.gif)
Militia (United States)
Encyclopedia
The role of militia
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
The early colonists of America considered the militia
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Just prior to the American Revolutionary War
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
adopted the Articles of Confederation
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
:
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
Shays' Rebellion
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
and King James II
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
and the Second Amendment
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
In 1794, a militia numbering approximately 13,000 was raised and personally led by President George Washington to quell the Whiskey Rebellion
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
Joseph Story
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
over control of government territory.
Following the Confederate taking of Fort Sumter
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
, Oregon
, Washington Territory
and Colorado Territory
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
with the Plains Indians
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
around El Paso
, then fought the Navajo
and Apache
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
, keep the Mormons
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
during a campaign against the Shoshone
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
in 1862-1863.
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
, an eyewitness account:
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
. Some campaigned in Mexico
as insurgent
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
and Columbus
in defense of the interests of United States
.
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
. Established under Title 10
and Title 32
of the U.S. Code
, state National Guard
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
composed of state
National Guard
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
service for the United States
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
and the United States Air Force
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
and Maryland
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
.
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
The early colonists of America considered the militia
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Just prior to the American Revolutionary War
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
adopted the Articles of Confederation
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
:
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
Shays' Rebellion
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
and King James II
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
and the Second Amendment
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
In 1794, a militia numbering approximately 13,000 was raised and personally led by President George Washington to quell the Whiskey Rebellion
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
Joseph Story
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
over control of government territory.
Following the Confederate taking of Fort Sumter
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
, Oregon
, Washington Territory
and Colorado Territory
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
with the Plains Indians
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
around El Paso
, then fought the Navajo
and Apache
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
, keep the Mormons
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
during a campaign against the Shoshone
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
in 1862-1863.
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
, an eyewitness account:
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
. Some campaigned in Mexico
as insurgent
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
and Columbus
in defense of the interests of United States
.
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
. Established under Title 10
and Title 32
of the U.S. Code
, state National Guard
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
composed of state
National Guard
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
service for the United States
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
and the United States Air Force
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
and Maryland
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
.
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
The early colonists of America considered the militia
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Just prior to the American Revolutionary War
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
adopted the Articles of Confederation
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
:
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
Shays' Rebellion
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
and King James II
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
and the Second Amendment
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
In 1794, a militia numbering approximately 13,000 was raised and personally led by President George Washington to quell the Whiskey Rebellion
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
Joseph Story
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
over control of government territory.
Following the Confederate taking of Fort Sumter
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
, Oregon
, Washington Territory
and Colorado Territory
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
with the Plains Indians
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
around El Paso
, then fought the Navajo
and Apache
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
, keep the Mormons
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
during a campaign against the Shoshone
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
in 1862-1863.
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
, an eyewitness account:
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
. Some campaigned in Mexico
as insurgent
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
and Columbus
in defense of the interests of United States
.
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
. Established under Title 10
and Title 32
of the U.S. Code
, state National Guard
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
composed of state
National Guard
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
service for the United States
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
and the United States Air Force
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
and Maryland
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
.
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
- The organized militia created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, which split from the 1792 Uniform Militia forces, and consist of State militia forces, notably the National Guard and the Naval MilitiaNaval militiaA naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
. The National Guard however, is not to be confused with the National Guard of the United States, which is a federally recognized reserve military force, although the two are linked. - The reserve militia or unorganized militia, also created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
which presently consist of every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia. (that is, anyone who would be eligible for a draftSelective Service SystemThe Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
).
Etymology
From Old English milite meaning soldiers (plural), militisc meaning military and also classical Latin milit-, miles meaning soldier.The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
Colonial era, pre-1774
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
French and Indian Wars
The French and Indian Wars is a name used in the United States for a series of conflicts lasting 74 years in North America that represented colonial events related to the European dynastic wars...
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
"...he experienced all the evils of insubordination among the troups, perverseness in the militia, inactivity in the officers, disregard of orders, and reluctance in the civil authorities to render a proper support. And what added to his mortification was, that the laws gave him no power to correct these evils, either by enforcing discipline, or compelling the indolent and refractory to their duty" ... "The militia system was suited for only to times of peace. It provided for calling out men to repel invasion; but the powers granted for effecting it were so limited, as to be almost inoperative."
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment was a composite regiment made up of units of the New Hampshire Militia during the French and Indian War for service with the British Army in North America. It was first formed in 1754 with the start of hostilities with France.-1755:In 1755 Col...
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
"...they recommended to the militia to form themselves into companies of minute-menMinutemenMinutemen were members of teams of select men from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats, hence the name.The minutemen were among the first...
, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice. These minute-men were to consist of one quarter of the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least fifty men each. The privates were to choose their captains and subalterns, and these officers were to form the companies into battalions, and chose the field-officers to command the same. Hence the minute-men became a body distinct from the rest of the militia, and, by being more devoted to military exercises, they acquired skill in the use of arms. More attention than formerly was likewise bestowed on the training and drilling of militia."
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....
adopted the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
"...every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
"The militia are turning out with great alacrity both in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are distressed for want of arms. Many have none, we shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe'sWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount HoweWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, KB, PC was a British army officer who rose to become Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American War of Independence...
business, by favor of the Heaven."
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
The fervor of the early days in the reorganized militias wore off in the long grind of an eight-year war. Now the right to elect their own officers was used to demand that the men not serve away from their state. Men evaded service, bought substitutes to go for them as in the old days, and had to be bribed with higher and higher bounties to join the effort - which is why Jefferson and Samuel Adams called them so expensive. As wartime inflation devalued the currency, other pledges had to be offered, including land grants and the promise of 'a healthy slave' at the end of the war. Some men would take a bounty and not show up. Or they would show up for a while, desert, and then, when they felt the need for another bounty, sign up again in a different place... . This practice was common enough to have its own technical term - 'bounty jumping'."
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
Continental Army
The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
Confederation period (1783-1787)
Politically, the militia was highly popular during the postwar period, though to some extent, based more on pride of victory in the recent war than on the realities. This skepticism of the actual value of relying upon the militia for national defense, versus a trained regular army was expressed by Gouverneur MorrisGouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris , was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation. Morris was also an author of large sections of the...
:
"...An overweening vanity leads the fond many, each man against the conviction of his own heart, to believe or affect to believe, that militia can beat veteran troops in the open field and even play of battle. This idle notion, fed by vaunting demagogues, alarmed us for our country, when in the course of that time and chance, which happen to all, she should be at war with a great power."
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
"To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows...if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter."
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War....
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
Joseph Reed (jurist)
Joseph Reed was a Pennsylvania lawyer, military officer, and statesman of the Revolutionary Era. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and, while in Congress, signed the Articles of Confederation...
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
Society of the Cincinnati
The Society of the Cincinnati is a historical organization with branches in the United States and France founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the American Revolutionary War officers and to pressure the government to honor pledges it had made to officers who fought for American...
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787-1789)
The delegates of the Constitutional Convention (the founding fathers/framers of the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
Militia Act of 1792
The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
Civilian control of a peacetime army
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a political sentiment existed in the newly formed United States involving suspicion of peacetime armies not under civilian control. This political belief has been identified as stemming from the memory of the abuses of the standing army of Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and King James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
- The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors."- (Source I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789)
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian".-Biography:...
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
- The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
- The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them.
- Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
The shift from States' power to Federal power
A major concern of the various delegates during the constitutional debates over the ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
and the Second Amendment
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
Political debate regarding compulsory militia service for pacifists
Records of the constitutional debate over the early drafts of the language of the Second Amendment included significant discussion of whether service in the militia should be compulsory for all able bodied men, or should there be an exemption for the 'religiously scrupulous' conscientious objector.The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Thomas Gerry was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States , serving under James Madison, until his death a year and a half into his term...
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
Concern over select militias
William S. Fields & David T. Hardy write:While in The Federalist No. 46, Madison argued that a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 men would be offset by "a militia amounting to near a half million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves . . . ." [119] The Antifederalists were not persuaded by these arguments, in part because of the degree of control over the militia given to the national government by the proposed constitution. The fears of the more conservative opponents centered upon the possible phasing out of the general militia in favor of a smaller, more readily corrupted, select militia. Proposals for such a select militia already had been advanced by individuals such as Baron Von Steuben, Washington's Inspector General, who proposed supplementing the general militia with a force of 21,000 men given government- issued arms and special training. [120] An article in the Connecticut Journal expressed the fear that the proposed constitution might allow Congress to create such select militias: "[T]his looks too much like Baron Steuben's militia, by which a standing army was meant and intended." [121] In Pennsylvania, John Smiley told the ratifying convention that "Congress may give us a select militia which will in fact be a standing army," and worried that, [p.34] with this force in hand, "the people in general may be disarmed." [122] Similar concerns were raised by Richard Henry Lee in Virginia. In his widely-read pamphlet, Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Lee warned that liberties might be undermined by the creation of a select militia that "[would] answer to all the purposes of an army," and concluded that "the Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms."
