Opinion ID: 1926173
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The National Guard

Text: The men and women who serve as soldiers in the Maryland Army (or Air) National Guard are members of three distinct organizationsthe Maryland Army (or Air) National Guard (MANG), the National Guard, and the Army (or Air) National Guard of the United States. [2] Each of these entities emanates from the colonial and early Statehood Militiasthe unorganized body of citizen-soldiers that, for the first part of our national history, constituted a major, though largely illusory and often unreliable, part of the nation's and the States' military defense force. The Maryland militia dates back to the earliest days of our history. Its existence reflected, from the beginning, the fear of large standing armies and the desire to rely, as much as possible, on the general able-bodied citizenry for defense. In 1654, the Provincial Assembly directed that there be a captain and officers in every county to take view of Armes in Every family and that all persons from 16 yeares of age to Sixty shall be provided with Serviceable Armes & Sufficient Amunition of Powder and Shott ready upon all Occasions and that Every master of families provid Armnes & amunition as aforesaid for Every such Servant, And that the sd. Capt. so Chosen or appointed shall have power by [Commission] Granted him for the Exerciseing of such persons as Aforesd. and Imploying them for the Service of the Commonwealth. Assembly Proceedings, Oct. 1654, 1 Archives of Maryland 347 (Md. Historical Society 1883). On the eve of the Revolution 120 years later, the third Provincial Convention, meeting in December, 1774, resolved that all men in the Province between the ages of 16 and 50 be enrolled in militia companies. That direction was based on the asserted premise that a well regulated militia ... is the natural strength and only stable security of a free government, that such a militia will relieve our mother country from any expense in our protection and defence, and that it would obviate the pretence of a necessity for taxing us on that account, and render it unnecessary to keep any standing army (ever dangerous to liberty,) in this province. Proceedings of the Convention, Dec. 1774, 78 Archives of Maryland 8. The vain effort, of course, was to convince Parliament that the people of the province could defend themselves and that it was unnecessary for them to be burdened by English (or English-purchased) troops and by the taxes levied to pay for those troops. When Maryland declared independence from Great Britain and adopted its first Constitution, it embodied some of those sentiments in its first (1776) Constitutional Declaration of Rights, where they remain to this day. Articles 25 and 26 (current Articles 28 and 29) provided that a well regulated militia is the proper and natural defence of a free government and that standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be raised or kept up without consent of the legislature. In Article 33 of the Constitution itself, the Governor, with the advice of his Council, was authorized to embody the militia and have the direction thereof. The militia established in 1774 served as a home guard during the Revolutionary War. It was not part of the Continental Army, which was recruited separately, and it did not leave the State. That may have been a blessing. Although it appears that George Washington favored a well-regulated militia, envisioning a body consisting of the younger members of the community who would be properly officered and trained, he had little use for the rag-tag militias that were available to him during the Revolutionary War. See Frederick Bernays Wiener, The Militia Clause of the Constitution, 54 HARV. L.REV. 181, 183 (1940). The role of the militia in national affairs was a matter of some debate at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Under the Articles of Confederation, the States were forbidden to keep any body of forces in time of peace except as authorized by the United States Congress, but they were required to keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutred. U.S. Art. of Confed., art. 6. At the Convention, the recognized need for a reliable defense force collided with the ingrained concern that the creation and maintenance of a national standing army might imperil both individual liberty and the sovereignty of the States. As was the case with most issues debated in Philadelphia in the summer and early fall of 1787, this one led to a compromiseprovision for both a standing national army and continuation of the various State militias. In Article I, § 8, clauses 12, 13, and 14, of the United States Constitution, Congress was given the power to raise and support armies (limited by the condition that no appropriation for that purpose shall be for a longer term than two years), to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. In clauses 15 and 16, it was authorized to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions, and to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. Any standing army was to be a national one, or at least one under Congressional control. In Article I, § 10, clause 3, the States were forbidden, without the consent of Congress, to keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace. As the Supreme Court noted in Perpich v. Department of Defense, 496 U.S. 334, 340-41, 110 S.Ct. 2418, 2423, 110 L.Ed.2d 312, 322 (1990), although Congress was authorized both to raise a national army and organize the militia, in the early years of the Republic, it did neither. In 1792, Congress enacted a statute that purported to establish a Uniform