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are subversive of the militia system. What would become of your divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and what would be the case of your brigade majors, and adjutants, your rosters and your rolls—if all the forms, regularity and order which belong to that system are to be despised and trampled upon?

Finally, sir, the orders are said to be dangerous to the liberties of the people. If the principle contended for is correct to day, it must be correct to morrow. If one president can give such instructions, so can another. And if they are to be obeyed, then any portion of the militia may at any time be selected and placed under the controul of any individual, subject to his discretion, to aid him in preventing what he may deem an opposition to the authority of government, &c. Let gentlemen of all parties duly weigh this subject, and then say if any thing can be more absolute or dangerous. If this principle is correct, sir, what necessity is there for drafting men, or raising volunteers? You have already a standing army, composed of the whole militia of the country.

Mr. Speaker,

COL. THATCHER.

As the house has voted not to adjourn, and there appears to be a disposition to take the question this evening, I shall confine myself to a course more limited than I intended. When gentlemen reflect upon the usages of other legislative bodies, when they recollect that the House of Representatives of the United States can be kept together all night to pass an additional embargo act, I hope they will discover no impatience on this occasion-and that they will allow us time to bring the whole subject before the house. But when, sir, I find no military man attempting to defend the late unprecedented orderswhen I see gentlemen of talents in the minority searching in vain for law or usage to justify this procedure it is rather because other gentlemen of the

committee, though they have defended the report with great correctness and perspicuity, have professed not to embrace the whole subject, than from any necessity of the case, that I address the house on this occasion. But, sir, we will endeavour to take a view of the objections raised to the report, and to examine such parts of the constitution and laws of the United States and of this commonwealth as seem most appli cable to this subject.

And first, sir, it may be observed that gentlemen have bottomed their defence of the executive upon the position that the president, being the comman der in chief of the militia of the United States, had, as such, a right to issue his orders to any officer of the militia. This, sir, is a gross errour in the outset. There is no such thing as militia of the United States. The constitution speaks of "the militia," and of “such parts of them as may be employed in the service of the United States." As in art. 1st, sect. 8th, "The Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia, to execute the laws of the Union, and suppress insurrections and repel invasions, to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, &c." (I quote this whole passage because I shall have occasion to refer to it again) and the constitution also speaks of "the militia of the several states," as in art. 2d, sect. 2d, "The president shall be commander in chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states when called into the actual service of the United States." Until the militia of the several states are called into the actual service of the United States, in a mode provided by Congress, which can be done only in certain cases, the president has no command over the militia. As my friend from Boston (Mr. Sargent) has said, until this is done, there is no more privity between the president and

an inferiour officer of Massachusetts, than there is between that gentleman and the dey of Algiers.

It will be admitted that the federal constitution was a compact between independent states, possessing the rights of sovereignty, jealous of their state powers, unwilling to yield more to the general government than was absolutely necessary for the purposes of the Union. There was no point of which the states were more tenacious than the right of bearing arms, and the appointment of the officers of their own militia; and we may add, no rights more strongly secured to the states by the constitution. So jealous were the states of this power to controul the militia, that they would not invest the president of the United States with authority to call forth the militia even in cases of the greatest emergency. We find by the section of the constitution already quoted, that Congress alone has the power to provide for calling out the militia of the several states, and only in certain cases. Gentlemen contend that Congress has so exercised this power as to authorize the president, and his substitutes, to call out the militia for certain purposes contemplated in the last act respecting what they have been pleased to call an embargo. The gentleman from Dorchester (Mr. Morton) has read a part of the sixth article of the constitution, viz. The "constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land." I will thank the gentleman to take with him also the twelfth article of the amendments to the constitution.

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"The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." All laws therefore which can constitutionally be made by the general government, must be founded on powers clearly vested in that government by the constitution.

This then being admitted, Mr. Speaker, and also that Congress alone has power "to provide for call

ing forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, "to suppress insurrections and repel invasions," let us inquire in what manner Congress has exercised this power-whether any of the cases in which the militia may be called forth, exist in Massachusetts, and if so, whether the requisitions of the law for calling out the militia have been complied with. With respect to the first point, we find that by a law of the United States, passed Feb. 28, 1795, entitled "An Act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," "whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed in any state by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals, by this act, it shall be lawful for the president of the United States to call forth the militia of such state, or of any other state or states, as may be necessary to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed, and the use of the militia so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress."

Sect. 3d, "Provided always," that whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the president, to use the military force hereby directed to be called forth, the president shall forthwith, " by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within a limited time.

In the 4th sect. we find that "no officer, non-commissioned officer or private of the militia, shall be compelled to serve more than three months, after his arrival at the place of rendezvous, in any one year, nor more than in due rotation with every other able bodied man of the same rank in the battalion to which he belongs."

The 9th sect. of this law ordains that the marshals of the several districts, and their deputies, shall have

the same powers in executing the laws of the United States, as sheriffs and their deputies in the several states, have by law, in executing the laws of the respective states."

This law repeals a former one upon the same subject, but the law which I have now cited is the only one now in force, in which Congress has exercised this power agreeably to the provisions of the constitution.

Do any of the cases in which the militia may by this law be called forth exist in this state? Have the laws of the United States been opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings? It will not be pretended that the least obstruction or impediment has been opposed to the courts of the United States or to their ordinary course of judicial proceedings in this commonwealth. Have the marshals or their deputies been resisted? Have there been combinations to oppose the government too powerful to be suppressed by the marshals, armed with the whole power of the sheriffs with the posse comitatus at their heels? No such thing is pretended. The gentleman from Worcester, (Mr. Bangs) indeed tells us that a man was taken from a vessel some time since by a few individuals in disguise, but he also informs us that he was almost immediately released; surely he will not say that this case was one contemplated by this law. Is it necessary "in the judgment of the president" "to use the military force directed by said law-to be called forth" in certain cases? Has he discovered any insurgents in Massachusetts? And has he, as he did in regard to certain people in Vermont, issued his proclamation to the poor deluded rebels of Massachusetts, ordering them to disperse, and go to their places of abode! "You all do know" that there has been no such thing. The gentleman from Boston has stated with what caution-with what moderation-with what delicacy-the militia was called

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