The Early American Militia: The Structure of Democracy and Freedom

The early settlers of the Thirteen Colonies, i.e., the settlers of the region that would become the United States, were faced with questions about how to provide for their own defense. Each colony, and each village within each colony, formed a militia unit. A ‘militia’ unit is a group of trained and armed citizens who are not professional soldiers, who are not paid, and who are not part of the army.

Members of a militia are ordinary people who have regular jobs: lawyers, farmers, teachers, nurses, cooks, etc. When there is a need for defensive action, they meet their fellow militia members as a military unit. When the action is over, they return to their everyday lives.

During the 1600s and 1700s, the militia was the primary defensive force in British North America. The British army was present, but proved to be less effective, and more expensive, than the militia groups. Residents of the Thirteen Colonies resented the fact that they had to pay taxes to pay for this useless presence. As historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write,

The most important response to the dangerous military realities was the creation of a militia system in each colony. The British military heritage, the all-pervasive sense of military insecurity, and the inability of the economically poor colonies to maintain an expensive professional army all combined to guarantee that the Elizabethan militia would be transplanted to the North American wilderness. No colonial institution was more complex than the militia. In many respects it was static and homogeneous, varying little from colony to colony and from generation to generation. Yet the militia was also evolutionary and heterogeneous, as diverse as the thirteen colonies and ever-changing within individual colonies.

The concept of the militia was shaped by democracy and equality. Rich or poor, men were equally obliged to serve in the militia, and served side-by-side. The militia was an expression of the community, and the people spoke of “our” militia.

The soldiers in the army, on the other hand, were not part of the community. They were from far away. They had no affection for, or loyalty to, the local villages. Quite the opposite: such soldiers were often problems for the neighborhood residents.

At the heart of the militia was the principle of universal military obligation for all able-bodied males. Colonial laws regularly declared that all able-bodied men between certain ages automatically belonged to the militia. Yet within the context of this immutable principle, variations abounded. While the normal age limits were from 16 to 60, this was not universal practice. Connecticut, for example, began with an upper age limit of 60 but gradually reduced it to 45. Sometimes the lower age limit was 18 or even 21. Each colony also established occupational exemptions from militia training. Invariably the exemption list began small but grew to become a seemingly endless list that reduced the militia's theoretical strength.

The community spirit grew as most families contributed in one way or another to the shared work of defending the land. The feeling of equality grew as elite men and ordinary men served together. The sense of democracy grew as the people of the village made decisions together.

The dangers to the settlers varied from decade to decade: Indians (“Native Amerians”), French, Spanish, and other forces attacked from time to time. Millett and Maslowski explain:

If a man was in the militia, he participated in periodic musters, or training days, with the other members of his unit. Attendance at musters was compulsory; militia laws levied fines for nonattendance. During the initial years of settlement, when dangers seemed particularly acute, musters were frequent. However, as the Indian threat receded, the trend was toward fewer muster days, and by the early 1700s most colonies had decided that four peacetime musters per year were sufficient.

The main weapons were muskets, hatchets, and swords. Gradually, the rifle replaced the musket.

Almost every home had a firearm anyway, because hunting was a fundamental way of providing food for families.

Militiamen had to provide and maintain their own weapons. Militia laws detailed the required weaponry, which underwent a rapid evolution in the New World. Initially a militiaman was armed much like a European soldier, laden with armor, equipped with either a pike or matchlock musket, and carrying a sword. But Indian warfare was not European warfare, and most of this weaponry proved of limited value. By the mid-1670s colonial armaments had been revolutionized. Armor, which made it difficult to traverse rugged terrain and pursue Indians, disappeared. Pikes were equally cumbersome and of little use against Indians, who neither stood their ground when assaulted nor made massed charges. At times the matchlock was superior to Indian bows and arrows, but its disadvantages were many. It took two minutes to load, and misfired approximately three times in every ten shots. The weapon discharged when a slow-burning match came in contact with the priming powder, but keeping the match lit on rainy or windy days was difficult, and the combination of a burning match and gunpowder in close proximity often resulted in serious accidents. The flintlock musket replaced the matchlock. Depending on flint scraping against steel for discharge, flintlocks could be loaded in thirty seconds and misfired less often. Swords remained common weapons, but colonists increasingly preferred hatchets for close-quarter combat. Although both weapons were valuable in a melee, hatchets were also useful for a variety of domestic purposes.

Almost everyone in the community contributed to the task of defense in some way. Those who weren’t directly in the militia could, e.g., provide materials and supplies for the militiamen, or tend to the house and land of a militiaman who was away from home on militia work.

