“Standing armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people, in the hands of hereditary and arbitrary monarchs.”

— Daniel Webster

On the Completion of the Bunker Hill Monument (1843)
Context: Standing armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people, in the hands of hereditary and arbitrary monarchs. A military republic, a government founded on mock elections and supported only by the sword, is a movement indeed, but a retrograde and disastrous movement, from the regular and old-fashioned monarchical systems. If men would enjoy the blessings of republican government, they must govern themselves by reason, by mutual counsel and consultation, by a sense and feeling of general interest, and by the acquiescence of the minority in the will of the majority, properly expressed; and, above all, the military must be kept, according to the language of our Bill of Rights, in strict subordination to the civil authority.

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Daniel Webster 62

Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – … 1782–1852

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“Imagine a monarch, holding personal command of his army, disbanding his regiments, sacred with a hundred years of history—and handing his towns over to Anarchists and Democracy.”

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“When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand.”

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Alexander Hamilton Federalist Papers

No. 29
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788)

“Standing armies are the oppressive instruments for governing the people, in the hands of hereditary and arbitrary monarchs.”

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Daniel Webster 62

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