Militia throughout the United States, by directing that every able-bodied male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 equip himself, at his own expense, with appropriate arms and appear when called to exercise or into service [3] (see 1 Stat. 271 (1792)), but, as the Perpich Court observed, that law was virtually ignored for more than a century, during which time the militia proved to be a decidedly unreliable fighting force. Perpich, 496 U.S. at 341, 110 S.Ct. at 2423, 110 L.Ed.2d at 322. Wiener suggests that the law was ineffective because it was unselective: It imposed a duty on everyone, with the result that this duty was discharged by no one. Wiener, supra, 54 HARV. L.REV., at 187. Perhaps a more significant deficiency was the fact that, under the Constitution, the militias could be called into national service only to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions, and, accordingly, they were not available for foreign adventures. The militias were used to suppress the Whiskey Insurrection, but they could not be called into service for the 1848 Mexican War, leading Congress, under its power to raise and support armies, to authorize the organization of volunteers to serve in that war. The militias continued to exist in the States ( see 1793 Md. Laws, ch. 53 and 1834 Md. Laws, ch. 251, providing for the organization of the militia, consisting of all able-bodied male (later, for a time, white male) citizens between the ages of 18 and 45), but they never really served any effective role in national military affairs. Some militia units fought at the first battle of Bull Run, but, as their enlistments, under a 1795 Federal law, expired after three months, President Lincoln was dependent, for the balance of the Civil War, principally on national volunteers ( see 12 Stat. 268) and, later, draftees. The militias were left behind as home guards or for sudden emergencies. After the Civil War, according to Wiener, the militia contemplated by the 1792 Actthe composite able-bodied male citizenryvirtually ceased to exist, and the States relied more and more upon select bodies of men, trained after a fashion and without uniform supervision, who became known as National Guards. Wiener, supra, 54 HARV. L.REV., at 191. The creation of a Maryland National Guard came about in 1886. In 1870, the Legislature, though continuing in effect the Militia of this State, consisting of all able-bodied white male citizens between the ages of 18 and 45, provided for the organization of volunteer companies drawn from the militia, and it was those volunteer companies that were to be organized, officered, and armed. See 1870 Md. Laws, ch. 182. The 1886 law provided that out of the volunteer uniformed organizations already existing and those hereby created, there shall be formed a body of active militia ... to be known as the `Maryland National Guard.' 1886 Md. Laws, ch. 162. The men serving in that force were to be sworn and regularly enlisted, and when so enlisted, for a period of three years, shall be considered in the active militia service of the State, liable to be called into actual service at any time for the repression of disorder and for the protection of property in aid of the civil authorities and the police of the State. Id. Both officers and enlisted men were to take an oath to bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland and support the Constitution thereof. The Governor, as commander-in-chief, was directed to order an encampment of the units once every two years and to require the units to adopt a service uniform resembling, as nearly as possible, that of United States troops. It was that organized militia, or National Guard, created throughout the country in the decades following the Civil War that Congress came to regard as the Uniform Militia contemplated by the 1792 enactment. Although that force may have sufficed for State purposes, it increasingly was regarded as inadequate as a national military force. In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt, stung no doubt by the refusal of even some of the organized militias to serve in the Spanish-American War (which presented the same problem as the Mexican War did 50 years earlierthe President was not empowered to call the militia to service in Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines), declared the 1792 militia law obsolete and worthless. Perpich, 496 U.S. at 341 n. 10, 110 S.Ct. at 2423 n. 10, 110 L.Ed.2d at 323 n. 10. In his First Annual Message to Congress, he urged that [t]he organization and armament of the National Guard of the several States, which are treated as militia in the appropriations by the Congress, should be made identical with those provided for the regular forces and that [t]he obligations and duties of the Guard in time of war should be carefully defined, and a system established by law under which the method of procedure of raising volunteer forces should be prescribed in advance. Id. (quoting 14 MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PRESIDENTS 6672). The National Guard, as a national entity, came into being in 1903 under the Dick Act, 32 Stat. 775, named for Congressman Charles Dick, who had fought with the Ohio Volunteer Infantry in Cuba and was chairman of the House Committee on Militia. The Act was succinctly described in Perpich, 496 U.S. at 342, 110 S.Ct. at 2423, 110 L.Ed.2d at 323: The Dick Act divided the class of able-bodied male citizens between 18 and 45 years of age into an `organized militia' to be known as the National Guard of the several States, and the remainder of which was then described as the `reserve militia,' and which later statutes have termed