American Principle
In these times of endless war, the military has become a central feature of American life. On television and the Internet, we are constantly reminded of the costs of war with heart-wrenching videos of long-absent fathers returning to their families after long deployments, wounded veterans struggling to cope with new physical handicaps, and commentators debating the merits of the War on Terror. From sea to shining sea, the U.S. military is a very visible component of American life, from bustling military bases to pageantry and parades to college ROTC programs on nearly every campus.
But it was not always so. For the first century and a half of American independence, the military was fairly inconspicuous, except during the four-year paroxysm of violence that constituted America’s great Civil War. For significant stretches, America had virtually no permanent professional military at all, certainly nothing on the scale of the vast professional armies and navies fielded by great Old World imperial powers such as Great Britain, France, and Germany.
This was no accident. Most of America’s Founders were — like the English patriots of the 17th century — deeply suspicious of standing armies. Such, they believed, were easily converted into instruments of tyranny, to oppress instead of liberate. Accordingly, the Founders made the army difficult to maintain by requiring in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that all appropriations for the army be for a period of no longer than two years. In other words, every two years, at minimum, Congress would have to reauthorize spending on the military, to prevent a self-perpetuating, permanent military from coming into existence. In practice, of course, Congress makes sure that the money spigots for the U.S. military are kept wide open. But the constitutional authority to defund the military remains intact.
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