State Documents on Federal Relations/32
Extract from Governor Chittenden's Speech. October 23, 1813.
The importance of the subject of the militia will not fail to claim your deliberate consideration. I have always considered this force peculiarly adapted and exclusively assigned for the service and protection of the respective States; excepting in cases provided for by the national constitution, viz., to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasions. It never could have been contemplated by the framers of our excellent constitution, who, it appears, in the most cautious manner, guarded the sovereignty of the States, or by the States, who adopted it, that the whole body of the militia were, by any kind of magic, at once to be transformed into a regular army for the purpose of foreign conquest; and it is to be regretted, that a construction should have been given to the constitution, so peculiarly burdensome and oppressive to that important class of our fellow citizens.