![handle is hein.crs/goveqbb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: The Army Clause, Part 2: Drafting and
Ratification History
July 22, 2024
This Legal Sidebar is the second in a five-part series that discusses the Constitution's Army Clause, which
authorizes the federal government to raise and support arnies while also allowing for congressional
control through the appropniations process. Because the Army Clause provides Congress with an essential
element of the government's suite of war powers, understanding the Army Clause may assist Congress in
its legislative activities.
This Sidebar post discusses the drafting and ratification of the Army Clause. Other Sidebars in this series
discuss the clause's historical backdrop; relationship with appropriations, conscription, and war materials;
role in individual rights cases; and connection with principles of federalism. Additional information on
this and related topics is available at the Constitution Annotated.
Drafting History at the Constitutional Convention
At the Constitutional Convention, the Framers of the Constitution emphasized the militia as the primary
guarantor of national defense, but abandoned the Articles of Confederation's system for raising armies by
mak [ing] requisitions from each state. During opening remarks at the Convention, Edmund Randolph,
the governor of Virginia, observed that that the Articles of Confederation did not provide secunity against
foreign invasion because the national government was not permitted to prevent a war nor to support it by
[its] own authority. In light of this experience, the first draft of the Constitution prepared at the
Constitutional Convention gave Congress authority to raise armies without state involvement.
When the full Convention discussed this early draft of the Armiy Clause, the delegates voted to add the
words and support, but they did not debate or discuss the reasons for the change. Nor was there debate
over which branch of government should possess this power. It was a widely held view in Founding-era
America that English monarchs' misuse of military forces demonstrated that the power to raise and
support armies should reside in the legislative branch rather than with an executive head of state.
The Army Clause quickly generated opposition from delegates who feared that it could lead to expensive
and oppressive standing arnies in peacetime. Immediately after the delegates agreed to the addition of
language authorizing Congress to support arnies, Massachusetts delegate Elbridge Gerry criticized the
absence of a check [against] standing armies in time of peace in the Army Clause. Arguing that he
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB11205
CRS Legal Sidebar
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/goveqbb0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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