The american army was actually disbanded after the revolution, and had only 36'000 soldiers at the end of the war of 1812 (15'000 had died during the war).
Indeed, two of the huge early issues about the extent of Federal authority in the US were: should we have a standing army, and should we have a central bank. Both were hotly debated, and the answer to both was either some variant of "no" or a compromise until much later: 1913 for the central bank, 1947 for the army (though implicitly since the 1840's).
