Militia (United States)

[4][5] The new Constitution empowered Congress to "organize, arm, and discipline" this national military force, leaving significant control in the hands of each state government.

[12][needs context] Congress chose to do this in the interests of organizing reserve military units which were not limited in deployment by the strictures of its power over the constitutional militia, which can be called forth only "to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions."

Subsequently, since approximately 1665, militia has taken the meaning "a military force raised from the civilian population of a country or region, especially to supplement a regular army in an emergency, frequently as distinguished from mercenaries or professional soldiers".

Just prior to the American Revolutionary War, on October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, observing the British military buildup, deemed their militia resources to be insufficient: the troop strength, "including the sick and absent, amounted to about seventeen thousand men ... this was far short of the number wanted, that the council recommended an immediate application to the New England governments to make up the deficiency":[22] ... they recommended to the militia to form themselves into companies of minute-men, who should be equipped and prepared to march at the shortest notice.

Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows ... if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter.

Tensions came to a head at the end of the war when the Continental Army officers demanded pensions and set up the Society of the Cincinnati to honor their own wartime deeds.

The Militia Act of 1792[32] clarified whom the militia consists of: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia, by the Captain or Commanding Officer of the company, within whose bounds such citizen shall reside, and that within twelve months after the passing of this Act.At the time of the drafting of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, a political sentiment existed in the newly formed United States involving suspicion of peacetime armies not under civilian control.

(Source I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789) However, during his presidency, after enduring the failures of the militia in the War of 1812, Madison came to favor the maintenance of a strong standing army[citation needed].

[121] In Pennsylvania, John Smiley told the ratifying convention that "Congress may give us a select militia which will in fact be a standing army", and worried that, [p.34] with this force in hand, "the people in general may be disarmed".

"Note: In Federalist Paper 29 Hamilton argued the inability to train the whole Militia made select corps inevitable and, like Madison, paid it no concern.

Two days before his death, in a letter to General Alexander Hamilton, George Washington wrote: "The establishment of a Military Academy upon a respectable and extensive basis has ever been considered by me as an object of primary importance to this country; and while I was in the chair of government, I omitted no proper opportunity of recommending it in my public speeches, and otherwise to the attention of the legislature.

"[36] In 1802, the federal military academy at West Point was established, in part to rectify the failings of irregular training inherent in a States-based militia system.

[41] Militias fared better and proved more reliable when protected behind defensive entrenchments and fixed fortifications, using guerrilla tactics such as firing from behind cover, being reinforced with Regular armed forces, or a little bit of all those factors.

The Regulars and militia harassed the British army by firing at them from behind stone fences, trees, and whatever cover they could find before retreating to their entrenched fortified defense.

[45] A Mississippi town history described their militia of the 1840s: "The company musters of the citizen soldiers were held four times a year...After a brief parade, which consisted in a blundering execution of unwarlike antics, these men would start drinking and usually several fights occurred.

"[46] Responding to criticisms of failures of the militia, Adjutant General William Sumner wrote an analysis and rebuttal in a letter to John Adams, May 3, 1823: The disasters of the militia may be ascribed chiefly, to two causes, of which the failure to train the men is a principle one; but, the omission to train the officers is as so much greater, that I think the history of its conduct, where it has been unfortunate, will prove that its defects are attributable, more to their want of knowledge or the best mode of applying the force under their authority to their attainment of their object than to all others.

[49]Due to rising tensions between Latter-day Saints and their Missourian neighbors, in 1838, General David R. Atchison, the commander of the state militia of Northwestern Missouri, ordered Samuel Bogart to "prevent, if possible, any invasion of Ray County by persons in arms whatever".

The confrontation between these two county militias (Ray and Caldwell) became known as the Battle of Crooked River and is a primary cause for Governor Lilburn Boggs issuing Missouri Executive Order 44.

During the violent political confrontations in the Kansas Territory involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffians" elements, the militia was called out to enforce order on several occasions,[53] notably during the incidents referred to as the Wakarusa War.

In February 1862, General McCulloch issued a proclamation from Fayetteville requesting that "every man turn out and form companies, and rally to meet the advancing enemy".

This recruiting method succeeded in supplying several new mounted companies which participated in resisting Union General Steele's Camden Expedition in the spring of 1864.

The Home Guard of the several states of the Confederacy during the American Civil War included all able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 50 who were exempt from Confederate service, excepting only the governor and other officials.

They also were sent to guard the Overland Trail, keep the Mormons under observation by the establishment of Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, and fought a campaign against the Shoshone culminating in the Battle of Bear River.

The second group were commonly referred to as the (St. Louis) Home Guard, and their creation was criticized as these regiments exceeded the requirement for Missouri volunteers under the Militia Act of 1792.

In Reconstruction Louisiana, the Knights of the White Camelia, the Ku Klux Klan, Swamp Fox Rangers, and a couple other paramilitary groups sought to counter official governments.

[66]The activity of the official black militia, and the unofficial illegal white rifle clubs, typically peaked in the autumn surrounding elections.

Reaction to this riot was mixed, with the local Democrats upset at the influx of federal troops that followed, and the Northern press expressing outrage: "Once more, as always, it is the Negroes that are slaughtered while the whites escape.

[citation needed] In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg.

[73][failed verification] The National Guard may be called up for active duty by the state governors or territorial commanding generals to help respond to domestic emergencies and disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.

Able-bodied men who are not eligible for inclusion in the reserve militia pool are those aliens not having declared their intent to become citizens of the United States (10 USC 246).