The Constitution of the United States makes the president, indeed, commander-in-chief, but he cannot enlist a man, or pay a dollar for his support, without the previous appropriation by congress, to which the constitution gives "power to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces," and to which it denies the authority of making any appropriation for the support of the national forces for a longer term than two years. The importance of this dependence of the army upon the civil power has been felt by all parties. While the people are bent on submitting the army to the legislature, the governments, which in the late struggles were anxious to grant as little liberty as possible, always endeavored to exclude the army from the obligation of taking the constitutional oath. Constitutional oaths, like other political oaths, are indeed no firm guarantee in times of civil disturbance; but where circumstances are such that people must start in the career of freedom with an enacted constitution, it is natural and necessary that the army should take the oath of fidelity to the fundamental law, like any other persons employed in public service, especially where the oath of allegiance to the monarch continues. The oath, when taken, we have already admitted, does not furnish any great security; but in this, as in so many other cases, the negative assumes a very great and distinct importance, although the positive may be destitute of any direct weight. The refusal of this oath shows distinctly that the executive does not intend frankly to enter on the path of civil freedom. This was lately the case in Prussia, when it was the endeavor of the people to establish constitutional liberty. The Declaration of Independence says: "He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures It is enumerated as a radical grievance, plain and palpable to every Anglican mind. Immediately after, the declaration significantly adds: "He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power." This "affected" is striking. The attempt of doing it, though the term affected indicates the want of success, is counted as a grievance sufficient to warrant, among others, an extinction of allegiance. Of the twenty-seven grievances enumerated in the declaration as justification for a revolution, three relate to the army.' Dr. Samuel Johnson, not biased, as the reader well knows, in favor of popular liberties, nevertheless showed that he was bred in England, when he speaks of "the greatest of political evils-the necessity of ruling by immediate force." There is, however, a greater evil still-the ruling by immediate force when it is not necessary or against the people. Standing armies are not only dangerous to civil liberty because directly depending upon the executive. They have the additional evil effect that they infuse into the whole nationespecially when they are national armies, so that the old soldiers return continually to the people-a spirit directly opposite to that which ought to be the general spirit of a free people devoted to self-government. A nation of freemen stands in need of a pervading spirit of obedience to the laws; an army teaches and must teach a spirit of prompt obedience to orders. Habits of disobedience and of contempt for the citizen are produced, and a view of government is induced which is contrary to liberty, self-reliance, self-government. Command ought to rule in an army; self-development of law and self-sustaining order ought to pervade a free people. A German king, in one of his throne speeches, when a liberal spirit had already manifested itself in that country, said: "The will of one must ultimately rule in the government, even as it is in the camp." This shows exactly what we mean. The entire state, with its jural and civic character, is compared to a camp, and ruinous inferences are drawn from the comparison. 1 A remarkable debate took place in the British commons, in April, 1856, when Mr. Cowan brought under the notice of the house the billeting system pursued in Scotland, according to which "militia and troops of the line are billeted upon private houses in Scotland." "It is an intolerable grievance." Redress was obtained. 2 Considerations on the Corn Laws, by Dr. Samuel Johnson. The officers of a large army are in the habit of contemptuously speaking of the "babbling lawyers." Les légistes have always been spoken of by the French officers in the same tone as "those lawyers" were talked of by Strafford and Laud. Where the people worship the army an opinion is engendered as if really courage in battle were the highest phase of humanity; and the army, in turn, more than aught else, leads to the worship of one man-so detrimental to liberty. All debate is in common times odious to the soldiers. They habitually ridicule parliamentary debates of long duration. Act, act, is their cry, which in that case means: Command and obey are the two poles round which public life ought to turn. A man who has been a soldier himself, and has seen the inspiring and rallying effect which a distinctive uniform may have in battle-the desire not to disgrace the coat, is not likely to fall in with the sweeping denunciations of the uniform, now frequently uttered by the "peacemen;" but it is true that the uniform, if constantly worn, and if the army is large, as on the continent of Europe, greatly aids in separating the army from the people, and in increasing that alienating esprit de corps which