"As the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a good militia." - James Madison, notes of debates in the 1787 Federal Convention.

“What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty....Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins. This was actually done by Great Britain at the commencement of the late revolution.” – Rep. Elbridge Gerry, August 17, 1789.

“The most effectual way to guard against a standing army, is to render it unnecessary. The most effectual way to render it unnecessary, is to give the general government full power to call forth the militia, and exert the whole natural strength of the Union, when necessary. Thus you will furnish the people with sure and certain protection, without recurring to this evil; and the certainty of this protection from the whole will be a strong inducement to individual exertion." – James Madison, 1788.

"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist 29.

"As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States." - Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

"In a Republic every man ought to be a soldier, and prepared to resist tyranny and usurpation, as well as invasion, and to prevent the greatest of all evils--a standing army." - James Jackson, "The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States," Gales and Seaton, pub., 1834

“Always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics—that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe” - James Madison, First Inaugural address, Saturday, March 4, 1809.

"There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army. Nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323

"It would be well for Americans to reflect upon the passage in Tacitus,...Is there any escape from a large standing army, but in a well disciplined militia?" Joseph Story, Dane Professor of Law in Harvard University, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833), Book III at 747, Footnote 1 [English Translation from Tacitus, (Hist. IV. ch. 74).