tinued as long as the danger which occasioned their being raised continues? This would be to admit that they might be kept up in time of peace, against threatening or impending danger; which would be at once to deviate from the literal meaning of the prohibition, and to introduce an extensive latitude of construction. Who shall judge of the continuance of the danger? This must undoubtedly be submitted to the National Government; and the matter would then be brought to this issue, that the National Government, to provide against apprehended danger, might in the first instance raise troops, and might afterwards keep them on foot, as long as they supposed the peace or safety of the community was in any degree of jeopardy. It is easy to perceive, that a discretion so latitudinary as this would afford ample room for eluding the force of the provision.
The supposed utility of a provision of this kind can only be founded on the supposed probability, or at least possibility, of a combination between the Executive and the Legislative, in some scheme of usurpation. Should this at any time happen, how easy would it be to fabricate pretences of approaching danger! Indian hostilities, instigated by Spain or Britain, would always be at hand. Provocations to produce the desired appearances might even be given to some foreign power, and appeased again by timely concessions. If we can reasonably presume such a combination to have been formed, and that the enterprise is warranted by a sufficient prospect of success, the army when once raised, from whatever cause, or on whatever pretext, may be applied to the execution of the project.
If, to obviate this consequence, it should be resolved to extend the prohibition to the raising of armies in time of peace, the United States would then exhibit the most extraordinary spectacle which the world has yet seen,—that of a nation incapacitated by its Consti-