ought not to exist where the people value their liberty. Modern despotism carefully fosters this spirit of separation, because it relies mainly on the standing army. The insolence of the officers of Napoleon I. rose to a frightful. degree, even in France itself; and many startling events have lately occurred in that country, showing how far Napoleon III. indulges his officers in insulting and maltreating the citizen.' No security whatever arises from the fact that the army is "democratic" in its character. On the contrary, the danger is only the greater, because it makes the army apparently a part of the people; the people themselves look to it for one of the careers in which they may expect promotion, (not quite unlike the church in the middle ages,) while, in spite of all this, the army becomes a secluded caste, essentially opposed to the aspirations of the people. No better illustration is afforded 1 in history, of this important fact, than by the present state of things in France. Nor is the case better, when the army is the ruling body, and its officers belong exclusively to the country nobility, in a country where every son of a nobleman is likewise. noble, and a large, poor nobility is the consequence. A numerous and poor nobility is one of the most injurious and ruinous things in a state. It leads infallibly to that spirit which tries to make up by arrogance what it does not possess in wealth or substance, which considers the state as an institution made for the provision of the poor noblemen, and disregards the true and the high interests of the nation—a state of things which revealed itself, for Prussia, in the terrible disaster at Jena, in 1806, and which has received in that and other German countries, of late, the distinct appellation of Junkerthum. Standing armies, therefore, wherever necessary—and they are necessary at present, as well as far preferable to the medieval militia―ought to be as small as possible, and completely dependent on the legislature for their existence. Such standing armies as we see in the different countries of the European continent are wholly incompatible with civil liberty, by their spirit, number and cost. A perfect dependence of the forces, however, requires more than short appropriations, and limited authority of the executive over them. It is further necessary-because they are under strict discipline, and therefore under a strong influence of the executive-that these forces, and especially the army, be not allowed to become deliberative bodies, and that they be not allowed to vote as military bodies. Wherever these guarantees have been disregarded, liberty has fallen. These are rules of importance at all times, but especially in countries where, unfortunately, very large standing armies exist. In France, the army consists of half a million, yet universal suffrage gave it the right to vote, and the army as well as the navy did vote to justify the second of December, as well as to make Louis Napoleon Bonaparte emperor. This may be in harmony with French "equality;" it may be democratic, if this term be taken in the sense in which it is wholly unconnected with liberty; all that we-people with whom liberty is more than a theory, or something æsthetically longed for, and who learn liberty as the artisan learns his craft, by handling it-all that we know is, that it is not liberty; that it is directly destructive of it.1 It was formerly the belief that standing armies were incompatible with liberty, and a very small one was granted to the King of England with much reluctance; and in France we have a gigantic standing army, itself incompatible with liberty, for whom in addition the right of voting is claimed. The Bill of Rights, and our own Declaration of Independence, show how large a place the army occupied in the minds. of the patriotic citizens and statesmen who drew up those historic documents, the reasons they had to mention it repeatedly, and of erecting fences against it. Military bodies ought not to be allowed even the right of petitioning, as bodies. History fully proves the danger, that must be guarded against.2 English history, as well as that of other nations, furnishes us with instructive instances. A wise medium is necessary; for an army without thorough 1 The French soldiers vote at present, whenever universal suffrage is appealed to-not with the citizens, but for themselves, and the way in which this military voting generally takes place is very remarkable. 2 I do not feel authorized to say that the Anglicans consider it an elementary guarantee of liberty not to be subjected to the obligation of serving in the army, but certain it is that as matters now stand, and as our feelings now are, we should not consider it compatible with individual liberty; indeed, it would be considered as intolerable oppression, if we were forced to spend part of our lives in the standing army. It would not be tolerated. The feeling would be as strong against the French system of conscription, which drafts by lot a certain number of young men for the army, and permits those who have been drafted to furnish substitutes, as against the Prussian system, which obliges every one, from the highest to the lowest, to serve a certain time in the standing army, with the exception only of a few "mediatized princes." The Anglicans, therefore, may be said to be at present unequivocally in favor of enlisted standing armies, where standing armies are necessary. |