Daily National Intelligencer

[THE MILITIA.—From the Chronicle.]

General Washington's sentiments on the subject of the constitutional power of the President to call out the militia, contrasted with the "novel expositions" of Gov. Strong & Griswold.

In the year 1794, President Washington, in pursuance of his constitutional power to call out the militia of the several states for the purpose of "suppressing insurrection, repelling invasion and executing the laws of the Union," made a requisition upon the governor of Pennsylvania for a portion of that state's militia to suppress the insurrection then existing in that state. It appears from the official correspondence between the Secretary of State and governor Mifflin, that the latter threw out some intimations that a deliberative or discretionary power existed with the state executives as to the extent or manner in which they were bound to comply with such requisition. In reply to those suggestions, a lengthy letter was, by order of President Washington addressed to the governor, utterly denying and reprobating the doctrines which were supposed to be implied in his answer. Governor Mifflin at once yielded to the force of this reasoning, & in compliance with the requisition ordered out that state's quota of militia. The whole correspondence is very interesting, and it is surprizing that the sentiments of general Washington on that interesting subject have of late either not at all been adverted to, or that they have had so little weight with governors Strong and Griswold in the novel ground assumed by them on this great question. The following extracts from the letters of the Sec'y of State, written by order of the President, contain the substance of the opinions which are there inculcated very much at large. How far they accord with that sort of Washingtonianism which has grown up in the "rank hot-bed" of eastern faction, for the few years past, it would be useless to remark.

"It is, says the President, matter of some regret that the course which has been suggested by you as proper to be pursued, seems to have contemplated Pennsylvania in a light too separate and unconnected. The people of the U. States have established a government for the management of their general interests, they have instituted executive organs for administering that government, and their representatives have established the rules by which those organs are to act. When this authority in that of their government is attacked, they could never be expected to approve, that the case of vindicating this authority should be transferred from the officers of their own government to those of a state." "It was not natural to expect that you would have presented a plan of conduct entirely on the basis of the state government—a plan which, being incompatible with the course marked out in the laws of the States, evidently could not have been acceded to without a suspension of the movements of the federal executive pursuant to those laws." "You must be sensible, sir. that all idea of your calling out the militia by your authority, was referred to a state of things antecedent to the lawful capacity of the President to do it by his own authority—and when he had once determined upon the call pursuant to his legal power's it were absurd to have proposed to you a separate and unconnected call." "It has appeared to your excellency fit and expedient to animadvert upon the nature of the evidence meaning the evidence on which the requisition of the President was founded? produced at the conference, and to express some doubts which had occurred to your mind concerning it. The President would not sanction a discussion of the standard or measure by which evidence in those cases ought to be governed. He would restrain himself by the reflection that this appertains to the province ot another, and that he might rely as a guide upon the decision which should be made by the proper organ of the laws for that purpose."

The following general sentiments of the President in regard to the duty of the several state governments in their relation to the general government, are from the same correspondence, and may not be altogether unseasonable or unworthy of contemplation by our worthy legislature when they go into one of their daily committees on "the state of the Union," with a view as they say of raising old Massachusetts to her relative rank and power among her sister states. A result which we must certainly be in a very hopeful way of seeing accomplished, by a series of the most passionate, head-long fool-hardy projects, that were ever engendered in the brains of moon-struck politicians.

"If the officers of the governments of the respective states, feeling it to be not only a pa-triotic but constitutional duty to support in their several stations the constitution of the United States, shall be disposed as occasion may require with sincerity and good faith to co-operate with the government of the U. States, to second with all their influence and might its legal and necessary measures, by a real and substantial concert. then the enter-prise to be accomplished, can hardly ever be deemed difficult. But if, contrary to these anticipations, the great body of the people should be found indifferent to the preserva-tion of the governinent of the Union, or in-sensible of the necessity of vigorous exertions to repel the dangers which threaten their most important interests, or if an unwillingness to encounter partial inconveniences should inter-fere with the discharge of what they owe to their permanent welfare, or if, either yielding to the suggestion of particular prejudices, or mis-led by the arts which may be employed to infuse jealousy and discontent, they should suffer their zeal for the support of public order to be re-laxed by an unfavorable opinion of the merits and tendency of the measures which may be adopted; if, above all, it were possible that any of the state governments should, instead of promp-ting the exertions of the citizens, assist directly or indirectly in damping their ardor, by giving a wrong bias to their juigment, or by dissemina-ting dissatisfaction w th the proceedings of the ge-neral government, or should counteract the suc-cess of those proceedings by any sinister influence whatever, then indeed no one can calculate or may be able to avert the fatal evils with which such a state of things would be pregnant; then indeed the foundations of our political hap-piness may be deeply shaken, if not altogether overturned."