Here's something from James Madison, the Father of the Constitution:
EDSITEment - Lesson Plan
Quote:
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men.
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Madison repeatedly called for a standing army as well while he was a Congressman and later when he was President.
He calls for the army to be no more than 1% of the population and our present army is even smaller than that. It's about 1/3 of 1%. It seems that different Founders had different ideas about whether or not to have a standing army, with the principle Founder being in favor of it.
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