Martial Law on the Installment Plan (William Grigg)

William Grigg on how history has proven the Anti-Federalists correct in foreseeing the dangers of giving Congress power to call up the state militias to enforce its edicts:

"I abominate and detest the idea of a government, where there is a standing army," exclaimed the immortal George Mason, the stalwart Anti-Federalist during his state's constitutional ratifying convention of 1788.

A a forceful and principled defender of individual liberty, Mason was the irritant in the constitutional oyster that eventually created the pearl we call the Bill of Rights. During the June 14 session of the convention, Mason -- ably assisted by his fellow Anti-Federalist Patrick Henry -- conducted a critical examination of the congressional power to call out the state militias to enforce the laws of the union.

Their eyes, keenly perceptive of the potential for government to abuse any powers alloted to it, discerned in the womb of that delegated power an embryonic rough beast that could eventually destroy any semblance of liberty in America.

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