We can’t pretend there is anything normal about this moment in our nation’s history. Washington, D.C.—the capital of the world’s oldest continuous democracy—is occupied by an armed military force. The president says it is to fight violent crime. But violent crime has always been with us. Never before has it been used as a pretext to put soldiers in the streets of our capital.

The Framers would have recognized this for what it is: an inversion of liberty. They lived under King George III’s standing armies. In the Declaration of Independence, they condemned him: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” They knew that soldiers in civilian life were not protectors of freedom but the instruments of tyranny.

Jefferson warned us. Washin

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