也就是说，美国爱国者自称为争取的价值观与专业军队所需的纪律文化不相容。共和国致力于同意的核心原则，而军队则是不思想服从和常规胁迫的制度体现。一支“常驻军”的想法袭击了大陆大会和州议会的大多数成员是对共和党原则的高度危险威胁。
(Namely, the very values that the American patriots claimed to be fighting for were incompatible with the disciplined culture required in a professional army. Republics were committed to a core principle of consent, while armies were the institutional embodiments of unthinking obedience and routinized coercion. The very idea of a "standing army" struck most members of the Continental Congress and the state legislatures as a highly dangerous threat to republican principles.)