An incident is related as having occurred while he was in the Convention for forming the Constitution, which was probably suggested by his experience during the war. A member proposed to introduce a clause into the constitution, limiting a standing army to five thousand men. Washington observed, that he should have no objection to such a clause, if it were so amended as to provide, that no enemy should presume to invade the United States with more than three thousand.

From The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art by Robert Walsh, Eliakim Littell, John Jay