I sometimes think that it is true that no people ever went to war with another people.  Governments have gone to war with one another.  Peoples, so far as I remember, have not, and this is a government of the people, and this people is not going to choose war.  But we are not dealing with people; we are dealing with Governments.  We are dealing with Governments now engaged in a great struggle, and therefore we do not know what a day or an hour will bring forth.  All that we know is the character of our own duty.  We do not want the question of peace and war, or the conduct of war, entrusted too entirely to our Government.  We want war, if it must come, to be something that springs out of the sentiments and principles and actions of the people themselves; and it is on that account that I am counseling the Congress of the United States not to take the advice of those who recommend that we should have, and have very soon, a great standing Army, but, on the contrary, to see to it that the citizens of this country are so trained and that the military equipment is so sufficiently provided for them that when they choose they can take up arms and defend themselves.

The Constitution of the United States makes the President the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the Nation, but I do not want a big Army subject to my personal command.  If danger comes, I want to turn to you and the rest of my fellow-countrymen and say, “Men, are you ready?” and I know what the response will be.  I know that there will spring up out of the body of the Nation a great host of free men, and I want those men not to be mere targets for shot and shell.  I want them to know something of the arms they have in their hands.  I want them to know something about how to guard against the diseases that creep into camps, where men are unaccustomed to live.  I want them to know something of what the orders mean that they will be under when they enlist under arms for the Government of the United States.  I want them to be men who can comprehend and easily and intelligently step into the duty of national defense.  That is the reason that I am urging upon the Congress of the United States at any rate the beginnings of a system by which we may give a very considerable body of our fellow-citizens the necessary training.

I have not forgotten the great National Guard of this country, but in this country of 100,000,000 people there are only 129,000 men in the National Guard; and the National Guard, fine as it is, is not subject to the orders of the President of the United States.  It is subject to the orders of the Governors of the several States, and the Constitution itself says that the President has no right to withdraw them from their States even, except in the case of actual invasion of the soil of the United States.  I want the Congress of the United States to do a great deal for the National Guard, but I do not see how the Congress of the United States can put the National Guard at the disposal of the national authorities.  Therefore it seems to me absolutely necessary that in addition to the National Guard there should be a considerable body of men with some training in the military art who will have pledged themselves to come at the call of the Nation.