University of Virginia Library

5209. MILITIA, Maintenance of.—

[The maintenance of] a well-disciplined militia,
our best reliance in peace and for the first
moments of war, till regulars may relieve
them, I deem [one of the] essential principles
of our government and, consequently
[one] which ought to shape its administration.—
First Inaugural Address. Washington ed. viii, 4. Ford ed., viii, 4.
(1803)