Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/73

agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each state for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such state;" which requisitions were to be binding; and thereupon the legislature of each state were to appoint the regimental officers, raise the men, and clothe, arm, and equip them in a soldier-like manner, at the expense of the United States.^[1] The experience of the whole country, during the revolutionary war, established, to the satisfaction of every statesman, the utter inadequacy and impropriety of this system of requisition. It was equally at war with economy, efficiency, and safety.^[2] It gave birth to a competition between the states, which created a kind of auction of men. In order to furnish the quotas required of them, they outbid each other, till bounties grew to an enormous and insupportable size. On this account many persons procrastinated their enlistment, or enlisted only for short periods. Hence, there were but slow and scanty levies of men in the most critical emergencies of our affairs; short enlistments at an unparalleled expense; and continual fluctuations in the troops, ruinous to their discipline, and subjecting the public safety frequently to the perilous crisis of a disbanded army. Hence also arose those oppressive expedients for raising men, which were occasionally practised, and which nothing, but the enthusiasm of liberty, could have induced the people to endure.^[3] The burthen was also very

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1. Art. 9; Art. 7.
2. 1 American Museum, 270, 273, 283; 5 Marshall's Life of Washington, App. note 1.
3. The Federalist, No. 22, 23.—The difficulties connected with this subject will appear still more striking in a practical view from the letters of General Washington, and other public documents at the period. See 5 Marshall's Life of Washington, ch. 3, p. 125, 126; ch. 5, p. 212 to 220; ch. 6, p. 238 to 248. See 6 Journals of Congress in 1780 passim. Circular Letter of Congress, in May, 1779; 5 Jour, of Cong. 224 to 231.

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