power over the militia, in the same body, ought, as far as possible, to take away the inducement and the pretext, to such unfriendly institutions. If the federal government can command the aid of the militia in those emergencies, which call for the military arm in support of the civil magistrate, it can the better dispense with the employment of a different kind of force. If it cannot avail itself of the former, it will be obliged to recur to the latter. To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence, than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.
In order to cast an odium upon the power of calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, it has been remarked, that there is no where any provision in the proposed constitution for requiring the aid of the posse comitatus, to assist the magistrate in the execution of his duty; whence it has been inferred, that military force was intended to be his only auxiliary. There is a striking incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very favourable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors. The same persons who tell us in one breath, that the powers of the federal government will be despotic and unlimited, inform us in the next, that it has not authority sufficient even to call out the posse comitatus. The latter, fortunately, is as much short of the truth, as the former exceeds it. It would be as absurd to doubt, that a right to pass all laws necessary and proper to execute its declared powers, would include that of requiring the assistance of the citizens to the officers who may be intrusted with the execution of those laws; as it would be to believe, that a right to enact laws necessary and proper for the imposition and collection of taxes, would involve that of varying the rules of descent, and of the alienation of landed property, or of abolishing the trial by jury in cases relating to it. It being therefore evident, that the supposition of a want of power to require the aid of the posse comitatus is entirely destitute of colour, it will follow, that the conclusion which has been drawn
