liable for their acts at the common law." It is not until
1679 under Charles II, the very year of the Habeas Corpus Act, that
standing armies are definitely established in England, and the Mutiny
Act concerning the government of the army was first passed. The
struggle of the people with the army under Charles I may be well shown
by these quotations from the Petition of Right in 1628:

" ... of late great companies of soldiers and mariners have been
dispersed into divers counties of the realm, and the inhabitants
against their wills have been compelled to receive them into their
houses and there to suffer them to sojourn, against the laws and
customs of this realm ..."

" ... certain persons have been appointed commissioners, with power
and authority to proceed ... according to ... martial law ... and by
such summary course and order as is agreeable to martial law, and
as is used in armies in time of war, to proceed to the trial and
condemnation of such offenders, and them to cause to be executed and
put to death according to the law martial. By pretext whereof some of
your Majesty's subjects have been by some of the said commissioners
put to death, when and where, if by the laws and statutes of the land
they had deserved death, by the same laws and statutes also they might
and by no other ought, to have been judged and executed."

And by the Bill of Rights of 1689:

"That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their
defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law."

"That the raising or keeping a standing army, within the kingdom in
time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against
law."

Now it often happens that a great constitutional principle established
with some difficulty in England is amplified and perfected by the
bolder statement in American constitutions. Thus, the Virginia Bill of
Rights, 1776, has the perfect definition:

"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people,
trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free
State; that standing armies in time of peace should be avoided as
dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be
under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Similar declarations are found in the Declaration of Independence the
same year, and the Massachusetts Bill of Rights four years later; but
the Virginia definition, being the work of Thomas Jefferson, is both