Those with little money received equipment from the community. Those who weren’t actively part of the militia were sometimes still required to maintain weapons ready in their homes, as Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski note:

Militia laws emphasized the importance of a well-armed citizenry in numerous ways. To ensure that each man had the requisite weapons and accoutrements, colonies instituted a review of arms, imposing the duty. of conducting it on militia officers, muster masters, or other specially appointed officials. Every colony's law detailed how destitute citizens could be armed at public expense, and legislatures provided for public arsenals to supplement individually owned armaments. Colonies also required that even men exempted from attending musters should be completely armed and equipped.

To participate in the community’s militia was a duty and even an obligation, as Adam Winkler writes:

A 1792 federal law mandated every eligible man to purchase a military-style gun and ammunition for his service in the citizen militia. Such men had to report for frequent musters — where their guns would be inspected.

Although the militia was a military concept, it shaped civilian culture and society, promoting a sense of mutuality and equality, and instilling a sense of duty, responsibility, and obligation into the individual citizens as they provided for their own defense, and participated in that defense, at the local level, not entrusting it to some far off imperial capital.

Originally instituted to protect the colonies from outside dangers, i.e., to keep the colonies safely a part of the empire, the militias would then be used to gain independence from the empire.

George Washington Visits a Synagogue: Religious Liberty in Action

As president of the United States, George Washington had a consistent, intentional, and long-lasting relationship with the Jewish people in the new country. He understood that not only the Americans, but also the rest of the world, would be watching to see if this new country would live up to the ideals stated in its founding documents.

At that time, the United States was unique in the world as a nation founded, not on the hereditary right of a dynastic family to rule, but rather on a set of concepts, as historian Yaari Nadav Tal writes:

President George Washington captured the new path his young nation was taking in his 1790 letter to the Jews of Newport. Unlike Europe, which still imposed liabilities based on religion and regulated the public expression of faith, the United States guaranteed people irrespective of their faith the equal enjoyment of religious freedom: “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” The United States secured religious freedom not grudgingly but graciously: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

Jews in America were keenly aware of the fact that in England, and in some parts of Europe, Jewish people were not able to attain the status of a full citizen and that their civil rights were limited. Many of them had come to North America to seek full religious freedom and at the same time the right to participate fully in civic government.

To underscore the promise of America to these Jewish citizens, Washington not only wrote warmly to them, but also visited their synagogue. The act of the U.S. president setting foot into a synagogue was dramatic and radical.

Most heads of state in Europe or Great Britain didn’t do such things. The integrity of a nation founded on concepts is based on the consistency and honesty with which it applies those concepts to concrete specific situations. Washington understood that, at the very beginning of United States history, it was important for him to take such actions, as Yaari Nadav Tal explains:

On August 18, 1790, congregants of the Touro Synagogue of Newport, Rhode Island, warmly welcomed George Washington to both their place of worship and their city. Washington’s letter of response to the synagogue, delivered on the same day, has become famous for reinforcing the ideal of religious liberty in American life. Washington promised the synagogue more than mere religious tolerance, explaining that "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." The letter continued with the promise that "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

Washington understood that it was not despite his own firm religious beliefs that he could work to ensure the freedom for various other religions to be practiced, but rather that it was precisely because of his own beliefs that he was motivated to guarantee religious liberty to religions which differed from his own.

Washington was a Christian, and more specifically, he was an Anglican or Episcopalian. He was more than a mere member or attender of church. He was a vestryman and churchwarden, dedicating time and energy to his faith community.

The belief system to which he was committed demanded that he honor the religious liberties of other people, and the strength of his commitment was the force which drove him to ensure those freedoms for other faiths.

The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment and the Monument Honoring its Men

Quickly after President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, the first military unit composed of African Americans was formed. Many other units would be organized soon thereafter.

The 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment became famous during and after the U.S. Civil War. To honor the 54th’s soldiers, a monument was built in Boston, the city where the unit was organized. Philip Marcelo describes the carving: “Black men, rifles to their shoulders, march resolutely,” depicted in bronze, “on their way to battle.”

The towering bronze relief in downtown Boston captures the stirring call to arms answered by Black soldiers who served in the state’s famed Civil War fighting unit, which was popularized in the 1989 Oscar-winning movie “Glory.”

The monument was unveiled in 1897. The artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens had worked on it for fourteen years. Encouragement and funding for the cenotaph came from both Black and White citizen of Boston:

The creation of the memorial in the aftermath of the Civil War was championed by prominent Black Bostonians of the day.

Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was the commander of the regiment. His family was dedicated to the cause of ending slavery. They championed the 54th during the war, and cherished its memory afterward.

“The colonel’s family, a wealthy Boston” family, wanted to ensure that the monument would recognize the Black soldiers. The Shaw family, “strongly opposed to slavery, requested that” the monument “also honor the Black men who served and died” bravely and with committed perseverance “during their famed charge on Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863.”

The monument is also significant because it’s the nation’s first honoring Black soldiers, said Elizabeth Vizza, executive director of the Friends of the Public Garden, a group helping pay for a $3 million restoration of the monument, which started in earnest in May.

Saint-Gaudens spent 14 years creating a richly detailed bas relief, using Black men of different ages as models for his realistic soldiers. After it was unveiled to fanfare in 1897, American author Henry James declared the work “real perfection,” according to the National Park Service.

“This was a radical piece of art,” Vizza said. “It was not lost on people back then.”

For over a century, the monument has been a symbol and an inspiration to African Americans and their advancement toward civil rights. Philip Marcello continues:

Roughly half the regiment’s 600 soldiers were killed, wounded, captured or presumed dead following the failed assault on Fort Wagner, and their heroism inspired tens of thousands of Black men and others to sign up for the Union Army, helping turn the tide of the war.

Sgt. William Carney became the first Black man awarded the Medal of Honor for saving the regiment’s flag from capture. Two sons of prominent Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who had pushed Lincoln to allow Blacks to serve in the war, also fought at Fort Wagner.

The powerful and uplifting monument, created to “recognize the achievements of the Black soldiers” is located prominently in one of Boston’s more important neighborhoods — a neighborhood called Beacon Hill.

A Moral Conflict: To Use Federal Troops in an American City

It is generally a bad thing for the leader of a country, and especially the leader of a free country, to command troops into action inside the borders of his own land. Such behavior is usually associated with the worst types of dictators.

But are there times when it’s right or necessary?

President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was faced with this question in 1957. He’d appointed Earl Warren to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Warren had presided over the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling. The decision had led to changes in the operation of various public school systems around the country.

Those changes met with fierce opposition in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas.

When the Democatic Party made Orval Faubus governor of that state, and when he complied by refusing to allow African American students to attend Little Rock Central High School, Eisenhower was faced with an instance of a local official directly and defiantly refusing to comply with a Supreme Court decision.

As a military leader with substantial experience, Ike knew that he could not allow this to continue. After discussions with Faubus and the consideration of various alternatives, Ike ordered the legendary 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock. If the Democratic Party would not allow the school to be desegregated and integrated, then the U.S. Army would do the job.

The soldiers of the 101st Airborne protected the Black students who wanted to attend school. The soldiers escorted the students into, and out of, school, and made sure that they were safe before, during, and after school.

It was an agonizing decision for Eisenhower. He knew that these students had the legal right to attend school, but he also knew that he was treading on thin ice to use troops inside the borders of the United States. He decided to go ahead with the action, saying that it was “a matter of justice.”

As historian Kasey Pipes explains:

The Little Rock crisis was the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. Eisenhower’s actions were watched by many, including Senator John F. Kennedy. At the time, JFK was somewhat critical of Ike’s handling of the crisis. Five years later, in 1962, in a deliberate effort to avoid what he viewed as Ike’s overreaction at Little Rock, President Kennedy sent only U.S. Marshals into Ole Miss during the integration crisis there. When the mobs overwhelmed the Marshals, Kennedy relented and sent federal troops. He even instructed his aides to draw up the executive order based on the Eisenhower order at Little Rock.

Ike not only fixed the situation in Little Rock, but he laid the foundation for JFK’s actions at the University of Mississippi.

Still, it was a painful moment for the nation. No country wants to see its own army required to enforce a court ruling.

No president relishes the thought of sending soldiers into an American city. Eisenhower agonized over it. The day after the 101st Airborne arrived in Little Rock, Ike told a friend it had been a painful decision, as difficult as ordering the D-Day invasion. Ike’s deliberation is a measure of his leadership.

Eisenhower expressed his determination to do the right thing in a televised address to the nation. His military training and composure allowed him to express his thoughts clearly and without passion. He was focused on implementing what others later called a matter of justice.