Prior to the Civil War
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion, or Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. Farmers who sold their corn in the form of whiskey had to pay a new tax which they strongly resented...
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
"The disasters of the militia may be ascribed chiefly to two causes, of which the failure to train the men is a principle one; but, the omission to train the officers is a so much greater, that I think the history of its conduct, where it has been unfortunate, will prove that its defects are attributable, more to their want of knowledge or the best mode of applying the force under their authority to their attainment of their object than to all others. It may almost be stated, as an axiom, that the larger the body of undisciplined men is, the less is its chance of success;..."
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
"The demoralizing influences even of our own militia drills has long been notorious to a proverb. It has been a source of general corruptions to the community, and formed habits of idleness, dissipation and profligacy. ... musterfields have generally been scenes or occasions of gambling, licentiousness, and almost every vice. ... An eye-witness of a New England training, so late as 1845, says, "beastly drunkenness, and other immoralities, were enough to make good men shudder at the very name of a muster."
Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights."
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
Utah War
The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between LDS settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the United States government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858...
over control of government territory.
Civil War
At the beginning of the Civil War, neither the North or the South was nearly well enough prepared for war, and few people imagined the demands and hardships the war would bring. Just prior to the war the total peacetime army consisted of a paltry 16,000 men. Both sides issued an immediate call to forces from the militia, followed by the immediate awareness of an acute shortage of weapons, uniforms and trained officers. Among the available States' militia regiments there existed an uneven quality, and none had anything resembling combat training. The typical militia drilling at the time amounted to, at best, parade-ground marching. The militia units, from local communities, had never drilled together as a larger regiment. Thereby lacking in the extremely important skill, critically necessary for the war style of the time, to maneuver from a marching line into a fighting line. Yet, both sides were equally unready, and rushed to prepare.Union militia
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On...
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Washington Territory
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 8, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington....
and Colorado Territory
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado....
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
Battle of Glorieta Pass
The Battle of Glorieta Pass, fought from March 26 to 28, 1862 in northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the "Gettysburg of the West" by some historians, it was intended as the killer blow by Confederate forces to break...
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
New Mexico Territory
thumb|right|240px|Proposed boundaries for State of New Mexico, 1850The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of...
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
Colorado War
The Colorado War was fought from 1863 to 1865 and was an Indian War between the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, against white settlers and militia in the Colorado Territory and adjacent regions...
with the Plains Indians
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
As conflict between Indians and white settlers and soldiers in Colorado continued, many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, including bands under Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope, were resigned to negotiate peace. The chiefs had sought to maintain peace in spite of pressures from whites...
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
California Column
The California Column, a force of Union volunteers, marched from April to August 1862 over 900 miles from California, across the southern New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and then into western Texas during the American Civil War. At the time, this was the longest trek through desert terrain...
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
around El Paso
El Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
, then fought the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
Overland Trail
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California and Mormon...
, keep the Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
Fort Douglas, Utah
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. The fort was officially...
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
Bear River Massacre
The Bear River Massacre, or the Battle of Bear River and the Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Idaho on January 29, 1863. The United States Army attacked Shoshone gathered at the confluence of the Bear River and Beaver Creek in what was then southeastern Washington Territory. The...
during a campaign against the Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
Idaho Territory
The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 4, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Idaho.-1860s:...
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
1st Regiment Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry
The 1st Regiment of Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry was a unit of infantry raised by the Washington Territory for service in the Union Army during the American Civil War.- Service :...
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
Snake War
The Snake War was a war fought by the United States of America against the "Snake Indians", the settlers' term for Northern Paiute, Bannock and western Shoshone bands who lived along the Snake River. Fighting took place in the states of Oregon, Nevada, and California, and in Idaho Territory...
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War was a war fought by the forces of the California Militia, California Volunteers and soldiers of the U. S. Army against the Chilula, Lassik, Hupa, Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, Whilkut and Wiyot Native American peoples.The war was fought within the boundaries of the...
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
Owens Valley Indian War
The Owens Valley War was fought between 1862 and 1863, by California Volunteers and local settlers against the Owens Valley Paiutes, and their Shoshone and Kawaiisu allies, in the Owens Valley of California and the southwestern Nevada border region. The removal of a large number of the Owens River...
in 1862-1863.
Reconstruction era
With passage of federal reconstruction lawsReconstruction Act
After the end of the Civil War, as part of the on-going process of Reconstruction, the United States Congress passed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts...
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
"...the milita companies were composed almost entirely of Negroes and their marching and counter-marching through the country drove the white people to frenzy. Even a cool-headed man like General GeorgeJames Z. GeorgeJames Zachariah George was an American military officer, lawyer, writer, and politician. He was known as Mississippi's "Great Commoner."...
advised the Democrats to form military organizations that should be able to maintain a front against the negro militia. Many indications pointed to trouble. A hardware merchant of VicksburgVicksburg, MississippiVicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
reported that with the exceptions of the first year of the war his trade had never been so brisk. It was said that 10,000 Spencer rifles had been brought into the State."
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 23,347 at the 2000 United States Census.-History:...
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, an eyewitness account:
"I found the town in great excitement; un-uniformed militia were parading the streets, both white and colored. I found that the white people--democrats--were very much excited in consequence of the governor organizing the militia force of the state. ... I found that these people were determined to resist his marching the militia (to Clinton) with arms, and they threatened to kill his militiamen."
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
The Posse Comitatus Act
Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Federal Congress passed the Posse Comitatus ActPosse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act is an often misunderstood and misquoted United States federal law passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. Its intent was to limit the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of...
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
Spanish American War
Failure of the militia to meet expectations in the Spanish American War.Mexican Revolution
American organized and unorganized militias fought in the Mexican RevolutionMexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. Some campaigned in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
as insurgent
Insurgent
Insurgent, insurgents or insurgency can refer to:* The act of insurgency-Specific insurgencies:* Iraqi insurgency, uprising in Iraq* Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, uprising in India* Insurgency in North-East India...
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
Battle of Ambos Nogales
The Battle of Ambos Nogales , or the Third Battle of Nogales, was an engagement fought on August 27, 1918 between United States Army forces, stationed in Nogales, Arizona, and the Carrancista garrison of Nogales, Sonora...
and Columbus
Battle of Columbus (1916)
The Battle of Columbus, the Burning of Columbus or the Columbus Raid began as a raid conducted by Pancho Villa's Division of the North on the small United States border town of Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916. The raid escalated into a full scale battle between Villistas and the United States Army...
in defense of the interests of United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Organized militia
- See State Defense ForcesState Defense ForcesState defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
National Guard
The National GuardArmy National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Established under Title 10
Title 10 of the United States Code
Title 10 of the United States Code outlines the role of armed forces in the United States Code.It provides the legal basis for the roles, missions and organization of each of the services as well as the United States Department of Defense...
and Title 32
Title 32 of the United States Code
Title 32 of the United States Code outlines the role of the United States National Guard in the United States Code.—Organization—Personnel—Training—Service, Supply, And Procurement—Homeland Defense Activities-External links:...
of the U.S. Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, state National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
Military reserve force
A military reserve force is a military organization composed of citizens of a country who combine a military role or career with a civilian career. They are not normally kept under arms and their main role is to be available to fight when a nation mobilizes for total war or to defend against invasion...
composed of state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
service for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
Militia Act of 1903
The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
State Defense Forces
State defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
Naval militia
A naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
State Defense Forces
Since the Militia Act of 1903 Many States have created and maintained a Reserve Military Force known as The State Defense Forces (Some States refer to them as State Military Reserve, State Guard, or Foot Guard). They were created to assist, support and augment National Guard forces during peacetime conditions. Also during the call up of National Guard forces for wartime deployments, State Defense Forces can be used to assume the full military responsibilities of the State. Their mission includes the defense of the State and the enforcement of military orders when ordered by their Governor.Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
The reserve militia
All able bodied men, 17 to 45 of age, are ultimately eligible to be called up into military service and belong to the class known as the Reserve Militia, also known as the Unorganized Militia (10 USC). Able bodied men who are not eligible for inclusion in the reserve militia pool are those aliens not having declared their intent to become citizens of the United States (10 USC 311) and former regular component veterans of the armed forces who have reached the age of 64 (32 USC 313). All female citizens who are members of National Guard units are also included in the reserve militia pool (10 USC 311).Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
- The Vice President (also constitutionally the President of the Senate, that body which confirms the appointment of senior armed forces officers made by the Commander in Chief).
- The judicial and executive officers of the United States, the several States and Territories, and Puerto Rico.
- Members of the armed forces, except members who are not on active duty.
- Customhouse clerks.
- Persons employed by the United States in the transmission of mail.
- Workmen employed in armories, arsenals, and naval shipyards of the United States.
- Pilots on navigable waters.
