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Chapter 7 and the corresponding Ch. 12 in Part Three of the book present the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, with this chapter looking closely at Antifederalist objections to the military clauses of the US Constitution. The opponents of the Constitution never accepted the Federalist claim that the independence, liberty, and prosperity of the American republic depended on the creation and maintenance of a peace establishment consisting of regular troops, and did not believe that the union faced as serious threats as the Federalists claimed, keeping to the view that standing armies in time of peace were a threat to liberty. Both ancient and modern history had taught that “almost all” nations in Europe and Asia had lost their liberty because of the establishment of a standing army, so it hardly made sense for Americans to imitate them. To Antifederalists, it seemed that if the military clauses of the Constitution were adopted and the Federalists realized their plan to raise a standing army, the people of America would soon find that the Constitution's supporters would make use of it on the domestic rather than the international scene. The Antifederalist criticism of the army clauses therefore said little about commercial treaties and the importance of military strength in international relations; instead, they approached the issue from the traditional British Country perspective, claiming that standing armies in time of peace posed a threat to liberty, that transfer of military power from the states to Congress threatened both the state militia and the state assemblies, and that a standing army would make it possible for the national government to deprive people of their property without their consent by levying and collecting arbitrary taxes – in other words, a standing army in a time of peace was to the Antifederalists an objection to the centralization of power at the expense of the people's ability to withhold consent through their control of strong local institutions.

Chapter 8 and the corresponding Ch. 13 in Part Three of the book show how the Federalists responded to the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, thereby creating an understanding of the kind of state that was proper to American conditions. In their defense of the military clauses of the US Constitution, the Federalists argued for the need to maintain a peace establishment of regulars, also arguing that the national government had to possess an unrestricted power over mobilization; in Federalist minds, both military professionalism and the unlimited power over mobilization were necessary to preserve the independence, liberties, and interests of the American nation. The Antifederalists, by contrast, raised objections to the right of Congress to create and maintain a standing army in time of peace, and were also concerned about the unrestricted nature of Congress's military powers. Their objections can be subsumed under three headings: first, they believed that the new system of government would change the administration of the laws from an administration based on the consent of the governed to an administration based on coercion or the threat of force; second, they believed that the national government would create a large army while neglecting the state militia, so that as a consequence, the national government would become independent of the people and be able to establish tyrannical rule; and third, the critics of the Constitution believed that Congress had been granted too much power to interfere in the private lives of the citizens through its command over the militia. In the debate over ratification, the Federalists answered these objections, and in doing so, they argued that it was possible to create a strong state without abandoning traditional Anglo‐American ideals about free government; their answers are the subject of this chapter.

Explores the competition at the county level between whites and blacks over who should have a state-sponsored militia company granted by the governor. The chapter also examines the formation of black and white state-sponsored militia companies across Georgia after the Civil War. Presents the white view of the Johnson County Insurrection of 1875 and their use of the courthouse as a private space instead of a public space. These definitions caused whites to fear black political organizing during Reconstruction and beyond. Whites assumed that black political mobilization was automatically violent. Militia organizing was a competition over who would control the county. The alleged insurrection was one of those points of conflict and control with the militia company central to the event.

Defines independent and state-sponsored militia companies in post–Civil War Georgia and the United States and presents a history of the Independent militia in the United States, Canada, and Latin America before United States’ Reconstruction.

The task of creating a national government strong enough to defend the nation and suppress rebellion, but not strong enough to suppress Americans' liberty, created a huge problem for the delegates. Broad nationalists generally sought to broaden national and presidential powers in foreign and military affairs, while narrow nationalists pressed the Convention to leave substantial military power in the hands of the existing militias. State officials had to give permission to the national government to put down domestic rebellion. The delegates' compromises on treaties, declarations of war, and the appointment of ambassadors sought to balance the powers of the president and Congress. These compromises deliberately left some boundaries of national authority obscure while creating additional complexity in American policy-making.

