Several Republican governors have sent, or stated an intention to send, guardsmen out of their states to the southern border-suggesting an increasing willingness to use state forces outside of state borders, independently from national leadership. In the aftermath of the January 6 riot, National Guard troops from across the country came to the capital, where, thankfully, no further violence ensued. But he refused the offer and left to eventually command the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. At least some people thought his loyalty to his country would surpass that of a faction: General Winfield Scott offered Lee command of the primary Union army on the eve of the war, the highest compliment to both Lee’s military acumen and his honor. Lee was widely esteemed by his peers both north and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Setting aside the justifiable dents his reputation has taken with later generations, Robert E. Personal good character alone cannot be a sure guide here, as any look at the past will show us. As the writer Andrew Sullivan put it, there is an “increasingly nihilist cult on the right among the GOP” that has shown an “increasingly menacing contempt for electoral integrity and a stable democracy.” Will all elected governors rush to the defense of the constitutional order when necessary, as did the 6th Massachusetts and the 22nd Connecticut? Or will they fight for a separatist movement? This is not a happy thought, but as even previously respectable institutions are being coy about the possibility of such a conflict, it must be considered. Given this tinderbox, we unfortunately have to revisit the question of what role the present-day state militias-the National Guard-and the governors who command them might play in a constitutional crisis. military is not ready for a constitutional crisis But law professors and public intellectuals have seriously discussed the possibility of secession or a “national divorce.” A recent University of Virginia study revealed that 41 percent of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and 52 percent of Donald Trump voters “at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country.” The same study revealed that significant numbers on both sides wish their preferred president wouldn’t have to be constrained by Congress or the courts.

(His military experience was unromantic-he dug ditches in the red mud of Northern Virginia for nine months, caught consumption, and died shortly after he was discharged.) This included, a century and a half before I came to live in the area, Connecticut’s 22nd Regiment, in which my many-greats-grandfather Edwin Tolhurst served. Later forces arrived, building up the defenses around the city in the Northern Virginia towns of Arlington and Alexandria. Indeed, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the prompt arrival of the 6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in Washington, D.C., in April 1861 helped secure a capital precariously close to the battlefront. At the time, the Union and the Confederacy did not have much in the way of national armies but instead relied on units raised by state governors-the equivalent of today’s National Guard. The largest memorial on the battlefield honors the more than 23,000 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought for the Union Army on those July days in 1863. These values were on my mind over the weekend, when my wife and I drove the two hours from our home in Alexandria, Virginia, to visit Gettysburg National Military Park, where state regiments take pride of place in commemoration of the battle. I’m a resident of Virginia and a longtime proponent of the values of classical liberalism-individual freedom, limited government, and rule of law-first as a college instructor and later at an educational nonprofit.

But in addition to the substantive policy disagreements or politics as pastime, people across America should be monitoring the outcome of this race for another reason: Governors command the National Guard, and after the January 6 riot, the country saw the National Guard defend our constitutional order. Gubernatorial races can quickly become proxies for nationwide grievances and allegiances, and Tuesday’s neck-and-neck election between the Republican Glenn Youngkin and the Democrat Terry McAuliffe for the governorship of Virginia is no exception.

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