- Mariners in the sea service of a citizen of, or a merchant in, the United States.
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
The Ludlow massacre
In 1914, in Ludlow, ColoradoLudlow, Colorado
Ludlow is a ghost town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. It was famous as the site of the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. The town site is nestled at the entrance to a canyon in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is located along the western side of Interstate 25...
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
.
Modern citizen-militia organizations
Within the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
New World Order (conspiracy)
In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
See also
- Colonial American military historyColonial American military historyColonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775. - Rangers :...
- Irregular militaryIrregular militaryIrregular military refers to any non-standard military. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used....
- Nauvoo LegionNauvoo LegionThe Nauvoo Legion was a militia originally organized by the Latter Day Saints to defend the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, . To curry political favor with the ambiguously-political Saints, the Illinois state legislature granted Nauvoo a liberal city charter that gave the Nauvoo Legion extraordinary...
- New World Order (conspiracy)New World Order (conspiracy)In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
- Project MegiddoProject MegiddoProject Megiddo was a report researched and written by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director Louis Freeh. Released on October 20, 1999, the report named followers of white supremacy, Christian Identity, the militia movement, Black Hebrew Israelites, and apocalyptic cults...
- The Turner DiariesThe Turner DiariesThe Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
Historic
- Anti-Federalist PapersAnti-Federalist PapersThe Anti-Federalist Papers are a collection of articles, written in opposition to the ratification of the 1787 United States Constitution. Unlike the Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution, the authors of these articles, mostly operating under pen names, were not engaged in a...
- Federalist PapersFederalist PapersThe Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
- Militia Act of 1792Militia Act of 1792The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
- Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
- National Defense Act of 1916National Defense Act of 1916The National Defense Act of 1916, , provided for an expanded army during peace and wartime, fourfold expansion of the National Guard, the creation of an Officers' and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, plus the creation of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps in colleges and universities...
- National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933
- Total Force Policy of 1973
- United States ConstitutionUnited States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
Further reading
- Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994) ISBN 0-19-508847-6
- Newland, Samuel J. The Pennsylvania militia: Defending the Commonwealth and the nation, 1669-1870 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs (2002)
- Singletary, Otis, Negro militia and Reconstruction, Austin: University of Texas Press. (1957) ISBN 0-313-24573-8
- Smith, Joshua M. "The Yankee Soldier's Might: The District of Maine and the Reputation of the Massachusetts Militia, 1800-1812," New England Quarterly LXXXIV no. 2 (June, 2011), 234-264.
- Stentiford, Barry M. "The Meaning of a Name: The Rise of the National Guard and the End of a Town Militia," Journal of Military History, July 2008, Vol. 72 Issue 3, pp 727-754
External links
- SGAUS - State Guard Association of the United States
- David C. Munn's scholarly work: Battles and skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey
- Virginia Defense Force Black Horse Brigade
Footnotes
The role of militiaMilitia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
- The organized militia created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, which split from the 1792 Uniform Militia forces, and consist of State militia forces, notably the National Guard and the Naval MilitiaNaval militiaA naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
. The National Guard however, is not to be confused with the National Guard of the United States, which is a federally recognized reserve military force, although the two are linked. - The reserve militia or unorganized militia, also created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
which presently consist of every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia. (that is, anyone who would be eligible for a draftSelective Service SystemThe Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
).
Etymology
From Old English milite meaning soldiers (plural), militisc meaning military and also classical Latin milit-, miles meaning soldier.The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
Colonial era, pre-1774
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
French and Indian Wars
The French and Indian Wars is a name used in the United States for a series of conflicts lasting 74 years in North America that represented colonial events related to the European dynastic wars...
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
"...he experienced all the evils of insubordination among the troups, perverseness in the militia, inactivity in the officers, disregard of orders, and reluctance in the civil authorities to render a proper support. And what added to his mortification was, that the laws gave him no power to correct these evils, either by enforcing discipline, or compelling the indolent and refractory to their duty" ... "The militia system was suited for only to times of peace. It provided for calling out men to repel invasion; but the powers granted for effecting it were so limited, as to be almost inoperative."
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment was a composite regiment made up of units of the New Hampshire Militia during the French and Indian War for service with the British Army in North America. It was first formed in 1754 with the start of hostilities with France.-1755:In 1755 Col...
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
"...they recommended to the militia to form themselves into companies of minute-menMinutemenMinutemen were members of teams of select men from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats, hence the name.The minutemen were among the first...
, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice. These minute-men were to consist of one quarter of the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least fifty men each. The privates were to choose their captains and subalterns, and these officers were to form the companies into battalions, and chose the field-officers to command the same. Hence the minute-men became a body distinct from the rest of the militia, and, by being more devoted to military exercises, they acquired skill in the use of arms. More attention than formerly was likewise bestowed on the training and drilling of militia."
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....
adopted the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
"...every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
"The militia are turning out with great alacrity both in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are distressed for want of arms. Many have none, we shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe'sWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount HoweWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, KB, PC was a British army officer who rose to become Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American War of Independence...
business, by favor of the Heaven."
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
The fervor of the early days in the reorganized militias wore off in the long grind of an eight-year war. Now the right to elect their own officers was used to demand that the men not serve away from their state. Men evaded service, bought substitutes to go for them as in the old days, and had to be bribed with higher and higher bounties to join the effort - which is why Jefferson and Samuel Adams called them so expensive. As wartime inflation devalued the currency, other pledges had to be offered, including land grants and the promise of 'a healthy slave' at the end of the war. Some men would take a bounty and not show up. Or they would show up for a while, desert, and then, when they felt the need for another bounty, sign up again in a different place... . This practice was common enough to have its own technical term - 'bounty jumping'."
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
Continental Army
The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
Confederation period (1783-1787)
Politically, the militia was highly popular during the postwar period, though to some extent, based more on pride of victory in the recent war than on the realities. This skepticism of the actual value of relying upon the militia for national defense, versus a trained regular army was expressed by Gouverneur MorrisGouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris , was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation. Morris was also an author of large sections of the...
:
"...An overweening vanity leads the fond many, each man against the conviction of his own heart, to believe or affect to believe, that militia can beat veteran troops in the open field and even play of battle. This idle notion, fed by vaunting demagogues, alarmed us for our country, when in the course of that time and chance, which happen to all, she should be at war with a great power."
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
"To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows...if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter."
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War....
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
Joseph Reed (jurist)
Joseph Reed was a Pennsylvania lawyer, military officer, and statesman of the Revolutionary Era. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and, while in Congress, signed the Articles of Confederation...
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
Society of the Cincinnati
The Society of the Cincinnati is a historical organization with branches in the United States and France founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the American Revolutionary War officers and to pressure the government to honor pledges it had made to officers who fought for American...
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787-1789)
The delegates of the Constitutional Convention (the founding fathers/framers of the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
Militia Act of 1792
The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
Civilian control of a peacetime army
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a political sentiment existed in the newly formed United States involving suspicion of peacetime armies not under civilian control. This political belief has been identified as stemming from the memory of the abuses of the standing army of Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and King James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
- The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors."- (Source I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789)
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian".-Biography:...
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
- The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
- The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them.
- Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
The shift from States' power to Federal power
A major concern of the various delegates during the constitutional debates over the ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
and the Second Amendment
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
Political debate regarding compulsory militia service for pacifists
Records of the constitutional debate over the early drafts of the language of the Second Amendment included significant discussion of whether service in the militia should be compulsory for all able bodied men, or should there be an exemption for the 'religiously scrupulous' conscientious objector.The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Thomas Gerry was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States , serving under James Madison, until his death a year and a half into his term...
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
Concern over select militias
William S. Fields & David T. Hardy write:While in The Federalist No. 46, Madison argued that a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 men would be offset by "a militia amounting to near a half million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves . . . ." [119] The Antifederalists were not persuaded by these arguments, in part because of the degree of control over the militia given to the national government by the proposed constitution. The fears of the more conservative opponents centered upon the possible phasing out of the general militia in favor of a smaller, more readily corrupted, select militia. Proposals for such a select militia already had been advanced by individuals such as Baron Von Steuben, Washington's Inspector General, who proposed supplementing the general militia with a force of 21,000 men given government- issued arms and special training. [120] An article in the Connecticut Journal expressed the fear that the proposed constitution might allow Congress to create such select militias: "[T]his looks too much like Baron Steuben's militia, by which a standing army was meant and intended." [121] In Pennsylvania, John Smiley told the ratifying convention that "Congress may give us a select militia which will in fact be a standing army," and worried that, [p.34] with this force in hand, "the people in general may be disarmed." [122] Similar concerns were raised by Richard Henry Lee in Virginia. In his widely-read pamphlet, Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Lee warned that liberties might be undermined by the creation of a select militia that "[would] answer to all the purposes of an army," and concluded that "the Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms."
Prior to the Civil War
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion, or Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. Farmers who sold their corn in the form of whiskey had to pay a new tax which they strongly resented...
