America’s Border First

From the first moments of American history, our forefathers had strong thoughts on the matter of keeping a standing army in times of peace. Since the purpose of raising armies was to win wars, they thought that large armies in peace time constituted a great risk to a free people, equally willing to subjugate as to protect. 

One of the grievances lodged at King George in the Declaration of Independence was that “A standing army has been kept in these colonies, ever since the conclusion of the late war, without the consent of our assemblies.” James Madison remarked at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have always been the instruments of tyranny at home.” Despite these warnings, the United States decided in subsequent decades to retain larger and larger military forces, culminating in what Dwight D. Eisenhower correctly labeled the military-industrial complex.

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