REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Civil War reenactors prepare to reenact the Battle of Manassas/Bull Run. In slave states, militias served not only as military forces, but also as slave patrols.
When the draft went to the states for ratification, one of the big battles was in Virginia, where men of towering reputations stood on both sides of the issue. The leader of the pro-ratification forces was James Madison, whose role in the story is so large that he is known as the Father of the Constitution. The noisiest opponent was the fading but famed orator Patrick Henry (whose famous line as a revolutionary was “give me liberty or give me death” and who had been the first post-colonial governor of Virginia). Henry made many, many arguments about the dangers to individual liberty and to the sovereignty of the Commonwealth of Virginia of this powerful new federal government.
Bogus emphasizes that many of the arguments dealt with “militia” issues. But Bogus adds a fact that wouldn’t necessarily occur to you. In the slave states, the militias also served the function of slave patrols. The militia was available for military operations, but its biggest function was to police the slaves, intimidate the slaves and make clear to the slaves that any effort at a slave rebellion would be met with overwhelming deadly force — armed force — gun force.
No wonder the fanatics have such an aversion to the first four words of the sacred amendment.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
And just imagine the Democrats in the south freaking out when their klan mobs are fired on by the unorganized militias of black citizens armed by the NRA. Talk about poetic justice.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you can restrict the exercise of the right to only those you allow to enroll in the militia, then it's even Easier to use those armed men to intimidate whoever you decide to exclude from the militia, whether you do so on the basis of race, creed, political views, class, etc.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if we have, indeed, grown past the limitations of our forbears and see ALL men as created equal--regardless of such differences--and do not infringe on the rights of any one group, they can be armed for their common defense against those who would band together and attack them, evening the odds and taking away the terroristic power of these others, whether these are a group of renegades like the Klan or a renegade government that would enslave a group of its own people because they have a few more melanocites.
So, you're saying the founders were wrong about slavery but right about zero restrictions on individual gun ownership?
DeleteSo, you're saying they were wrong about slavery, wrong about the Second Amendment, but right about the First Amendment.
DeleteYeah, something like that. I think the 1st Amendment ideas, as well as some of the others, are universal whereas the 2A doesn't even belong in there.
DeleteOn what grounds do you make that distinction? I say that rights are an expression of an individual's ability to choose. No one has the right to curtail my choices without good cause, and as long as I'm harming no one, certainly no one has the right to stop me.
DeleteIt's so hard for you control freaks to listen, but if you'd try it, you'd find out how wrong you are. We've discussed this article in the past, and we've talked to you many times about the militia. How about you stop lying?
ReplyDeleteNo, actually you totally ignore the first four words of the 2A and when WE bring it up you offer prolix and convoluted justifications that no one can follow except yourselves.
DeleteHow hard is it to follow this: The militia clause explains why the amendment was seen as needed, but the right is identified as belonging to the people.
DeleteConvenient that you claim nobody can follow what we're saying when you followed it just fine the last time I explained it.
DeleteAbsolutely correct. The southern founders wanted the ability to form citizens militias to round up their property and put down slave uprisings without having to wait for the far away government to come to their aid.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I buy into this theory since the institution of the Militia existed in Canada as well, which did not have slavery.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Militia was a lot stronger in the New England States than the south if I remember correctly.
If this was the case, it was some unwritten aspect of the institution.
My personal opinion, I wouldn't touch this with a ten foot pole. It is as spurious as saying the Second Amendment deals with non-militia purposes.
You couldn't just be right for once without throwing in a little error at the end, I see.
DeleteI don't see anywhere in the second civil right anything that ties it to slavery. I don't read anywhere that the second civil right was solely for the purpose of slavery keeping.
DeleteExcept that Laci wants slavery to be part of it. Slavery was abolished as wrong as well as the suppression of women rights. If the purpose of the second civil right was somehow solely tied to slavery then the right would have been abolished as well.
Slavery was abolished because it was against their civil rights. The suppression of women rights were corrected as well for the same reason. The right to keep and bear arms IS a civil right that belongs to ALL people and slavery and the suppression of women infringed on their second civil rights as well as other rights that are enumerated protections for ALL people.
Laci, get with it, you still lost.
"It is as spurious as saying the Second Amendment deals with non-militia purposes."
Its not "spurious", that's EXACTLY what it says.