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
"The disasters of the militia may be ascribed chiefly to two causes, of which the failure to train the men is a principle one; but, the omission to train the officers is a so much greater, that I think the history of its conduct, where it has been unfortunate, will prove that its defects are attributable, more to their want of knowledge or the best mode of applying the force under their authority to their attainment of their object than to all others. It may almost be stated, as an axiom, that the larger the body of undisciplined men is, the less is its chance of success;..."
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
"The demoralizing influences even of our own militia drills has long been notorious to a proverb. It has been a source of general corruptions to the community, and formed habits of idleness, dissipation and profligacy. ... musterfields have generally been scenes or occasions of gambling, licentiousness, and almost every vice. ... An eye-witness of a New England training, so late as 1845, says, "beastly drunkenness, and other immoralities, were enough to make good men shudder at the very name of a muster."
Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights."
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
Utah War
The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between LDS settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the United States government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858...
over control of government territory.
Civil War
At the beginning of the Civil War, neither the North or the South was nearly well enough prepared for war, and few people imagined the demands and hardships the war would bring. Just prior to the war the total peacetime army consisted of a paltry 16,000 men. Both sides issued an immediate call to forces from the militia, followed by the immediate awareness of an acute shortage of weapons, uniforms and trained officers. Among the available States' militia regiments there existed an uneven quality, and none had anything resembling combat training. The typical militia drilling at the time amounted to, at best, parade-ground marching. The militia units, from local communities, had never drilled together as a larger regiment. Thereby lacking in the extremely important skill, critically necessary for the war style of the time, to maneuver from a marching line into a fighting line. Yet, both sides were equally unready, and rushed to prepare.Union militia
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On...
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Washington Territory
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 8, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington....
and Colorado Territory
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado....
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
Battle of Glorieta Pass
The Battle of Glorieta Pass, fought from March 26 to 28, 1862 in northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the "Gettysburg of the West" by some historians, it was intended as the killer blow by Confederate forces to break...
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
New Mexico Territory
thumb|right|240px|Proposed boundaries for State of New Mexico, 1850The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of...
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
Colorado War
The Colorado War was fought from 1863 to 1865 and was an Indian War between the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, against white settlers and militia in the Colorado Territory and adjacent regions...
with the Plains Indians
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
As conflict between Indians and white settlers and soldiers in Colorado continued, many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, including bands under Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope, were resigned to negotiate peace. The chiefs had sought to maintain peace in spite of pressures from whites...
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
California Column
The California Column, a force of Union volunteers, marched from April to August 1862 over 900 miles from California, across the southern New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and then into western Texas during the American Civil War. At the time, this was the longest trek through desert terrain...
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
around El Paso
El Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
, then fought the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
Overland Trail
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California and Mormon...
, keep the Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
Fort Douglas, Utah
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. The fort was officially...
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
Bear River Massacre
The Bear River Massacre, or the Battle of Bear River and the Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Idaho on January 29, 1863. The United States Army attacked Shoshone gathered at the confluence of the Bear River and Beaver Creek in what was then southeastern Washington Territory. The...
during a campaign against the Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
Idaho Territory
The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 4, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Idaho.-1860s:...
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
1st Regiment Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry
The 1st Regiment of Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry was a unit of infantry raised by the Washington Territory for service in the Union Army during the American Civil War.- Service :...
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
Snake War
The Snake War was a war fought by the United States of America against the "Snake Indians", the settlers' term for Northern Paiute, Bannock and western Shoshone bands who lived along the Snake River. Fighting took place in the states of Oregon, Nevada, and California, and in Idaho Territory...
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War was a war fought by the forces of the California Militia, California Volunteers and soldiers of the U. S. Army against the Chilula, Lassik, Hupa, Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, Whilkut and Wiyot Native American peoples.The war was fought within the boundaries of the...
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
Owens Valley Indian War
The Owens Valley War was fought between 1862 and 1863, by California Volunteers and local settlers against the Owens Valley Paiutes, and their Shoshone and Kawaiisu allies, in the Owens Valley of California and the southwestern Nevada border region. The removal of a large number of the Owens River...
in 1862-1863.
Reconstruction era
With passage of federal reconstruction lawsReconstruction Act
After the end of the Civil War, as part of the on-going process of Reconstruction, the United States Congress passed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts...
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
"...the milita companies were composed almost entirely of Negroes and their marching and counter-marching through the country drove the white people to frenzy. Even a cool-headed man like General GeorgeJames Z. GeorgeJames Zachariah George was an American military officer, lawyer, writer, and politician. He was known as Mississippi's "Great Commoner."...
advised the Democrats to form military organizations that should be able to maintain a front against the negro militia. Many indications pointed to trouble. A hardware merchant of VicksburgVicksburg, MississippiVicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
reported that with the exceptions of the first year of the war his trade had never been so brisk. It was said that 10,000 Spencer rifles had been brought into the State."
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 23,347 at the 2000 United States Census.-History:...
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, an eyewitness account:
"I found the town in great excitement; un-uniformed militia were parading the streets, both white and colored. I found that the white people--democrats--were very much excited in consequence of the governor organizing the militia force of the state. ... I found that these people were determined to resist his marching the militia (to Clinton) with arms, and they threatened to kill his militiamen."
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
The Posse Comitatus Act
Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Federal Congress passed the Posse Comitatus ActPosse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act is an often misunderstood and misquoted United States federal law passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. Its intent was to limit the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of...
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
Spanish American War
Failure of the militia to meet expectations in the Spanish American War.Mexican Revolution
American organized and unorganized militias fought in the Mexican RevolutionMexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. Some campaigned in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
as insurgent
Insurgent
Insurgent, insurgents or insurgency can refer to:* The act of insurgency-Specific insurgencies:* Iraqi insurgency, uprising in Iraq* Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, uprising in India* Insurgency in North-East India...
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
Battle of Ambos Nogales
The Battle of Ambos Nogales , or the Third Battle of Nogales, was an engagement fought on August 27, 1918 between United States Army forces, stationed in Nogales, Arizona, and the Carrancista garrison of Nogales, Sonora...
and Columbus
Battle of Columbus (1916)
The Battle of Columbus, the Burning of Columbus or the Columbus Raid began as a raid conducted by Pancho Villa's Division of the North on the small United States border town of Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916. The raid escalated into a full scale battle between Villistas and the United States Army...
in defense of the interests of United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Organized militia
- See State Defense ForcesState Defense ForcesState defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
National Guard
The National GuardArmy National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Established under Title 10
Title 10 of the United States Code
Title 10 of the United States Code outlines the role of armed forces in the United States Code.It provides the legal basis for the roles, missions and organization of each of the services as well as the United States Department of Defense...
and Title 32
Title 32 of the United States Code
Title 32 of the United States Code outlines the role of the United States National Guard in the United States Code.—Organization—Personnel—Training—Service, Supply, And Procurement—Homeland Defense Activities-External links:...
of the U.S. Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, state National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
Military reserve force
A military reserve force is a military organization composed of citizens of a country who combine a military role or career with a civilian career. They are not normally kept under arms and their main role is to be available to fight when a nation mobilizes for total war or to defend against invasion...
composed of state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
service for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
Militia Act of 1903
The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
State Defense Forces
State defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
Naval militia
A naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
State Defense Forces
Since the Militia Act of 1903 Many States have created and maintained a Reserve Military Force known as The State Defense Forces (Some States refer to them as State Military Reserve, State Guard, or Foot Guard). They were created to assist, support and augment National Guard forces during peacetime conditions. Also during the call up of National Guard forces for wartime deployments, State Defense Forces can be used to assume the full military responsibilities of the State. Their mission includes the defense of the State and the enforcement of military orders when ordered by their Governor.Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
The reserve militia
All able bodied men, 17 to 45 of age, are ultimately eligible to be called up into military service and belong to the class known as the Reserve Militia, also known as the Unorganized Militia (10 USC). Able bodied men who are not eligible for inclusion in the reserve militia pool are those aliens not having declared their intent to become citizens of the United States (10 USC 311) and former regular component veterans of the armed forces who have reached the age of 64 (32 USC 313). All female citizens who are members of National Guard units are also included in the reserve militia pool (10 USC 311).Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
- The Vice President (also constitutionally the President of the Senate, that body which confirms the appointment of senior armed forces officers made by the Commander in Chief).
- The judicial and executive officers of the United States, the several States and Territories, and Puerto Rico.
- Members of the armed forces, except members who are not on active duty.
- Customhouse clerks.
- Persons employed by the United States in the transmission of mail.
- Workmen employed in armories, arsenals, and naval shipyards of the United States.
- Pilots on navigable waters.
- Mariners in the sea service of a citizen of, or a merchant in, the United States.
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
The Ludlow massacre
In 1914, in Ludlow, ColoradoLudlow, Colorado
Ludlow is a ghost town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. It was famous as the site of the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. The town site is nestled at the entrance to a canyon in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is located along the western side of Interstate 25...