The IRS and Payroll Withholding: Taking People’s Money When They’re Not Aware

In 1942, Congress imposed the first major income tax increase in many years, and one of the harshest. Many people had never paid income tax before. Prior to that time, it was imposed on only the wealthiest people. The taxes were to be paid on March 15, 1943.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) realized that millions of people didn’t understand that they had to pay. They didn’t understand how much they had to pay, and that they’d need to save up all year long to make such a big payment all at once. The new tax law was creating a disaster. What would happen when the day came, and people weren’t able to pay?

The IRS is part of the Treasury Department and is responsible for collecting taxes.

The government didn’t want to file charges against millions of taxpayers. It wouldn’t have even been possible to do so, because there were so many people involved. The legal fees in many cases would have been greater than the anticipated tax revenue.

Hurriedly, the IRS hoped to make people aware of what they had to do, as historian Amity Shlaes writes:

The Treasury nervously launched a huge public relations campaign to remind Americans of their new duties. A Treasury Department poster exhorted citizens: “You are one of 50,000,000 Americans who must fill out an income tax form by March 15. DO IT NOW!” For wartime theatergoers, Disney had prepared an animated short film featuring citizen Donald Duck laboring over his tax return beside a bottle of aspirin. Donald claimed exemptions and dependent credits for Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

The eventual solution to the problem was the invention and implementation of the payroll withholding system. Invented by Beardsley Ruml, this system collected taxes all year long, taking a percentage of an employee’s pay before the employee received his pay. The beauty of this system is that people don’t have to worry about accidentally forgetting to save up to pay a massive, once-a-year tax bill. It’s automatically saved for them.

Ruml’s system was put into practice in mid 1943, and has been operating ever since.

This system was and is highly successful. Everyone who gets paid, with a few exceptions, has a bit of her or his pay confiscated every week or every month, and that confiscated money is saved up to pay that person’s annual tax bill. The government has reliable access to people’s money.

There is, however, a problem with this system. It has been in place nearly a century, so long that people often forget that it exists. Workers can forget that the government is taking their money on a regular basis. When employees feel that their pay is too small, they don’t realize that a significant percentage of their wages are being confiscated by the government.

If hourly workers were allowed to receive their full hourly wage, and if salaried workers were allowed to receive their full annual salary, they would suddenly experience a massive increase in disposable income.

The problem has been compounded by the fact that most of the fifty states, and a few cities, have also implemented payroll withholding programs. The government often takes 10%, 20%, or even 30% of a worker’s wages.

The payroll withholding system has not only allowed the government to take huge amounts of people’s money, but also to take it in a way that causes people to forget, or not to realize, that it’s being taken.

The Past Explains the Future: Hope and Optimism from America’s Founding

Major turning points in history often arise from a worldview which sees time as linear, not circular: a worldview which sees the world’s social and political trajectory as capable of changing, not as repetitive or rigid.

The revolutionary independence movement which appeared and expanded in North America in the 1750s was a forward-looking movement. Rather than envisioning an inevitable repetition of the status quo, the revolutionaries envisioned the self-conscious development of society and government. America’s revolutionary movement is and was hopeful.

As historian Stephen Tootle writes, America’s “political history is the fundamental basis of what makes America a land of hope.”

As Calvin Coolidge once explained, any act of truth-telling is an act of patriotism, because our system of government is based on a true understanding of human relationships. Truth and freedom were and are inseparable.

This forward-looking optimism is based on a sober realism: on a clear-eyed reading of history, which reveals humanity’s failures and crimes as well as humanity’s achievements and genius. “If the Founders correctly identified how human beings could govern themselves in a system of ordered liberty (and they did), then” citizens “should never have a reason to fear the true story of America.” The citizens of America know that America is not perfect, but they also know that America has offered hope and opportunity, justice and prosperity, freedom and peace — and offered it in larger quantities and offered it more reliably than any of the nations which preceded it on the face of the earth.

The narrative of the United States is a narrative of increasing freedom, justice, peace, and prosperity: continuous forward motion. Slaves gained their freedom. Women gained full access to the political process. Poor immigrants found a better standard of living.

“Searching self-criticism” is foundational, and in its proper context it is a hopeful exercise. National self-examination is part of the American process, because our constitutional system is not only capable of amendments and adjustments, but rather it is also based on them.

It is the adaptability of the United States which fosters hope and optimism. Unforeseen events, technological developments, and worldwide trends create a constantly changing environment onto which the timeless principles of the American Revolution can be applied. Citizens can be confident that these principles will find application in the future, and will benefit humanity when applied.

