Originally posted by rogue06
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James Madison, the author of the Second Amendment, wrote his amendment with his eye firmly fixed on practical politics. He introduced the amendment during Virginia’s debate over the ratification of the Constitution because Virginia Governor Patrick Henry saw danger lurking in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, which gives Congress the power to provide for “organizing, arming, and disciplining” militias.
Henry feared that without checks upon it, Congress could undermine the ability of militias in Virginia and elsewhere in the South to suppress slave uprisings and pursue runaway slaves.
The militia issue was important enough for Henry to see it as grounds for opposing ratification of the Constitution. The positive power Congress had over militias, Henry reasoned, could easily be turned into restrictive power. “By this sir, you see that their control over our best defence is unlimited,” Henry warned his fellow Virginians.
It took Madison two drafts to get the Second Amendment into the single sentence it is today. His careful wording was deliberate. In drawing a connection between militias and the right to bear arms rather than simply defending the right to bear arms, Madison, a slave holder himself, was speaking to his state’s ruling powers. Only the white men in the Virginia militia had the right to bear arms. Free African-Americans could join the militia, but they were limited to being drummers or buglers.
The case for seeing the Second Amendment as part of the early debate over slave control and militias has been made with great persuasiveness by former Pennsylvania Assistant Attorney General Anthony F. Picadio in both the 2019 Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly and Transpartisan Review and by law professor Carl T. Bogus in the University of California, Davis Law Review of 1998.
And in addition to such books as Professor Sally Hadden’s 2003 study, Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, and Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman’s 2014 history, The Second Amendment: A Biography, there are also strong op-eds on this subject.
But the link between slave control and the Second Amendment has not become a feature of today’s debate over gun control.
Henry feared that without checks upon it, Congress could undermine the ability of militias in Virginia and elsewhere in the South to suppress slave uprisings and pursue runaway slaves.
The militia issue was important enough for Henry to see it as grounds for opposing ratification of the Constitution. The positive power Congress had over militias, Henry reasoned, could easily be turned into restrictive power. “By this sir, you see that their control over our best defence is unlimited,” Henry warned his fellow Virginians.
It took Madison two drafts to get the Second Amendment into the single sentence it is today. His careful wording was deliberate. In drawing a connection between militias and the right to bear arms rather than simply defending the right to bear arms, Madison, a slave holder himself, was speaking to his state’s ruling powers. Only the white men in the Virginia militia had the right to bear arms. Free African-Americans could join the militia, but they were limited to being drummers or buglers.
The case for seeing the Second Amendment as part of the early debate over slave control and militias has been made with great persuasiveness by former Pennsylvania Assistant Attorney General Anthony F. Picadio in both the 2019 Pennsylvania Bar Quarterly and Transpartisan Review and by law professor Carl T. Bogus in the University of California, Davis Law Review of 1998.
And in addition to such books as Professor Sally Hadden’s 2003 study, Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, and Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman’s 2014 history, The Second Amendment: A Biography, there are also strong op-eds on this subject.
But the link between slave control and the Second Amendment has not become a feature of today’s debate over gun control.
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