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
.
Modern citizen-militia organizations
Within the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
New World Order (conspiracy)
In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
See also
- Colonial American military historyColonial American military historyColonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775. - Rangers :...
- Irregular militaryIrregular militaryIrregular military refers to any non-standard military. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used....
- Nauvoo LegionNauvoo LegionThe Nauvoo Legion was a militia originally organized by the Latter Day Saints to defend the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, . To curry political favor with the ambiguously-political Saints, the Illinois state legislature granted Nauvoo a liberal city charter that gave the Nauvoo Legion extraordinary...
- New World Order (conspiracy)New World Order (conspiracy)In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
- Project MegiddoProject MegiddoProject Megiddo was a report researched and written by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director Louis Freeh. Released on October 20, 1999, the report named followers of white supremacy, Christian Identity, the militia movement, Black Hebrew Israelites, and apocalyptic cults...
- The Turner DiariesThe Turner DiariesThe Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
Historic
- Anti-Federalist PapersAnti-Federalist PapersThe Anti-Federalist Papers are a collection of articles, written in opposition to the ratification of the 1787 United States Constitution. Unlike the Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution, the authors of these articles, mostly operating under pen names, were not engaged in a...
- Federalist PapersFederalist PapersThe Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
- Militia Act of 1792Militia Act of 1792The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
- Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
- National Defense Act of 1916National Defense Act of 1916The National Defense Act of 1916, , provided for an expanded army during peace and wartime, fourfold expansion of the National Guard, the creation of an Officers' and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, plus the creation of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps in colleges and universities...
- National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933
- Total Force Policy of 1973
- United States ConstitutionUnited States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
Further reading
- Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994) ISBN 0-19-508847-6
- Newland, Samuel J. The Pennsylvania militia: Defending the Commonwealth and the nation, 1669-1870 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs (2002)
- Singletary, Otis, Negro militia and Reconstruction, Austin: University of Texas Press. (1957) ISBN 0-313-24573-8
- Smith, Joshua M. "The Yankee Soldier's Might: The District of Maine and the Reputation of the Massachusetts Militia, 1800-1812," New England Quarterly LXXXIV no. 2 (June, 2011), 234-264.
- Stentiford, Barry M. "The Meaning of a Name: The Rise of the National Guard and the End of a Town Militia," Journal of Military History, July 2008, Vol. 72 Issue 3, pp 727-754
External links
- SGAUS - State Guard Association of the United States
- David C. Munn's scholarly work: Battles and skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey
- Virginia Defense Force Black Horse Brigade
Footnotes
The role of militiaMilitia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
, also known as military service and duty, in the United States is complex and has transformed over time.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control, Page 36. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. " The term militia can be used to describe any number of groups within the United States. Primarily, these fall into:
- The organized militia created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, which split from the 1792 Uniform Militia forces, and consist of State militia forces, notably the National Guard and the Naval MilitiaNaval militiaA naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
. The National Guard however, is not to be confused with the National Guard of the United States, which is a federally recognized reserve military force, although the two are linked. - The reserve militia or unorganized militia, also created by the Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
which presently consist of every able-bodied man of at least 17 and under 45 years of age who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia. (that is, anyone who would be eligible for a draftSelective Service SystemThe Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
).
Etymology
From Old English milite meaning soldiers (plural), militisc meaning military and also classical Latin milit-, miles meaning soldier.The Modern English term militia dates to the year 1590, with the original meaning now obsolete: "the body of soldiers in the service of a sovereign or a state". Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers."
The distinction is because militia members are not paid soldiers, but serve as volunteers on an ad hoc basis to protect the freedom of their home and country.
Colonial era, pre-1774
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
an important social structure, necessary to provide defense and public safety.
During the French and Indian Wars
French and Indian Wars
The French and Indian Wars is a name used in the United States for a series of conflicts lasting 74 years in North America that represented colonial events related to the European dynastic wars...
, town militia formed a recruiting pool for the Provincial Forces. The legislature of the colony would authorize a certain force level for the season's campaign, based on that set recruitment quotas for each local militia. In theory, militia members could be drafted by lot if there were inadequate forces for the Provincial Regulars; however, the draft was rarely resorted to because provincial regulars were highly paid (more highly paid than their regular British Army counterparts) and rarely engaged in combat.
In September 1755, George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
, then adjutant-general of the Virginia militia, upon a frustrating and futile attempt to call up the militia to respond to a frontier Indian attack:
"...he experienced all the evils of insubordination among the troups, perverseness in the militia, inactivity in the officers, disregard of orders, and reluctance in the civil authorities to render a proper support. And what added to his mortification was, that the laws gave him no power to correct these evils, either by enforcing discipline, or compelling the indolent and refractory to their duty" ... "The militia system was suited for only to times of peace. It provided for calling out men to repel invasion; but the powers granted for effecting it were so limited, as to be almost inoperative."
See New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
New Hampshire Provincial Regiment
The New Hampshire Provincial Regiment was a composite regiment made up of units of the New Hampshire Militia during the French and Indian War for service with the British Army in North America. It was first formed in 1754 with the start of hostilities with France.-1755:In 1755 Col...
for a history of a Provincial unit during the French and Indian War.
Revolutionary War (1775-1783)
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "...including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men . . . this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency...":
"...they recommended to the militia to form themselves into companies of minute-menMinutemenMinutemen were members of teams of select men from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. They provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately to war threats, hence the name.The minutemen were among the first...
, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice. These minute-men were to consist of one quarter of the whole militia, to be enlisted under the direction of the field-officers, and divide into companies, consisting of at least fifty men each. The privates were to choose their captains and subalterns, and these officers were to form the companies into battalions, and chose the field-officers to command the same. Hence the minute-men became a body distinct from the rest of the militia, and, by being more devoted to military exercises, they acquired skill in the use of arms. More attention than formerly was likewise bestowed on the training and drilling of militia."
The Affair At Lexington The American Revolutionary War began near Boston, Massachusetts with the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
, in which a group of local militias constituted the American side (the "Patriot
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...
s"). On April 19, 1775, a British force 800 strong marched out of Boston to Concord intending to destroy Patriot provisions. At 5:00 in the morning at Lexington, they met about 70 armed militiamen whom they ordered to disperse, but the militiamen refused. Firing ensued; it is not clear which side opened fire. Three or four militiamen were killed, whereupon the remainder took flight. The British continued on to Concord and destroyed the Patriots' provisions. As the British marched back toward Boston, Patriot militiamen assembled along the route, taking cover behind stone walls, and sniped at the British. It was only with the help of an additional detachment of 900 troops that the British force managed to return to Boston. This marked the beginning of the war "...three days after the affair of Lexington and Concord that any movement was made towards embodying a regular army."
In 1777, the Second Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....
adopted the Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
, which contained a provision for raising a confederal militia that consent would be required from nine of the 13 States. Article VI of the Articles of Confederation states,
"...every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage."
Some militia units appeared without adequate arms, as evidenced in this letter from John Adams to his wife, dated August 26, 1777:
"The militia are turning out with great alacrity both in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They are distressed for want of arms. Many have none, we shall rake and scrape enough to do Howe'sWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount HoweWilliam Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, KB, PC was a British army officer who rose to become Commander-in-Chief of British forces during the American War of Independence...
business, by favor of the Heaven."
The initial enthusiasm of Patriot militiamen in the beginning days of the war soon waned. The historian Garry Wills explains,
The fervor of the early days in the reorganized militias wore off in the long grind of an eight-year war. Now the right to elect their own officers was used to demand that the men not serve away from their state. Men evaded service, bought substitutes to go for them as in the old days, and had to be bribed with higher and higher bounties to join the effort - which is why Jefferson and Samuel Adams called them so expensive. As wartime inflation devalued the currency, other pledges had to be offered, including land grants and the promise of 'a healthy slave' at the end of the war. Some men would take a bounty and not show up. Or they would show up for a while, desert, and then, when they felt the need for another bounty, sign up again in a different place... . This practice was common enough to have its own technical term - 'bounty jumping'."
(particular reference to the refusal of militia to campaign away from their home does not of course preclude the militia from effective dispute of British occupation on home territory.)
The burden of waging war passed to a large extent to the standing army, the Continental Army
Continental Army
The Continental Army was formed after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War by the colonies that became the United States of America. Established by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, it was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Thirteen Colonies in...
. The stay-at-home militia tended then to perform the important role of the internal police to keep order. British forces sought to disrupt American communities by instigating slave rebellions and Indian raids. The militia fended off these threats. Militias also spied on Loyalists in the American communities. In Albany County, New York, the militia established a Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies to look out for and investigate people with suspicious allegiances.
