An Additional Four Words to Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution

Anaxagoras

Banned
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the United States Constitution specifies that Congress has the power to "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years"

Suppose that the Framers wrote the text as follows: "To raise and support Armies in time of war, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years".

What repercussions might this have had?
 
The various state militias, and later the National Guard, would likely become significantly more powerful. At some point, when attacked, the government would probably realize that having a standing army in peacetime is better than being caught off guard, and the Constitution is amended. Alternatively, later governments use loopholes to maintain a permanent Navy instead.
 
The various state militias, and later the National Guard, would likely become significantly more powerful. At some point, when attacked, the government would probably realize that having a standing army in peacetime is better than being caught off guard, and the Constitution is amended. Alternatively, later governments use loopholes to maintain a permanent Navy instead.

The Founding Fathers really feared a standing army, and really thought that state militias would suffice. So I could imagine such a wording.

It wasnt until the War of 1812 when the uselessness of state militias for military purposes became clear. Read glaringly obvious.

So. If there is a War of 1812 or equivalent, and the threadbareness of state militias is exposed, then there will probably be a constitutional amendment fixing tne matter.

If not, the Navy gets all the funding, and the Marines get bulked up to.Army size. Doesnt say anything there about Marines, right?

So instead of the Chinese PL Army Navy, you have a US Navy Army.
 
There were serious concerns about that clause going too far IOTL, but I'm not familiar with serious proposals to forbid standing armies in time of peace altogether. The closest I've found was an amendment suggested by the Virginia Ratifying Convention:

9th. That no standing army, or regular troops, shall be raised, or kept up, in time of peace, without the consent of two thirds of the members present, in both houses.

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/ratification/virginiatimeline/
 
Japan technically isn't supposed to have a military at all. Instead they have the most beefed up police/rescue force in the world.

I could imagine an American Self-Defense Force that's basically a blue-water "Coast Guard" with nuclear aircraft carriers.
 
In Turtledove's Worldwar series, the Race had a soldiers' time and did not have a standing army the rest of the time.

I know that the War of 1812 can almost be viewed as a second American Revolution. And with the burning of Washington, DC, a glaring exception, but all the same, wasn't the war mainly a naval war?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Probably, until the Constitution gets amended. Some sort of land-based forces are still going to be necessary to protect against Britain/Canada and Spain/Mexico.

The Jeffersonians would probably suggest that the states "loan" the federal government a few regiments of militia every now and then. The trick would be making sure that the burden were evenly shared and that the states actually did what they were supposed to. But if the federal government were empowered to force the states to comply, it defeats the whole purpose of prohibiting a standing army in the first place.
 
The Jeffersonians would probably suggest that the states "loan" the federal government a few regiments of militia every now and then. The trick would be making sure that the burden were evenly shared and that the states actually did what they were supposed to. But if the federal government were empowered to force the states to comply, it defeats the whole purpose of prohibiting a standing army in the first place.
By "evenly shared", do you mean that it would be proportional to each state's population, or that each state sends an equal amount?

I still think this would end in a Constitutional amendment relatively soon.
 
Japan technically isn't supposed to have a military at all. Instead they have the most beefed up police/rescue force in the world.

I could imagine an American Self-Defense Force that's basically a blue-water "Coast Guard" with nuclear aircraft carriers.

Would we then have like boats just for launching, holding, and transporting nukes then? And in the first place, with all the butterflies flapping around, would we still have nuclear weapons?

On a related note, I just had a vision of President Cheney sitting on a yacht, lazily pressing a red button, then having a giant nuclear missile emerge from the deck and rocket towards Iraq
 
Would we then have like boats just for launching, holding, and transporting nukes then? And in the first place, with all the butterflies flapping around, would we still have nuclear weapons?

On a related note, I just had a vision of President Cheney sitting on a yacht, lazily pressing a red button, then having a giant nuclear missile emerge from the deck and rocket towards Iraq

I think what BMN was saying was that it would be the same as what the Navy is now, but called the Coast Guard. Not sure why they'd have to do that, given that it's the army which is prohibited.
 

jahenders

Banned
That might delay us forming a permanent, professional military, but it would probably happen in response to the War of 1812 or thereafter. If it somehow didn't happen (1812 was avoided, we worked out some systems where militias DID work well, etc), it would change the growth/evolution of the country dramatically. One can imagine a system of beefed up, semi-standard state militias that provide X companies of troops for federal use on a standard calendar. That could conceivably work for defense, but is far less tenable for expansion.

Imagine the federal government trying to go to war with Mexico under that system. They've got some number of (diverse) militia regiments, but the states owe those for "national defense." Do some of those states refuse to participate? Does that show the need for a federal army?

Or, imagine if that system is in place when the South secedes. It's hard to see success if your plan is to have reluctant militias from New England march down to Virginia. I think if that was the only option, the North would have to let the South go, perhaps after a few defeats.

The idea of just having a REALLY big Marine Corps might potentially work via the wording, but I think that'd be prevented if it got very big and that clause was still in there.
 
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