The Founders organized themselves and fought out of hope. They did not create slavery but laid the foundation for ending it. Subsequent generations immigrated here out of hope. Americans fought and died in wars out of hope. As Lincoln understood, “liberty to all” and the “promise of something better” drove people to work and unleash their creative energies, whereas nobody would fight or strive over a “mere change of masters.”

The American Revolution began in 1775. The United States was created as a sovereign entity in 1776. The Constitution was ratified and implemented in 1788. In a span of 13 years, American had created the world’s highest levels of personal political liberty, and the only country based on the concept of freedom. It was also the only country governed by an assembly of freely-elected representatives.

But America didn’t stop there. In less than a century, slavery was abolished. Women began voting in federal, state, and local elections in 1869. Already the freest nation on earth, the United States continued to increase its levels of freedom.

“Citizenship bestows both privileges and responsibilities,” adds Stephen Tootle. It is the responsibility of citizens to be familiar with America’s founding principles, and to transmit the essence of those principles to future generations.

A nation which preserves property rights and free markets preserves hope. Such a nation offers its citizens something which no other nation can offer: the opportunity for peace, justice, liberty, and prosperity.

Patterns of Events in the United States: History as a Narrative

Among the distinguishing factors that shape the nation’s history is the fact that “ideals drove America’s creation and success,” in the words of historian Stephen Tootle. The United States is the first modern state to be founded on ideas instead of on the hereditary claims of a dynasty.

By contrast, the other existing countries in the 1700s around the world were based on the fact that the right to rule was the property of a royal family. The property was passed down from one generation to another.

Because the United States was built on concepts, instead of on bloodlines, discussions of words like ‘justice’ and ‘liberty’ are central to the nation and its history.

As the first truly self-governing citizenry, it belongs not only to national history, but to world-historical history, to describe and analyze “what happened to the people of America once they governed themselves.” The word ‘experiment’ is often used as a label for the U.S. Constitution’s concept of a government composed of freely-elected representatives, and for the ‘e pluribus unum’ of American federalism.

The American Revolution owes some of its distinctive features to the un-revolutionary heritage that it borrowed from England. Americans applied concepts that had been formulated by British political thinkers like John Locke and Edmund Burke. The innovation was that the Americans applied these concepts more thoroughly and consistently than the British themselves had.

From Rhode Island’s 1652 abolition of slavery, under the leadership of Roger Williams, to the 1688 German Quaker petition against slavery in Pennsylvania, the nation’s ideals were largely in place prior to the 1776 creation of the nation. As Stephen Tootle writes, the Americans codified and clarified these ideals:

They fought a revolution to preserve an existing culture of self-government and further distinguished themselves by proclaiming their shared ideals. They governed themselves under a Constitution designed to put those ideals into action. When tested by slavery, expansion, immigration, and the challenges of democracy, Americans made the constitutional order work. When their brethren rebelled in order to create a government on a different basis, Americans preserved the system of ordered liberty as understood by the Founders.

The world of the mid 1700s disappeared with technology, industrialization, and changing global connections between nations — as other nations began to reinvent themselves on the American model.

The once-unique framework of a republic governed by freely elected representatives, a structure which made the United States a one-of-a-kind innovation among the nations of the world, would within two or three centuries become a common system of organizing a government. At the time of America’s founding, it was the only country to have elections in the significant modern sense. Now, many nations have elections.

The challenge of each new decade is to see how the United States will apply its founding principles to new situations. If it fails to find a way, then not only would the nation lose its identity, but the world would lose the hope which these principles offer to all people. “American political culture withstood the challenges of modernity and the various forms of totalitarianism that grew in response to it,” as Stephen Tootle notes.

How the United States applies the timeless axioms of its founding to contemporary situations is, Tootle argues, not only determines its domestic policy, but rather also becomes its foreign policy, as America allows the rest of the world to observe the ongoing experiment in empowering citizens to vote into existence their own government.

“The most important aspect of American foreign policy is proclaiming rights and demonstrating self-government,” Tootle concludes. Creatively and innovatively, Americans applied their founding principles to concrete situations, and in the process, offered tangible examples of liberty to the rest of the world: Theodore Roosevelt’s hosting of Booker T. Washington at a dinner in the White House in 1901; Calvin Coolidge’s affirmation of civil rights for African Americans, as the first sitting president to deliver a commencement address at a Historically Black College in 1924; Eisenhower’s determination to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

The United States demonstrated that, by keeping government weak and limited, a society can work toward those things which all people desire: freedom, prosperity, peace, and justice. America showed that property rights and free markets are the necessary preconditions for liberty, equality, and opportunity.