"
In drafting the militia law of 1792, in accord with the recommendations
of Knox, the President was authorised to call out the militia of any
State "whenever the laws of the United States should be opposed by
combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings." This efficient clause was productive of a
prolonged debate in each branch and a conference between the two. Its
opponents made various efforts to substitute the Legislature of a State
as the agency for calling out the militia, to require a previous notice
to the President from a justice that the laws could not be enforced,
and to have a session of Congress intervene before the President could
march the militia of one State into another. The fear of giving the
central power an excuse for maintaining a standing army had led the
framers of the Constitution to incorporate a clause placing the militia
at national service only for the purpose of executing its laws,
suppressing insurrection, and repelling invasion. Of these emergencies,
Congress was to be the judge. Should the dangerous authority now be
given over to the Executive? The long intermissions between sessions
of Congress made such delegating imperative.
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