This chapter investigates the development—particularly by the police—of white opposition to mob violence against blacks in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio from the 1890s to the 1930s. At the outset it details the methods deployed by local authorities to protect prisoners threatened with violence and the conditions required to trigger their appeals to state authorities for support, including the use of state militias (National Guard). Next it explores the responses of “ordinary” whites to these efforts. It then traces the efforts of state governments to curtail mob violence with legislation and of local authorities, especially the police, to offset their success in mitigating mob violence by appropriating mob tactics to control blacks themselves. Finally, it assesses the implications of its findings for the historiography of police violence (police brutality).

This chapter describes Article XVII of the Colorado Constitution, authorizing the state militia. The Article establishes and defines the militia, now called the Colorado National Guard. Section 2 requires that rules for the Guard conform to regulations governing the U.S. Army. Section 3 empowers the governor to appoint officers of the Guard. Section 4 requires the general assembly to maintain armories for safekeeping of weapons, military records, and “relics and banners of the state.” Section 5 exempts from “militia duty in time of peace,” persons having “conscientious scruples against bearing arms.” A statute limits this exemption to religious beliefs and combat services. It also exempts other classes: persons in essential public jobs and those with disabilities.

This chapter examines federalism as a form of government of the United States. It begins with an overview of the definition of federalism, with particular emphasis on geopolitical division, independence, and direct governance. It then considers whether federalism is a positive good or a tragic compromise before discussing a number of reasons to justify federalism, from protecting diversity to promoting civic republicanism and the so-called fiscal federalism, as well as allowing states to serve as a laboratory for novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country. It also looks at the “metaphysics” of the United States and concludes by analyzing what the U.S. Constitution says about state autonomy, with special reference to the Tenth Amendment, states' responsibility for running elections, the Senate, state militias, extradition, and regulation of alcohol.

This chapter discusses James Monroe, considered a stronger president than James Madison and known as a committed believer in the vital importance of a unitary executive structure. Regrettably, he did not always act on his beliefs. Monroe's support for the unitary executive and for the importance of administrative hierarchy became evident long before he assumed the presidency. He had also championed presidential control in military matters in 1815, when as head of the War Department he prepared a report for a Senate committee championing unilateral presidential control over the state militias once they had been called into the service of the United States. Monroe assumed the presidency in 1817, and his two terms in office were quite successful, with the result that the office regained some of the luster it had lost during Madison's indecisive and apprehensive eight years in office.

This epilogue examines how the Pullman Strike of 1894 exposed the Chicago Police Department's still quite limited ability to deal with a mass strike of such magnitude. The Pullman Strike was the largest and most important strike of the nineteenth century, with Chicago as its epicenter. It revealed as a failure George Pullman's attempt to apply a modified earlier version of order, based on the pre-police idea that a paternalistic system of organization could embed wage workers within an ordered system controlled by their employer. This strike also revealed the limits of police power, since the Chicago Police Department did not have the will or the force to break it. The Pullman Strike was primarily broken by the army, with the police department playing only a supporting role. The Pullman Strike also shows that municipal police departments were just one set of institutions within the broader matrix of state power, including the state militias and the military, that was built to maintain the businessmen's order in the nineteenth century.

This chapter discusses the circumstances of Ramseur's promotion to the state militia after his resignation from the U.S. Army. It reports that Ramseur applied for a commission in the new Confederate army. The chapter notes that on the way south, Ramseur stopped to see his mentor, Daniel Harvey Hill, who was concluding his tenure as superintendent at the North Carolina Military Institute in Charlotte, and quickly received an appointment as first lieutenant. The chapter further notes that Ramseur was offered a more attractive opportunity on the way to his posting in the Department of Mississippi. It reports that he was immediately elected as captain of the eponymous light battery (Company A, Tenth North Carolina State Troops), and that, within a month's time, he was promoted to the rank of major in the state militia.