G Washington and the Individual Mandate

There was an interesting item in today's Politico Playbook, quoting from "Obama's legal tactics seen as possibly hurting chances of saving health-care law," by Peter Wallsten, in the 6/23 Washington Post.  I'm embarrassed to say I was not aware of this:

To defend the health-care mandate, for instance, the government could have cited past measures such as a 1792 law signed by President George Washington requiring able-bodied men 18 or older to purchase a musket and ammunition. Several scholars, even former president Bill Clinton, have cited the 18th-century law as an example of an individual mandate that happened to be imposed by a president with impeccable originalist bona fides.

Who knew?