Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States were suspicious of standing militaries. As Samuel Adams wrote in 1768, "Even when there is a necessity of the military power, within a land, a wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and jealous eye over it". Even more forceful are the words of Elbridge Gerry, a delegate to the American Constitutional Convention, who wrote that "tanding armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican Governments, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."