No Army Appropriation For Longer Than Two Years

The Text

The Congress shall have Power To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

What It Says

Congress can fund an army, but never for more than two years at a time. Every army must be re-funded by a newly elected House or it ceases to exist.

What It Protects Against

A permanent standing army that outlives the consent of the governed. The two-year limit is tied to the House election cycle, which means the voters get a say on the army’s existence at every election.

Sourced to a ratification-era document. See Contemporaneous Defense below.

Problem Addressed

The founders regarded a standing army in peacetime as the instrument by which republics are converted into something else, and several states demanded explicit limits on military funding as a condition of ratification.

Contemporaneous Defense

Federalist No. 26 defended this clause as a real check, arguing that the legislature would be obliged to deliberate on the military establishment at least every two years and that a plan for maintaining an army against the people would require the sustained complicity of successive elected bodies.