To be more safe,
they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.
The institutions chiefly alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and the
correspondent appendages of military establishments. Standing armies, it
is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is
therefore inferred that they may exist under it.[1] Their existence,
however, from the very terms of the proposition, is, at most,
problematical and uncertain. But standing armies, it may be replied,
must inevitably result from a dissolution of the Confederacy. Frequent
war and constant apprehension, which require a state of as constant
preparation, will infallibly produce them. The weaker States or
confederacies would first have recourse to them, to put themselves upon
an equality with their more potent neighbors. They would endeavor to
supply the inferiority of population and resources by a more regular and
effective system of defense, by disciplined troops, and by
fortifications. They would, at the same time, be necessitated to
strengthen the executive arm of government, in doing which their
constitutions would acquire a progressive direction toward monarchy.
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