The Connecticut Constitutional Ratification Convention ratifies the Constitution for the united States (YEA, 128; NAY, 40), making it the fifth State to secede from the Confederation.  This brings to four the number of States still necessary to put the Constitution into force.

       [restored 10/4/2021]

       Alexander Hamilton, a former Delegate, from New York, to the Constitutional Convention, using the penname “Publius,” publishes “Federalist #29.”  In paragraphs 3, 5, 7 he writes that liberty will best be preserved by keeping the Union’s military strength under the command of the State governors, and not under the control of the federal government:

       To render an army unnecessary, will be a more certain method of preventing its existence than a thousand prohibitions upon paper.

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       By a curious refinement upon the spirit of republican jealousy, we are even taught to apprehend danger from the militia itself, in the hands of the federal government.

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       [I]f 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 disciplined and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.  This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.

       [restored 12/7/2024]