Strict Subordination: The Origins of Civil Control of Private Military Power in State Constitutions
Alden A. Fletcher[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] The resurgence of private militias claiming the protection of the Second Amendment raises a startling question: is the United States a country without a legal monopoly on the use of force? Perhaps not. The constitutions of forty-eight states contain strict subordination clauses that declare, in one way or another, that “in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” This strict subordination clause has attracted attention as part of efforts to regulate and prohibit private militias, but it has been largely […]


