Private Militias....

My home county raised a militia during the latter part of the War Between the States to attempt to repel the anticipated encroaching Union forces and put down any possible slave revolts.

They have a nice little marble marker on the square commemorating their defeat at the hands of the Federal Cavalry and their damnable Spencer carbines.

The point being that said militia was directly responsible to the county commissioners and couldn't be employed unless it was unanimously approved, so they answered to a civil authority.
 
"...or something..." Like drinking beer?
Who would be daft enough to give a 2Lt a car?
There's no such thing as a private militia. The pre-Rebellion(you call it The Revolution) militia comprised of every male between age 18 and 45 and was about self-armed citizens defending their homes from raiding natives and assorted criminals. The McVeigh types are not defending anything.
 
Nonetheless, the U.S. still has a law on the books defining/establishing the militia, and all able-bodied males between 17 and 45 who are not in the armed services, National Guard, or Naval Auxiliary are by law members of the unorganized militia. So if a subset of that group of people elects to meet periodically for the purpose of training ... aren't they not just "a" militia but, in fact, "the" militia?

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
 
Nope the revolutionaries of 1775 did have a civilian authority that they were responsible to. It was just not the British colonial authority.
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So you're saying that each town or county had it's own private militia, since the legal national government was the British throne?
 
45 Auto said:
Nope the revolutionaries of 1775 did have a civilian authority that they were responsible to. It was just not the British colonial authority.
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So you're saying that each town or county had it's own private militia, since the legal national government was the British throne?
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I believe he's saying exactly the opposite. The colonial militias were not private, they were under the civil authority of a town or a county or a colonial governor. Any level of government is a "civil authority," not just the national government.

Would you argue that your town or city's police department is NOT operating under civil authority -- and is, in fact, private -- because it doesn't answer to the President of the United States?
 
T. O'Heir said:
Who would be daft enough to give a 2Lt a car?
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Hey, I resemble that remark. :D (And I was a sergeant before getting a butter bar, so my commander was decently sure I could handle a motor vehicle with no adult supervision)

On another forum I frequent, a poster postulated that the modern equivalent to the colonial militia system was the use of volunteer fire companies in rural counties.
 
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