Confederation period (1783-1787)
Politically, the militia was highly popular during the postwar period, though to some extent, based more on pride of victory in the recent war than on the realities. This skepticism of the actual value of relying upon the militia for national defense, versus a trained regular army was expressed by Gouverneur MorrisGouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris , was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a native of New York City who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation. Morris was also an author of large sections of the...
:
"...An overweening vanity leads the fond many, each man against the conviction of his own heart, to believe or affect to believe, that militia can beat veteran troops in the open field and even play of battle. This idle notion, fed by vaunting demagogues, alarmed us for our country, when in the course of that time and chance, which happen to all, she should be at war with a great power."
Robert Spitzer, citing Daniel Boorstin, describes this political dichotomy of the public popularity of the militia versus the military value: "While the reliance upon militias was politically satisfying, it proved to be an administrative and military nightmare. State detachments could not be easily combined into larger fighting units; soldiers could not be relied on to serve for extended periods, and desertions were common; officers were elected, based on popularity rather than experience or training; discipline and uniformity were almost nonexistent."
General George Washington defended the militia in public, but in correspondence with Congress expressed his opinion of the militia quite to the contrary:
"To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows...if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter."
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War....
. A Massachusetts militia that had been raised as a private army defeated the main Shay site force on February 3, 1787. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Constitutional Convention which began in May 1787.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, a political atmosphere developed at the local level where the militia was seen with fondness, despite their spotty record on the battlefield. Typically, when the militia did act well was when the battle came into the locale of the militia, and local inhabitants tended to exaggerate the performance of the local militia versus the performance of the Continental Army. The Continental Army was seen as the protector of the States, though it also was viewed as a dominating force over the local communities. Joseph Reed
Joseph Reed (jurist)
Joseph Reed was a Pennsylvania lawyer, military officer, and statesman of the Revolutionary Era. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and, while in Congress, signed the Articles of Confederation...
, president of Pennsylvania viewed this jealousy between the militia forces and the standing army as similar to the prior frictions between the militia and the British Regular Army a generation before during the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
. Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati
Society of the Cincinnati
The Society of the Cincinnati is a historical organization with branches in the United States and France founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the American Revolutionary War officers and to pressure the government to honor pledges it had made to officers who fought for American...
to honor their own wartime deeds. The local communities did not want to pay national taxes to cover the Army pensions, when the local militiamen received none.
Constitution and Bill of Rights (1787-1789)
The delegates of the Constitutional Convention (the founding fathers/framers of the United States ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
) under Article 1; section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the federal constitution, granted Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia," as well as, and in distinction to, the power to raise an army and a navy. The US Congress is granted the power to use the militia of the United States for three specific missions, as described in Article 1, section 8, clause 15: "To provide for the calling for of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." The Militia Act of 1792
Militia Act of 1792
The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
clarified whom the militia consists of; " Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act."
Civilian control of a peacetime army
At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a political sentiment existed in the newly formed United States involving suspicion of peacetime armies not under civilian control. This political belief has been identified as stemming from the memory of the abuses of the standing army of Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and King James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, in Great Britain in the prior century, which led to the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
and resulted in placing the standing army under the control of Parliament.
During the Congressional debates, James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
discussed how a militia could help defend liberty against tyranny and oppression:
- The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Besides the advantage of being armed, it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors."- (Source I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789)
Though during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, James Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army.
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe
Tench Coxe was an American political economist and a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789. He wrote under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian".-Biography:...
, a prominent American political economist of the day (1755–1824) who attended the earlier constitutional convention in Annapolis, explained (in the Pennsylvania Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789) the founders' definition of who the militia was intended to be and their inherent distrust of standing armies under the direct control of 'civil rulers' when he wrote:
- The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
- The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them.
- Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as military forces, which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
The shift from States' power to Federal power
A major concern of the various delegates during the constitutional debates over the ConstitutionUnited States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
and the Second Amendment
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
to the Constitution revolved around the issue of transferring militia power held by the States' (under the existing Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution...
), to Federal control. The new Constitution effected a dramatic shift of military power from being militia based and predominately controlled by the States towards being controlled by the federal Congress and the President with the addition of a federal army.Spitzer, Robert J.: The Politics of Gun Control. Chatham House Publishers, Inc., 1995. "
Political debate regarding compulsory militia service for pacifists
Records of the constitutional debate over the early drafts of the language of the Second Amendment included significant discussion of whether service in the militia should be compulsory for all able bodied men, or should there be an exemption for the 'religiously scrupulous' conscientious objector.The concern about risks of a 'religiously scrupulous' exemption clause within the second amendment to the Federal Constitution was expressed by Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Gerry
Elbridge Thomas Gerry was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States , serving under James Madison, until his death a year and a half into his term...
of Massachusetts (from 1 Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789):
"Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms. What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
The 'religiously scrupulous' clause was ultimately stricken from the final draft of second amendment to the Federal Constitution though the militia clause was retained. It should be noted that since the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently upheld that conscientious objection to military service does not exempt a citizen of the United States from compulsory military service.
Concern over select militias
William S. Fields & David T. Hardy write:While in The Federalist No. 46, Madison argued that a standing army of 25,000 to 30,000 men would be offset by "a militia amounting to near a half million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves . . . ." [119] The Antifederalists were not persuaded by these arguments, in part because of the degree of control over the militia given to the national government by the proposed constitution. The fears of the more conservative opponents centered upon the possible phasing out of the general militia in favor of a smaller, more readily corrupted, select militia. Proposals for such a select militia already had been advanced by individuals such as Baron Von Steuben, Washington's Inspector General, who proposed supplementing the general militia with a force of 21,000 men given government- issued arms and special training. [120] An article in the Connecticut Journal expressed the fear that the proposed constitution might allow Congress to create such select militias: "[T]his looks too much like Baron Steuben's militia, by which a standing army was meant and intended." [121] In Pennsylvania, John Smiley told the ratifying convention that "Congress may give us a select militia which will in fact be a standing army," and worried that, [p.34] with this force in hand, "the people in general may be disarmed." [122] Similar concerns were raised by Richard Henry Lee in Virginia. In his widely-read pamphlet, Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, Lee warned that liberties might be undermined by the creation of a select militia that "[would] answer to all the purposes of an army," and concluded that "the Constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms."
Prior to the Civil War
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion, or Whiskey Insurrection, was a tax protest in the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. Farmers who sold their corn in the form of whiskey had to pay a new tax which they strongly resented...
in Pennsylvania. From this experience, a major weakness of a States' based citizen militia system was found to be the lack of systematic army organization, and a lack of training for engineers and officers. George Washington repeatedly warned of these shortcomings up until his death in 1799. Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature."
In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States' based militia system.
In the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, the United States militia were routed by British regulars, and it was determined that militia were not adequate for the national defense. Military budgets were greatly increased at this time, and a standing federal army rather than States' militias was deemed better for the national defense.
Though the States' militia continued service, notably in the slave holding states to maintain public order performing the duty to round up runaway slaves.
Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823:
"The disasters of the militia may be ascribed chiefly to two causes, of which the failure to train the men is a principle one; but, the omission to train the officers is a so much greater, that I think the history of its conduct, where it has been unfortunate, will prove that its defects are attributable, more to their want of knowledge or the best mode of applying the force under their authority to their attainment of their object than to all others. It may almost be stated, as an axiom, that the larger the body of undisciplined men is, the less is its chance of success;..."
During this inter war period of the Nineteenth Century, the States' militia tended towards being disorderly and unprepared.
"The demoralizing influences even of our own militia drills has long been notorious to a proverb. It has been a source of general corruptions to the community, and formed habits of idleness, dissipation and profligacy. ... musterfields have generally been scenes or occasions of gambling, licentiousness, and almost every vice. ... An eye-witness of a New England training, so late as 1845, says, "beastly drunkenness, and other immoralities, were enough to make good men shudder at the very name of a muster."
Joseph Story
Joseph Story
Joseph Story was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1811 to 1845. He is most remembered today for his opinions in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and The Amistad, along with his magisterial Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, first...
laments in 1842 how the militia has fallen into serious decline:
"And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our National Bill of Rights."
The Mormon militia, in 1857 and 1858, fought against US federal troops in the Utah War
Utah War
The Utah War, also known as the Utah Expedition, Buchanan's Blunder, the Mormon War, or the Mormon Rebellion was an armed confrontation between LDS settlers in the Utah Territory and the armed forces of the United States government. The confrontation lasted from May 1857 until July 1858...
over control of government territory.
Civil War
At the beginning of the Civil War, neither the North or the South was nearly well enough prepared for war, and few people imagined the demands and hardships the war would bring. Just prior to the war the total peacetime army consisted of a paltry 16,000 men. Both sides issued an immediate call to forces from the militia, followed by the immediate awareness of an acute shortage of weapons, uniforms and trained officers. Among the available States' militia regiments there existed an uneven quality, and none had anything resembling combat training. The typical militia drilling at the time amounted to, at best, parade-ground marching. The militia units, from local communities, had never drilled together as a larger regiment. Thereby lacking in the extremely important skill, critically necessary for the war style of the time, to maneuver from a marching line into a fighting line. Yet, both sides were equally unready, and rushed to prepare.Union militia
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the U.S. Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. On...
