Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

One of the facts that lies in the background of constitutional history, and usually stays there, without being highlighted, is this: most of the founders of the United States shared a disdain for the institution of a "standing army" --that is, of a permanent professional military force maintained through peacetime and composed of full-time soldiers.  Their idealization of the "militia," and the reference thereto in the second amendment, arguably the second amendment itself, constitute the flipside of their anti-standing-army persuasion.  If you ask about the background and history of this conviction, you are generally referred to the build-up to the revolution, as the mother country built up its military presence (the "regulars") in the troublesome colonies. But a newly published paper makes the point that the vocabulary in which our founders expressed their conviction on point has a specific history within that Mother Country.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol...

In 1823, the five great powers of the continent of Europe were scheming to reverse an outbreak of revolutions in South America. There powers were: France, Spain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. This was the situation that created the Monroe Doctrine. Great Britain's elite was unhappy about the counter-revolutionary scheming: not because it was sentimental about the national sovereignty of the new powers an ocean away, but chiefly because Great Britain's interests as a hegemon were threatened by any cause that promoted unity among those older powers on a continent so close its best swimmers could get there without mechanical help. The Prime Minister of Britain was George Canning (pictured above). He proposed to Monroe's administration that it join with Britain in a warning to those five continental powers about the errors of their colonialism-reasserting ways. Much of Monroe's cabinet thought this was a good idea. It was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams who arg...