the `unorganized militia.' The statute created a table of organization for the National Guard conforming to that of the Regular Army, and provided that federal funds and Regular Army instructors should be used to train its members. With respect to training, the Dick Act provided for field encampments, armory drills, assignment of Regular Army officers to duty with the National Guard, and attendance of National Guard officers at Regular Army Service Schools. Although the Dick Act was regarded as a vast improvement, it did not resolve the Constitutional impediment against ordering National Guard units to service outside the United States. See 29 Op. Atty. Gen. 322, 322-27 (1912), in which U.S. Attorney General Wickersham opined that the Militia Clauses of the U.S. Constitution precluded the President from using National Guard units south of the Mexican border. Congress responded, in 1916, with the National Defense Act which, among other things, reorganized the Regular Army, provided Federal funding for National Guard encampments, armory drills, and administration, and formally made the National Guard part of the U.S. Army. As described by the Perpich Court: In response to [Wickersham's] opinion and to the widening conflict in Europe, in 1916 Congress decided to `federalize' the National Guard. In addition to providing for greater federal control and federal funding of the Guard, the statute required every guardsman to take a dual oathto support the Nation as well as the States and to obey the President as well as the Governorand authorized the President to draft members of the Guard into federal service. The statute expressly provided that the Army of the United States should include not only `the Regular Army,' but also `the National Guard while in the service of the United States,' and that, when drafted into federal service by the President, members of the Guard so drafted should `from the date of their draft, stand discharged from the militia, and shall from said date be subject to' the rules and regulations governing the Regular Army. Perpich, 496 U.S. at 343-44, 110 S.Ct. at 2424, 110 L.Ed.2d at 323-24 (footnotes and citation omitted). During World War I, President Wilson exercised his authority under the 1916 Act and drafted members of the National Guard into the Regular Army. The Supreme Court upheld that authority in the Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U.S. 366, 38 S.Ct. 159, 62 L.Ed. 349 (1918). As the Perpich Court observed, however, [t]he draft of the individual members of the National Guard into the Army during World War I virtually destroyed the Guard as an effective organization. The draft terminated the members' status as militiamen, and the statute did not provide for a restoration of their prewar status as members of the Guard when they were mustered out of the Army. Perpich, 496 U.S. at 345, 110 S.Ct. at 2425, 110 L.Ed.2d at 325. That problem was remedied by a 1933 enactment (48 Stat. 153), which brought us, essentially, to where we are today. The Act constituted the National Guard as a reserve component of the United States Army, to be known as the National Guard of the United States, and thereby preserved the integrity of its units. As described by Wiener: In place of the former draft into federal service, as individuals, the Guard would be ordered into federal service as units. Such an order could not be given unless Congress declared a national emergency and authorized the use of troops in excess of those of the Regular Army. The organization of the units existing at the date of the order was to be maintained intact, insofar as practicable. Upon being relieved from federal service, all individuals and units would revert to their National Guard status. Wiener, supra, 54 HARV. L.REV., at 208. Accordingly, as the Perpich Court noted, since 1933, all persons who have enlisted in a State National Guard unit have simultaneously enlisted in the National Guard of the United States. Perpich, 496 U.S. at 345, 110 S.Ct. at 2425, 110 L.Ed.2d at 325. Unless and until ordered to active duty in the Army, they retain their status as members of the State National Guard. By virtue of their dual enlistment, however, when called to active duty in the military service of the United States, they are relieved of their status in the State Guard for the duration of their Federal service. See also Gilligan v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 2440, 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (1973). Although there is a dual enlistment, there is, as we indicated, a triple status. Enlistment in a State Army or Air National Guard constitutes, as well, enlistment in the Army or Air National Guard of the United States. The National Guard, in contrast with the Army (or Air) National Guard of the United States, is a broader concept; it is, simply, the organized militia. This is manifest in title 10 U.S.C. § 311, which deals with the militia referred to in the U.S. Constitution. Section 311(a) defines, with certain exceptions, the militia of the United States as consisting of all able-bodied male citizens between the ages of 17 and 45 and all female citizens who are members of the National Guard. Section 311(b) divides that militia into two classes: the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia, and the unorganized militia, which consists of those members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. State law makes a comparable classification. See Maryland Code, Article 65, § 5. The issues in this case, at least with respect to the truck drivers, Headly and Singh, involve the relationship between MANG and the Army National Guard of the United States.