And they were not rhetorical. They were definitional. To the founders, the militia was not a niche institution. It was not a government program. It was not a uniform, a paycheck, or a federal command structure. The militia was the people themselves. And yet today, that definition has been twisted, narrowed, and nearly erased from public memory. Mention the militia in modern America, and you’re often met with confusion, ridicule, or deliberate misinterpretation. But to the generation that fought a revolution against the greatest military power on Earth, a broadly armed and trained citizenry was not optional. It was essential. This is the forgotten story of the American militia.

Why the founders believed it was the cornerstone of liberty, why they feared standing armies, and how they warned, with remarkable precision, about the dangers of allowing centralized power to control who would be armed and who would not. At the heart of the American founding was a choice, one older than the republic itself. Would the new nation rely on a permanent, professional standing army, or would it entrust its defense to its own people? Well, the founders understood this was not merely a military question. It was a moral and political one. Henry Knox, Revolutionary War General and Secretary of War under George Washington, stated it plainly.

He said an energetic national militia is to be regarded as the capital security of a free republic and not a standing army forming a distinct class in the community. That phrase, a distinct class, was deeply troubling to the founding generation. History had taught them that standing armies do not remain neutral investments. Over time, they become tools of power, detached from the people, loyal to the state, rather than its citizenry. In 1775, as war with Britain loomed, Dr. Joseph Warren, a physician, a patriot, and soon-to-be martyr, warned when he said, it is a truth confirmed by the experience of ages that standing armies are always dangerous to the liberty of the people.

Always. Not sometimes. Not only under tyrants. Always. To the founders, the difference between a militia and a standing army was not merely structural. It was philosophical. Tench Cox, a key defender of the right to keep their arms, explained it this way. There is a wide difference between the troops of a commonwealth and those of a regal government. In the former, the military officer is the occasional servant of the people, employed for their defense. In the latter, he is the ever-ready instrument to execute the schemes of ambition or oppression. In a free society, the armed citizen is the safeguard.

In a tyrannical one, the armed state becomes the threat. James Madison, often called the father of the Constitution, understood this balance intimately. He said, as the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a well-regulated militia. The militia was not an afterthought. It was the antidote. The answer was not ambiguous in the 18th century. Federal farmer writing during the ratification debates declared, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.

In Virginia, Patrick Henry drove the point home even harder. He said, the great object is that every man be armed, not some men, not government-approved men, every man. This was the consensus, understanding that liberty depended on the people themselves being capable of defense, not outsourcing that responsibility to centralized power. But, as the Constitution was debated, a serious concern emerged. Article I, Section 8 granted Congress power to organize, arm, and discipline the militia. Anti-Federalists immediately asked the obvious question, what if Congress chose not to arm the people? Or worse, what if it armed only a select few? Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No.

29 openly rejected the idea of arming and training the entire population. He argued that disciplining the whole body of the people would be impractical and burdensome. To the Anti-Federalists, this was not reassurance, it was a red flag. In Pennsylvania, John Smile warned, Congress may give us a select militia, which will in fact be a standing army. And when a select militia is formed, the people in general may be disarmed. In Virginia, George Mason issued one of the most prophetic warnings in American history. He said the militia may be here destroyed by rendering them useless by disarming them.

He went further, should the national government wish to render the militia useless, they may neglect them and let them perish in order to have a pretense for establishing a standing army. Then came the line that should echo across centuries. I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, but I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. Mason understood the danger perfectly. Once government controls the definition of militia, liberty hangs in the balance. These warnings directly shaped the Bill of Rights. When Virginia ratified the Constitution, it demanded this amendment.

That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free state. New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island had similar demands. From France, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison, urging protections against standing armies. He said, I prefer the substitution of a militia for a standing army. The result was the Second Amendment, not to create a militia, but to protect one that already existed, the people themselves. More than a century later, George Mason’s fears became reality. In 1903, Congress passed the Militia Act, dividing the militia into two classes.

Number one was the organized militia, what we now call the National Guard. Number two, the unorganized militia, which is everyone else, including you and I. And for the first time, the militia was formally narrowed. Politicians exempted themselves, of course, and the people were sidelined. A select militia had replaced the whole. What the Anti-Federalists warned against came in two stages. First, a select government-controlled force increasingly resembling a standing army. And second, and far more dangerous, the gradual disarmament and dependency of the people. Now, the militia was never meant to be a government institution. It was meant to be a condition of a free society.

As Richard Henry Lee warned, a militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and render regular troops unnecessary. Now, the Founders did not trust power, guys and gals. They trusted we, the people. They believed liberty required responsibility, courage, and readiness. And they warned clearly that once the people surrendered that role, they would never get it back easily. The militia was never them. It was always us. Let me know what you think about this. I wanted to keep it short. When I do these videos, it’s obvious that I cannot be all-inclusive to keep it to a length that you guys and gals will watch.

I hope you enjoy these Freedom Liberty type series videos that I put out. I’m trying to do it once a week, we’ll see, because a lot goes into it, a lot of research and stuff like that. So let me know what you think down below. But I don’t know about you. I’m still part of the militia. I train regularly. In fact, I just talked to Reed Henricks over at Valley Ridge, and we got some cool stuff that we’re going to do together here during the winter. Are you training? I hope you are. Let me know down below what you think about the series, guys and gals, seriously.

I love each and every single one of you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for allowing me to do what it is that I love, which is to teach Americans about liberty, to teach Americans about freedom, and hopefully rekindle that fire in everyone that watches. Thank you so much for your time. Please be safe. Stay vigilant. Carry that gun to keep you, your friends, your family, your community safe. You guys and gals are the sentinel for freedom, and I hope you realize that. I’ll see you in the next one. Take care.

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