, which marked the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln called up States' militia to retake the seized Federal property and found that the militia "...strength was far short of what the Congressional statute provided and required."
In the summer of 1861, military camps circled around Washington D.C. composed of new three-year army volunteers and 90 day militia units. The generals in charge of this gathering had never handled large bodies of men before, and the men were simply inexperienced civilians with arms having little discipline and less understanding of the importance of discipline.
In the West, in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, Washington Territory
Washington Territory
The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 8, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington....
and Colorado Territory
Colorado Territory
The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado....
militias were organized both to resist the Confederacy and any civil disorder caused by secessionists, Copperheads, Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
, or most particularly the Native tribes. The Colorado Volunteers participated in the Battle of Glorieta Pass
Battle of Glorieta Pass
The Battle of Glorieta Pass, fought from March 26 to 28, 1862 in northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the "Gettysburg of the West" by some historians, it was intended as the killer blow by Confederate forces to break...
turning back a Confederate invasion of New Mexico Territory
New Mexico Territory
thumb|right|240px|Proposed boundaries for State of New Mexico, 1850The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of...
. Later they initiated the Colorado War
Colorado War
The Colorado War was fought from 1863 to 1865 and was an Indian War between the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, against white settlers and militia in the Colorado Territory and adjacent regions...
with the Plains Indians
Plains Indians
The Plains Indians are the Indigenous peoples who live on the plains and rolling hills of the Great Plains of North America. Their colorful equestrian culture and resistance to White domination have made the Plains Indians an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere.Plains...
and committed the Sand Creek massacre
Sand Creek Massacre
As conflict between Indians and white settlers and soldiers in Colorado continued, many of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, including bands under Cheyenne chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope, were resigned to negotiate peace. The chiefs had sought to maintain peace in spite of pressures from whites...
. The California Volunteers of the California Column
California Column
The California Column, a force of Union volunteers, marched from April to August 1862 over 900 miles from California, across the southern New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and then into western Texas during the American Civil War. At the time, this was the longest trek through desert terrain...
were sent east across the southern deserts to drive the Confederates out of southern Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
around El Paso
El Paso
El Paso, a city in the U.S. state of Texas, on the border with Mexico.El Paso may also refer to:-Geography:Colombia:* El Paso, CesarSpain:*El Paso, Santa Cruz de TenerifeUnited States:...
, then fought the Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
until 1866. They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail
Overland Trail
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California and Mormon...
, keep the Mormons
Mormons
The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....
under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas
Fort Douglas, Utah
Camp Douglas was established in October 1862 as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the purpose of protecting the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. In 1878, the post was renamed Fort Douglas. The fort was officially...
in Salt Lake City, and committed the Bear River Massacre
Bear River Massacre
The Bear River Massacre, or the Battle of Bear River and the Massacre at Boa Ogoi, took place in present-day Idaho on January 29, 1863. The United States Army attacked Shoshone gathered at the confluence of the Bear River and Beaver Creek in what was then southeastern Washington Territory. The...
during a campaign against the Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
. In Oregon and Idaho Territory
Idaho Territory
The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 4, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Idaho.-1860s:...
California, Oregon and Washington Territorial Volunteers
1st Regiment Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry
The 1st Regiment of Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry was a unit of infantry raised by the Washington Territory for service in the Union Army during the American Civil War.- Service :...
tried to protect the settlers and pacified tribes from each other and the hostile Snake Tribes they fought in the Snake War
Snake War
The Snake War was a war fought by the United States of America against the "Snake Indians", the settlers' term for Northern Paiute, Bannock and western Shoshone bands who lived along the Snake River. Fighting took place in the states of Oregon, Nevada, and California, and in Idaho Territory...
from 1864 until 1866. In California Volunteer forces fought the Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War
Bald Hills War was a war fought by the forces of the California Militia, California Volunteers and soldiers of the U. S. Army against the Chilula, Lassik, Hupa, Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, Whilkut and Wiyot Native American peoples.The war was fought within the boundaries of the...
in the northwestern forests until 1864 and also the Owens Valley Indian War
Owens Valley Indian War
The Owens Valley War was fought between 1862 and 1863, by California Volunteers and local settlers against the Owens Valley Paiutes, and their Shoshone and Kawaiisu allies, in the Owens Valley of California and the southwestern Nevada border region. The removal of a large number of the Owens River...
in 1862-1863.
Reconstruction era
With passage of federal reconstruction lawsReconstruction Act
After the end of the Civil War, as part of the on-going process of Reconstruction, the United States Congress passed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts...
between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Army took control of the states and held elections in which blacks could vote, but not senior Confederates. Each state (except Virginia) elected Republican governments, which organized militia units. The majority of militiamen were black. Racial tension and conflict, sometimes intense, existed between the Negro freedmen and the ex-Confederate whites.
In parts of the South, white paramilitary groups and rifle clubs formed to counter this black militia; regardless of the laws prohibiting drilling, organizing, or parading except for duly authorized militia. The white rifle clubs engaged in a prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, and hostile acts against this black militia.
"...the milita companies were composed almost entirely of Negroes and their marching and counter-marching through the country drove the white people to frenzy. Even a cool-headed man like General GeorgeJames Z. GeorgeJames Zachariah George was an American military officer, lawyer, writer, and politician. He was known as Mississippi's "Great Commoner."...
advised the Democrats to form military organizations that should be able to maintain a front against the negro militia. Many indications pointed to trouble. A hardware merchant of VicksburgVicksburg, MississippiVicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
reported that with the exceptions of the first year of the war his trade had never been so brisk. It was said that 10,000 Spencer rifles had been brought into the State."
The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections, for instance the race riot of Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton, Mississippi
Clinton is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. Situated in the Jackson metropolitan area, it is the tenth largest city in Mississippi. The population was 23,347 at the 2000 United States Census.-History:...
in September 1875, and the following month in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
, an eyewitness account:
"I found the town in great excitement; un-uniformed militia were parading the streets, both white and colored. I found that the white people--democrats--were very much excited in consequence of the governor organizing the militia force of the state. ... I found that these people were determined to resist his marching the militia (to Clinton) with arms, and they threatened to kill his militiamen."
Outright war between the state militia and the white rifle clubs was avoided only by the complete surrender of one of the belligerents, though tensions escalated in the following months leading to a December riot in Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
resulting in the deaths of two whites and thirty-five Negroes. Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape."
The Posse Comitatus Act
Enacted in the wake of the Civil War, the Federal Congress passed the Posse Comitatus ActPosse Comitatus Act
The Posse Comitatus Act is an often misunderstood and misquoted United States federal law passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction. Its intent was to limit the powers of local governments and law enforcement agencies from using federal military personnel to enforce the laws of...
intended to prohibit federal troops and militia from supervising elections. This act substantially limits the powers of the Federal government to use the militia for law enforcement.
Spanish American War
Failure of the militia to meet expectations in the Spanish American War.Mexican Revolution
American organized and unorganized militias fought in the Mexican RevolutionMexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
. Some campaigned in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
as insurgent
Insurgent
Insurgent, insurgents or insurgency can refer to:* The act of insurgency-Specific insurgencies:* Iraqi insurgency, uprising in Iraq* Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, uprising in India* Insurgency in North-East India...
forces and others fought in battles such as Ambos Nogales
Battle of Ambos Nogales
The Battle of Ambos Nogales , or the Third Battle of Nogales, was an engagement fought on August 27, 1918 between United States Army forces, stationed in Nogales, Arizona, and the Carrancista garrison of Nogales, Sonora...
and Columbus
Battle of Columbus (1916)
The Battle of Columbus, the Burning of Columbus or the Columbus Raid began as a raid conducted by Pancho Villa's Division of the North on the small United States border town of Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916. The raid escalated into a full scale battle between Villistas and the United States Army...
in defense of the interests of United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Organized militia
- See State Defense ForcesState Defense ForcesState defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
The Organized Militia is The Armed Forces of The State. Each State has 2 Mandatory Forces which are: The Army National Guard & The Air National Guard. These are both State & Federal Forces, which at any point can be called up by The President of The United States. Many States also have State Defense Forces and a Naval Militia, which assist, support and augment National Guard Forces.
National Guard
The National GuardArmy National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
(or National Guard of a State) differs from the National Guard of the United States however the two do go hand-in-hand.
The National Guard is a militia force organized by each of the several states and territories of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Established under Title 10
Title 10 of the United States Code
Title 10 of the United States Code outlines the role of armed forces in the United States Code.It provides the legal basis for the roles, missions and organization of each of the services as well as the United States Department of Defense...
and Title 32
Title 32 of the United States Code
Title 32 of the United States Code outlines the role of the United States National Guard in the United States Code.—Organization—Personnel—Training—Service, Supply, And Procurement—Homeland Defense Activities-External links:...
of the U.S. Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, state National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
serves as part of the first-line defense for the United States. The state National Guard is divided up into units stationed in each of the 50 states and U.S. territories and operates under their respective state governor or territorial government. The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.
