Serena Zabin publishes op-ed in Philadelphia Enquirer
Zabin is Stephen R. Lewis Jr. Professor of History and the Liberal Arts at Carleton.
Serena Zabin, Stephen R. Lewis Jr. Professor of History and the Liberal Arts, published an opinion piece in the “Made By History” section of the Philadelphia Enquirer titled, “In 2026, like in 1770, standing armies in our cities erode freedom.”
In January, Bruce Springsteen released a passionate anti-ICE ballad, “The Streets of Minneapolis,” in which he named Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “King Trump’s private army.” Dedicated to the memory of two protestors who died at the hands of armed government agents in a frigid Minnesota winter, the song invites comparisons to Paul Revere’s famous and equally passionate engraving of the 1770 “Boston Massacre.” Revere’s image depicts a bloodthirsty line of soldiers shooting directly into a crowd of unarmed Bostonians, killing five and injuring six more. In calling ICE a king’s private army, Springsteen drew on a long history of protest against standing armies, one built on the belief that accountability to the people and their representatives is the foundation for political liberty.
Since the Magna Carta, Britons had been hostile to the idea of a standing or permanent army, one that existed even in peacetime and that was paid for through taxes rather than staffed by volunteers. The 1689 Bill of Rights explicitly prohibited a standing army except with Parliament’s blessing. Within a few years, however, Parliament had softened its stance against armies in peacetime, since Britain was engaged in nearly continuous and often undeclared wars against France and Spain. In response, Britons firmed up other ground rules for a standing army: military power must always be subordinate to civilian authority, and some form of legislative consent was necessary. Without these guardrails, people feared, a monarch could simply turn his military might on his own subjects to quell dissent.