Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-603_o758.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

NATIONAL  FORCES.”  Ibid.  (emphasis  in  original).    So 
“general  and  indefinite”  were  these  powers  vis-à-vis  the
States that “[o]bjections were made against” them as “sub-
versive of the state governments,” which retained “no con-
trol  on  congress”  under  the  new  arrangement.    3  Story 
§§1176, 1177, at 67.  Some state conventions pitched pro-
posals to limit the reach of Congress’ war powers, but those 
amendments “die[d] away.”  Id., §1186, at 74.  The States 
ultimately ratified the Constitution knowing that their sov-
ereignty would give way to national military policy. 

Consistent with that structural understanding, Congress 
has, since the founding era, directed raising and maintain-
ing the national military, including at the expense of state
sovereignty.  For  instance,  early  Congresses  established 
military bonuses to reward service, even requiring Virginia 
to give land to some Revolutionary War officers.  See Act of 
Aug. 10, 1790, 1 Stat. 182.  Could Virginia have refused to 
go along?  We do not think so. 

As President Lincoln reflected while the Civil War raged:
The  federal  power  to  raise  and  maintain  a  military  “ ‘is
given fully, completely, unconditionally.  It is not a power 
to raise armies if State authorities consent; . . . it is a power 
to raise and support armies given to Congress by the Con-
stitution,  without  an  “if.” ’ ”  Lichter  v.  United  States,  334 
U. S. 742, 757, n. 4 (1948) (quoting 9 J. Nicolay & J. Hay,
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln 75–77 (1894)). 

An  unbroken  line  of  precedents  supports  the  same  con-
clusion:  Congress  may  legislate  at  the  expense  of  tradi-
tional  state  sovereignty  to  raise  and  support  the  Armed
Forces.  During the Civil War, this Court rejected a State’s
attempt to retrieve, through habeas corpus, a deserted sol-
dier “held in the custody of a recruiting officer of the United
States.”  Tarble’s Case, 13 Wall. 397, 398 (1872).  The “Na-
tional  government[’s]  . . .  power  ‘to  raise  and  support  ar-
mies’ ” cannot be “question[ed by] any State authority,” we 
said.  Id., at 408.  In Stewart v. Kahn, 11 Wall. 493 (1871),