subject to the assertion of its right by that great body. His is a case of permitted power, if such an expression may be used. The Congress has delegated to him much of the power reserved to it by the Constitution in matters of routine, and by law has laid on him many of the details of service, but the determination of the Congress to re-assume its full authority would find no efficient check.

It is true that the title of Commander-in-Chief seems ample, and so it is. But it is limited by all parts of the instrument wherein it is employed, and in this sense the President is, himself, subject to the control of Congress in all save the routine of the duties of his military office, if not indeed in them. The power of the government of the army includes the control of all parts of the army, the commander included. It would be hard for a lawyer to say that the General of the armies was within the control of the National Legislature, but that the Commander-in-Chief was not, while the same section of the Constitution gives the control and none limit or change it. The truth is, it seems to me, that the Constitution never was designed by the people, in their enactment of it, to surrender the Congressional control of the Army and Navy of the United States and the Militia in service.

If the occasion should arise when a false President should assume independence of the Congress in dealing with the army in those great essential matters for which the people care and in which they have an in

terest, there would be difficulty, perhaps, in formulating the Congressional will; but that difficulty would speedily find adjustment.

The grasp of Congress upon the sword would be found as firm as that they hold upon the purse. Every existing regulation could be changed by a constitutional majority of both houses. Every function of the Commander-in-Chief could be changed except that the nominal headship would remain as prescribed in the letter of the fundamental law. The veto itself would become a temporary obstruction in the face of a

patriotic and determined vote.

This, then, was the solution at which the Fathers arrived and which the people enacted. The military power was lodged in the Congress and they were. to require its exercise by their laws, and in their chosen methods by the President. Thus the entire power of the great Republic was retained by the electors of that Republic and the hand that, for the sake of unity and great results, had the sword placed within its grasp was bound by law in unyielding fashion to execute duly the law.

In this conclusion I have taken into account those things which were inhibited to the States and those reserved to them. Concerning one of these of these reservations, the right to commission officers and instruct the Militia, I have above written. Another is to refuse to grant places for forts, magazines and arsenals to the General Government. When once

granted, however, State control is gone, the nation becomes supreme over the ceded territory and State interest cannot, save by National consent, be reasserted. As the Government has now all requisite reservations in the present States, and as it holds all desired places in the Territories, when they become States and as the general interest of the States and Union is one, save in the case of a rebellion and in the event of the suspension of all civil law, this reservation is also one rather of form of form than of substance. It was of greater seeming importance when the Constitution was submitted; for the minds of men were uncertain in their judgment of the new conditions, and the new order, and those who foresaw peril in a great central power were prepared to insist that it should not acquire foothold near their hearths, save by their permission. Yet another inhibition was deemed necessary to clearly eliminate State control of the militia arm, and to emphasize the ascendency of the new government, and it is found in the last section of the first article (Clauses 1 and 3 of Sec. 10).

"No State shall enter into any treaty alliance, or confederation and no State shall, without the consent of Congress, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war unless unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay."

In face of these positive inhibitions, the reserved right of officering and training the Militia, according

to the Discipline prescribed by Congress, surely meant that the States might prepare the thunderbolts, but that Congress alone should hurl them. They intensify the expressions of Federal power over the Army. They leave but one Military power in lawful existence within the confines of the Republic, and, even in the event of a sudden invasion, leave the control of the Militia with the Congress, if that body shall choose to call the State levies into the National service of the United States and thus assume the defence of the invaded State. Nor is this position changed by the second and third articles of the amendments, which declare the right of the people to bear arms and which protect the people from the indiscriminate billetings of troops.

The Constitutional system of Military Law is simple, as becomes a great charter of Liberty, and its terms can be comprehended of all men. It is all-embracing as the law of National existence requires. It has been widely departed from in troublous times but it is supreme today. And in its security the citizen, untouched by the point of the sword and willingly bearing his share of military burdens, sees our little army do its ordered work, conscious that, at the call of the law-his law-its ranks, swelled to unnumbered myriads, can uphold that law, and never threaten his Liberty.