5222. MILITIA, Payment of Ohio.—
If we suffer the question of paying the [Ohio]
militia embodied to be thrown on their Legislature,
it will excite acrimonious debate in
that body, and they will spread the same dissatisfaction
among their constituents, and
finally it will be forced back on us through
Congress. Would it not, therefore, be better
to say to Mr. Kirker, that the General Government
is fully aware that emergencies
which appertain to them will sometimes arise
so suddenly as not to give time for consulting
them, before the State must get into
action; that the expenses in such cases, incurred
on reasonable grounds, will be met
by the General Government; and that in the
present case [Burr's Conspiracy], although
it appears there was no real ground for embodying
the militia, and that more certain
measures for ascertaining the truth should
have been taken before embodying them, yet
an unwillingness to damp the public spirit
of our countrymen, and the justice due to the
individuals who came forward in defence of
their country, and could not know the
grounds on which they were called, have
determined us to consider the call as justifiable,
and to defray the expenses.—
To General Dearborn. Washington ed. v, 206.
Ford ed., ix, 22.
(W.
Oct. 1807)
