most vague and general form,
supported only by bold assertions, without the appearance of argument;
without even the sanction of theoretical opinions; in contradiction to
the practice of other free nations, and to the general sense of America,
as expressed in most of the existing constitutions. The proprietary of
this remark will appear, the moment it is recollected that the objection
under consideration turns upon a supposed necessity of restraining
the LEGISLATIVE authority of the nation, in the article of military
establishments; a principle unheard of, except in one or two of our
State constitutions, and rejected in all the rest.

A stranger to our politics, who was to read our newspapers at the
present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported
by the convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions:
either that it contained a positive injunction, that standing armies
should be kept up in time of peace; or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE
the whole power of levying troops, without subjecting his discretion, in
any shape, to the control of the legislature.

If he came afterwards to peruse the plan itself, he would be surprised
to discover, that neither the one nor the other was the case; that the
whole power of raising armies was lodged in the LEGISLATURE, not in the
EXECUTIVE; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of
the representatives of the people periodically elected; and that instead
of the provision he had supposed in favor of standing armies, there was
to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification
even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the
appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period
than two years a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear
to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without
evident necessity.

Disappointed in his first surmise, the person I have supposed would be
apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally
say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic
declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that
this people, so jealous of their liberties, have, in all the preceding
models of the constitutions which they have established, inserted the
most precise and rigid precautions on this point, the omission of which,
in the new plan, has given birth to all this appreh