exclusion of military establishments in time of peace. Though in speculative minds, it may arise from a contemplation of the nature and tendency of such institutions, fortified by the events that have happened in other ages and countries; yet, as a national sentiment, it must be traced to those habits of thinking which we derive from the nation, from which the inhabitants of these states have in general sprung.
In England, for a long time after the Norman conquest, the authority of the monarch was almost unlimited. Inroads were gradually made upon the prerogrative, in favour of liberty, first by the barons, and afterwards by the people, till the greatest part of its most formidable pretensions became extinct. But it was not till the revolution in 1688, which elevated the prince of Orange to the throne of Great Britain, that English liberty was completely triumphant. As incident to the undefined power of making war, an acknowledged prerogative of the crown, Charles II had, by his own authority, kept on foot in time of peace a body of 5,000 regular troops. And this number James 11, increased to 30,000; who were paid out of his civil list. At the revolution, to abolish the exercise of so dangerous an authority, it became an article of the bill of rights then framed, that "raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless with the consent of parliament, was against law."
In that kingdom, when the pulse of liberty was at its highest pitch, no security against the danger of standing armies was thought requisite, beyond a prohibition of their being raised or kept up by the mere authority of the executive magistrate. The patriots, who effected that memorable revolution, were too temperate, and too well informed, to think of any restraint on the legislative discretion. They were aware, that a certain number of troops for guards and garrisons were indispensable; that no precise bounds could be set to the national exigencies; that a power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government; and that when they referred the exercise of that power to the judgment of
