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it receives. You must be informed that many persons very sincerely believe that the present requisitions on its services might in a considerable measure be dispensed with without injury. To this sentiment with great respect for those who are urging it, a decided dissent is offered. The revolutionary examples & experience, the constitution, the dictates of republicanism, the equalizing influence of the system, all demand, in the largest practicable proportion of population, an armed & trained militia. The extensive frontier of the State, which no regular army can defend, warns us to rely on the courage & means of the whole people, who ought to be ready & able, at least, to the extent that the soldier of a regular army will be, to secure their country from usurpation, or to resist its invasion. In the last war if such a sentiment had not prevailed, and but for the preventive effect being fortunately far superior to the corrective action, and it being known that an armed yeomanry properly organized is a dangerous foe, we should have become a Province. Wishing however to avoid argument, permit me, as constitutionally bound to lay before you briefly the objections it has become necessary to state against the repeated & urgent demands for a legislative subversion of our present military establishment, to be followed as may be feared by the imposition of one calculated to be dangerous to our liberties, that of a militia organized & paid directly & exclusively by the United States, who will in the end tempt the States to that fatal measure, as they have been tempting in other cases. The civil and social effects of our militia arrangements, are not less calculated to sustain our institutions, than can be courage and discipline to defend the country. Never was there an instance of the overthrow of despotism without a militia, nor an efficient militia without trainings. In every case of danger from the time of alarm before the revolution to this period, special preparation has been made by trainings, and we ought always to be specially prepared. Trainings lead to that acquaintance between Officer & Soldier, which fits them more advantageously to act together, both in preparatory measures & final procedures.