A Quote by Alexander Hamilton

The President, and government, will only control the militia when a part of them is in the actual service of the federal government, else, they are independent and not under the command of the president or the government. The states would control the militia, only when called out into the service of the state, and then the governor would be commander in chief where enumerated in the respective state constitution.
The president is commander-in-chief of the army and navy and of the state militia when called into the service of the United States. He holds this power in time of peace as well as in time of war.
The militia is a voluntary force not associated or under the control of the States except when called out; [ when called into actual service] a permanent or long standing force would be entirely different in make-up and call.
Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress? Of what service would militia be to you when, most probably, you will not have a single musket in the state? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not provide them.
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm . . . But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity.
The tenth amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly given in the Constitution. I think the federal government's gone way beyond that. The Constitution never said that you could have a Federal Reserve that would have $2.8 trillion in assets. We've gotten out of control.
It is federal, because it is the government of States united in a political union, in contradistinction to a government of individuals, that is, by what is usually called, a social compact. To express it more concisely, it is federal and not national because it is the government of a community of States, and not the government of a single State or Nation.
The federal government overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level.
When I joined the Supreme Court in 1975, both state and federal judges accepted the Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Miller as having established that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms was possessed only by members of the militia and applied only to weapons used by the militia.
It [the Constitution] didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can't do to you, it says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted.
State constitutions typically provide that the state first has to service its debt, then make it pension payments, and then pay for services. What we don't know is whether that order will be enforced. And ultimately, the busted state is going to be looking to the federal government for a bailout. Think Greece, but on a much bigger scale.
The president of the United States is the commander in chief, and the people who work with him at the National Security Council are his arm in working with the Defense Department. And, quite frankly, they have responsibility for all of the government. We are one component of the government.
What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
Generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the state or federal government must do on your behalf.
The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government's involvement at all.
National security, the government is in charge of that. And you better have a president that understands the threats we [the state] face and what we have to do about it and if you can't articulate that as a candidate, you cannot be commander-in-chief.
Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.
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