George Washington, first U.S. president: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace”

The United States declared its independence from the British empire on July 4, 1776. Just under a month before the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they created the Continental Army. However, that was disbanded in 1783 upon the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolutionary War, going into effect.

The Anti-Federalists were concerned that a standing army would be a threat to liberty and a financial burden, and preferred to rely on state militias that would be more accountable to the people. However, the Federalists saw a need for professional, centralized force to ensure national security, viewing militias as insufficient and unreliable.

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace”

However, the concerns about maintaining a standing army during peacetime were dealt with by the creation of checks. The president would command the force but Congress would use short-term legislation to approve its funding. The First Congress finally approved the creation a permanent standing army on September 29, 1789 upon President George Washington insistence.

On January 8, 1790, in Washington’s first annual address to both Houses of Congress, Washington made the case for the importance of maintaining a permanent standing army. “To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace,” he told lawmakers in Federal Hall in New York City, the then-capital of the federal government.

He explained that given current events, that the nation should be prepared to afford protection to its citizens in frontier regions that could fall victim to hostile Indian tribes. “And, if necessary, to punish aggressors.”

How the U.S. military has changed

The size of the first federal Army was quite small, numbering roughly 800 soldiers, including officers. The number of service members of the U.S. fighting force saw a jump during the War of 1812 but would remain under 20,000 until the Mexican-American War from 1846 – 1848 when its size tripled before dropping to roughly pre-war levels.

There was a major surge in troop numbers during the Civil War, peaking at over a million service members in the Union forces in 1865. Again though, once peace was restored troop numbers dropped to the tens of thousands. They would peak again in 1898 for the Spanish-American War and in 1918 with U.S. participation in World War I.

The biggest the U.S. military ever got was during World War II, when the number of active-duty members shot up to over 12 million, nearly 8.7% of the nation’s population at the time. While the numbers came down, the Cold War keep the size of the U.S. military relatively big compared to before. Nowadays, there are about 1.35 million active-duty service members, which accounts for less the half a percent of the U.S. population.

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