University of Virginia Library

539. ARMY, A standing.—[further continued] .

There are instruments so
dangerous to the rights of the nation, and
which place them so totally at the mercy of
their governors, that those governors,
whether legislative or executive, should be
restrained from keeping such instruments on
foot, but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument


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is a standing army.—
To David Humphreys. Washington ed. iii, 13. Ford ed., v, 90.
(P. 1789)