Standing Army Quotes

Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs

The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.

To march over dead men, to hear without concern the groans of the wounded, I say few men can stand such scenes unless steeled by habit or fortified by military pride.

War is the sure result of the existence of armed men. That country which maintains a large standing army will sooner or later have a war. The man who prides himself on fisticuffs is going, some day, to meet a man who considers himself the better man, and they will test the issue.

That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State; that standing armies in time of peace should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

America must get off a permanent war footing.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

An armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics—that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe.

I do not like... the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land …. A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences

We regard the maintenance of a large standing army of mercenaries, known as the Pinkerton system, as a menace to our liberties, and we demand its abolition.

to supplement the local government in protecting his property when he enters into a contest with his employees.

In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.

It astonishes me to find... that so many of our countrymen... should be contented to live under a system which leaves to their governors the power of taking from them the trial by jury in civil cases, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce, the habeas corpus laws, and of yoking them with a standing army. This is a degeneracy in the principles of liberty

An army is a diversion of energy from the productive life of a nation.

Standing armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people.

You dare not—at least I hope you dare not—attempt a conscription to fill the ranks of your regular army.

Though it has been said … that a Standing-Army is necessary for the dignity and safety of America, yet freedom revolts at the idea, when … Despot, may draw out his dragoons to suppress the murmurs of a few, who may yet cherish those sublime principles …. Standing armies have been the nursery of vice and the bane of liberty from the Roman legions to the establishment of the artful Ximenes, and from the ruin of the Cortes of Spain, to the planting of the British cohorts in the capitals of America.

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a body distinct from the rest of the citizens ... They soon become attached to their officers and disposed to yield implicit obedience to their commands.

No state, without being soon exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members in arms and idleness.

I am for relying for internal defense on our militia solely till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have experienced; and not for a standing army in time of peace which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy which, by its own expenses and the eternal wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens and sink us under them.

A defenseless country cannot be secure.