If, in addition
to this immense advantage, the ambition of the members should be
stimulated by the separate and independent possession of military
forces, it would afford too strong a temptation and too great a facility
to them to make enterprises upon, and finally to subvert, the
constitutional authority of the Union. On the other hand, the liberty of
the people would be less safe in this state of things than in that which
left the national forces in the hands of the national government. As far
as an army may be considered as a dangerous weapon of power, it had
better be in those hands of which the people are most likely to be
jealous than in those of which they are least likely to be jealous. For
it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the
people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights
are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least
suspicion.
The framers of the existing Confederation, fully aware of the danger to
the Union from the separate possession of military forces by the States,
have, in express terms, prohibited them from having either ships or
troops, unless with the consent of Congress.
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