The Republicans kept their hold upon the minority, partly by the diversion of the capital, thrown out of the carrying trade, into privateer ventures, war supplies, and manufactures. At the beginning of the war, Governor Griswold, of Connecticut, backed by both houses of the legislature, joined with Governor Strong of Massachusetts (supported only by the House of Representatives) in a refusal to place the militia under regular officers of the United States army. They refused also to allow the quotas called for by General Dearborn (under the Act of Congress of April 10, 1812), for the expedition against Canada, to leave the state. These executives claimed that the troops were not needed to execute the laws of the United States, to suppress insurrection, or to repel invasion,--the only three constitutional reasons giving the President the right to consider himself "commander in chief of the militia of the several states." [207] By taking such a stand, the state governors assumed to decide whether a necessity existed that gave the President his constitutional right to call out the militia. Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, in his "Memoir of Governor Strong," exonerates that executive by pleading his intense convictions of duty, his loyal patriotism, and his later efficient aid [d] in defending the eastern coast of the state. Mr. Lodge reminds his reader that the governor's position was supported by the best lawyers, whom he had been at great pains to consult concerning state and federal rights, which, at that period, had not been so carefully examined and discriminated between as since. The same pleas may be urged for Governors Griswold [e] and Smith. The Connecticut legislature immediately passed an act for raising twenty-six hundred men for state defense under state officers. Governor Griswold's successor, Gov. J. Cotton Smith, when Decatur was blockaded in the Thames, when the descent upon Saybrook was made, at the attack upon Stonington, and during those months when the enemy hovered upon the long exposed coast line, kept a large force of militia ready for duty. The state supported these troops, for, in the wrangle over officership, the national government refused the promised supplies.