamen. Subsequent to that arrangement, it should not ever be mistaken where loyalties lied within this militia.
Clearly during this time – shortly after the War of Independence – the central federal government was broke, far beyond what it is today. Putting issues more clearly the federal government looked toward the individual state militias as rather working for them rather than working for the states they in desperation fought a superior force of Great Britain and had won.
Much the same as it has become today, especially in time of calling up reserves and national guardsman to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya ahead of the regular units, or at the same time was the order of the day for the federal government.
Here is our first relearning of a serious lesson. During the Revolutionary War and again [what seemed like the same war] in the War of 1812, the feds began calling up the militias of various states. Let’s examine the reasons why:
Of the first part the federal government was broke and could not afford to pay regulars in uniform. Therefore there was a mass exodus from the regular Army and Navy insofar as these people had farms to attend, whole families to raise and feed, and livestock. Therefore the U.S. government was forced into a situation of paying for militiamen and the states they belonged too for short stays in uniform – reduced salary warriors, who gladly would stay a couple of days until their names where on the musters for pay, and then they’d go home.
Perhaps even more astounding was how much less it took to temporarily induct a militiaman insofar as they already had the guns and some ordnance, first as a constitutional right and secondly because of the previous war they had just won. Just when the federal government thought they had put the country in Harm’s Way by a very active congress upon inspection by the Secretary of War, James Monroe this is what he found:
The expense of the militias mounted inexorably. Their lack of hygienic discipline made them prone to all kinds of diseases. “The morality when compared with that of the regular service was enormous; five men sickened and died where one regular suffered.” Besides it military disadvantages, the militia services was tainted with fraud. Again habitually and notoriously in New England and New York, the militiamen, when called out, attended muster, served a few days in order to get their names on the payroll and then flatly went home.
Mentioned should be made that the United States government wasted millions in payroll, pensions for such men. Yet the states clung to the militia system – for one thing, they had patronage over the appointment over the officers; moreover, the states wanted the power to keep men at home for local defense, regardless of who they were fighting.
Congress intervened by stating, “the government’s own talking of insolvency and lack of manpower made it too inept to be relied upon so the states must shift for themselves. Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire voiced a thought that others were entertaining.
“Should the national defense be abandoned by the general government, I trust the people, if still retaining a good portion of their resources (i.e., not paying taxes to the federal government,) may rally under their [state] governments against foreign invasion, and rely with confidence on their own courage and virtue.”
In retrospect then let’s consider what we’ve read: The federal government was broke, however not because of expansion or stupid spending, but rather as a means of assisting the French in their revolution, and although nobody lacked for anything in America; nonetheless, America’s trading markets (free trade) was in disarray. The federal government was again doing activities such as defunding the Department of War and then tried to skate all over the states for a voluntary militia, because of their own property – their guns.
We would refer to these machinations as America spending money it doesn’t have; trying to force a gun-control upon the rights of the people, and of warranted concern is the fact that the federal government openly admits to the U.S. military as being the least extent.