The National Guard of the United States is a military reserve force
Military reserve force
A military reserve force is a military organization composed of citizens of a country who combine a military role or career with a civilian career. They are not normally kept under arms and their main role is to be available to fight when a nation mobilizes for total war or to defend against invasion...
composed of state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
service for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Created by the Militia Act of 1903
Militia Act of 1903
The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
, the National Guard of the United States is a joint reserve component of the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
and the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
. The National Guard of the United States maintains two subcomponents: the Army National Guard of the United States for the Army and the Air Force's Air National Guard of the United States.
The current United States Code
United States Code
The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
, Title 10 (Armed forces), section 311 (Militia: Composition and Classes), paragraph (a) states: "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard
Army National Guard
Established under Title 10 and Title 32 of the U.S. Code, the Army National Guard is part of the National Guard and is divided up into subordinate units stationed in each of the 50 states, three territories and the District of Columbia operating under their respective governors...
." Section 313 of Title 32 refers to persons with prior military experience who could serve as officers. These persons remain members of the militia until age 64. Paragraph (b) further states, "The classes of the militia are: (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."
The National Guard of the United States is the largest of the organized federal reserve military forces in the United States. The National Guard of the United States is classified (under title 10, United States Code (see above)) as the organized federal reserve military force Under federal control, the National Guard of the United States can be called up for active duty by the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, many National Guard units have served overseas (under the Total Force Policy of 1973 which effectively combined the National Guard with the armed forces making them regular troops.) This can lead to problems for states that also face internal emergencies while the Guard is deployed overseas. To address such issues, many of the states, such as New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
also have organized state "militia" forces or State Guards
State Defense Forces
State defense forces in the United States are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government; they are partially regulated by the National Guard Bureau but they are not a part of the Army National Guard of the United States...
which are under the control of the governor of a state, however many of these "militia" also act as a reserve for the National Guard and are thus a part of it (varies from state to state depending on individual state statutory laws). New York and Ohio also have active naval militia
Naval militia
A naval militia in the United States is a reserve military organization administered under the authority of a state government. It is often composed of Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard reservists, retirees and volunteers. They are distinguishable from the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a...
s, and a few other states have on-call or proposed ones. In 1990, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Perpich v. Department of Defense that the Federal government has plenary power over the National Guard, and greatly reduced (to the point of nonexistence) the state government's ability to withhold consent to Federal deployments and training missions of the National Guard.
State Defense Forces
Since the Militia Act of 1903 Many States have created and maintained a Reserve Military Force known as The State Defense Forces (Some States refer to them as State Military Reserve, State Guard, or Foot Guard). They were created to assist, support and augment National Guard forces during peacetime conditions. Also during the call up of National Guard forces for wartime deployments, State Defense Forces can be used to assume the full military responsibilities of the State. Their mission includes the defense of the State and the enforcement of military orders when ordered by their Governor.Throughout the 20th Century, State Defense Forces were used in every major war. New York Guard Soldiers patrolled and secured The Water Aqueduct of New York, Mass Transit Areas, and were even deployed to France to assist in Logistical operations in World War I. Texas State Guard Soldiers suppressed a riot and maintained peace and order in Texas throughout World War II.
Today State Defense Forces continue to assist, support and augment The National Guard of The State. They provide logistical, administration, medical, transportation, security, & ceremonial assistance. Some States have provided additional support such as The New York State Defense Force (New York Guard) providing its Soldiers to help support and augment The National Guard CERFP Team. The California State Military Reserve provides The National Guard with Soldiers to assist with Military Police training and The Alaska State Defense Force constantly provides Armed Military Police troops to assist with the Security of Alaska.
The reserve militia
All able bodied men, 17 to 45 of age, are ultimately eligible to be called up into military service and belong to the class known as the Reserve Militia, also known as the Unorganized Militia (10 USC). Able bodied men who are not eligible for inclusion in the reserve militia pool are those aliens not having declared their intent to become citizens of the United States (10 USC 311) and former regular component veterans of the armed forces who have reached the age of 64 (32 USC 313). All female citizens who are members of National Guard units are also included in the reserve militia pool (10 USC 311).Other persons who are exempt from call to duty (10 USC 312) and are not therefore in the reserve militia pool include:
- The Vice President (also constitutionally the President of the Senate, that body which confirms the appointment of senior armed forces officers made by the Commander in Chief).
- The judicial and executive officers of the United States, the several States and Territories, and Puerto Rico.
- Members of the armed forces, except members who are not on active duty.
- Customhouse clerks.
- Persons employed by the United States in the transmission of mail.
- Workmen employed in armories, arsenals, and naval shipyards of the United States.
- Pilots on navigable waters.
- Mariners in the sea service of a citizen of, or a merchant in, the United States.
Many individual states have additional statutes describing their residents as part of the state militia; for example Washington law specifies all able-bodied citizens or intended citizens over the age of eighteen as members of the state militia, as explicitly distinct from the National Guard and Washington State Guard.
The Ludlow massacre
In 1914, in Ludlow, ColoradoLudlow, Colorado
Ludlow is a ghost town in Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. It was famous as the site of the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. The town site is nestled at the entrance to a canyon in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It is located along the western side of Interstate 25...
, the militia was called out to calm the situation during a coal mine strike, but the sympathies of the militia leaders allied with company management resulted in the deaths of 17 people
Ludlow massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914....
.
Modern citizen-militia organizations
Within the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from approximately 1992, there have been a number of private organizations that call themselves militia or unorganized militia. Some believe they are struggling against a cultural opposition, notably the New World Order
New World Order (conspiracy)
In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
.
These private militia groups have are not linked with State or Federal Government organizations or military forces.
See also
- Colonial American military historyColonial American military historyColonial American military history is the military record of the Thirteen Colonies from their founding to the American Revolution in 1775. - Rangers :...
- Irregular militaryIrregular militaryIrregular military refers to any non-standard military. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used....
- Nauvoo LegionNauvoo LegionThe Nauvoo Legion was a militia originally organized by the Latter Day Saints to defend the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, . To curry political favor with the ambiguously-political Saints, the Illinois state legislature granted Nauvoo a liberal city charter that gave the Nauvoo Legion extraordinary...
- New World Order (conspiracy)New World Order (conspiracy)In conspiracy theory, the term New World Order or NWO refers to the emergence of a totalitarian one-world government.The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an...
- Project MegiddoProject MegiddoProject Megiddo was a report researched and written by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director Louis Freeh. Released on October 20, 1999, the report named followers of white supremacy, Christian Identity, the militia movement, Black Hebrew Israelites, and apocalyptic cults...
- The Turner DiariesThe Turner DiariesThe Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
Historic
- Anti-Federalist PapersAnti-Federalist PapersThe Anti-Federalist Papers are a collection of articles, written in opposition to the ratification of the 1787 United States Constitution. Unlike the Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution, the authors of these articles, mostly operating under pen names, were not engaged in a...
- Federalist PapersFederalist PapersThe Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...
- Militia Act of 1792Militia Act of 1792The Militia Act of 1792 was a series of statutes enacted by the second United States Congress in 1792. The act provided for the President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.-History:...
- Militia Act of 1903Militia Act of 1903The National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the National Guard of the United States established by the United States Congress as a joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force. It was created by the Militia Act of 1903...
- National Defense Act of 1916National Defense Act of 1916The National Defense Act of 1916, , provided for an expanded army during peace and wartime, fourfold expansion of the National Guard, the creation of an Officers' and an Enlisted Reserve Corps, plus the creation of a Reserve Officers' Training Corps in colleges and universities...
- National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933
- Total Force Policy of 1973
- United States ConstitutionUnited States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
Further reading
- Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride (1994) ISBN 0-19-508847-6
- Newland, Samuel J. The Pennsylvania militia: Defending the Commonwealth and the nation, 1669-1870 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs (2002)
- Singletary, Otis, Negro militia and Reconstruction, Austin: University of Texas Press. (1957) ISBN 0-313-24573-8
- Smith, Joshua M. "The Yankee Soldier's Might: The District of Maine and the Reputation of the Massachusetts Militia, 1800-1812," New England Quarterly LXXXIV no. 2 (June, 2011), 234-264.
- Stentiford, Barry M. "The Meaning of a Name: The Rise of the National Guard and the End of a Town Militia," Journal of Military History, July 2008, Vol. 72 Issue 3, pp 727-754
External links
- SGAUS - State Guard Association of the United States
- David C. Munn's scholarly work: Battles and skirmishes of the American Revolution in New Jersey
- Virginia Defense Force Black Horse Brigade
Footnotes
