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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery:Southern Slave patrols
The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.
In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states.
In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.
As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."
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Sally E. Haden, in her book Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, "Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller." There were exemptions so "men in critical professions" like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work. Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45 - including physicians and ministers - had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.
And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
In other words, the Virginia Militia was tasked with breaking up slave rebellions by busting any slave who might be organizing one. It even gave incentive to men to serve on the militia: any freed colored person (black, Native American, or any other), if caught fleeing by the Militiaman, would be turned over to them as property, enslaved. A very effective incentive in colonial Virginia.
By 1755, the Militia was established not only as a foundation to enforce slavery in the south, but it was a structure which it could be expanded if need be. Countless records of captured free people of color, even people such as the Irish, were pressed as slaves under the system.
With the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, there was concern among slave holders that their militias, their slave patrols, would be usurped by the new federal government using the provisions outlined in Article 1, Section 8. Patrick Henry in particular was quite vocal on the subject, saying:
Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . .
By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither . . . this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory. [Source]
He also is quoted as saying:
If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress . . . . Congress, and Congress only, can call forth the militia. [Source]
He was not alone either, with George Mason joining him in concern:
The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them. [Source]
In other words, the U.S. Congress could disarm the patrols needed to keep slaves in line, eliminating slavery with one bold and quick move overnight. The 2nd Amendment itself was purposefully designed to empower the states to manage and handle their slave patrols, their militias. Which is why when Thomas Jefferson had James Madison draft up the 2nd Amendment, he had the language changed, from this:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
To the language we know today:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. [Source]
A serious redesign, would you not say? The focus shift from a civil, non-conscripted force to a state-regulated entity which can be conscripted into service fit the needs of the slave holders. In a stroke of irony, when Abraham Lincoln did free the slaves, he used the very power which Patrick Henry and George Mason feared the government would, only at that time, by the Confederate states acting in revolt, they had abandoned their voting positions within the United States and therefore were unable to block the legislation. Their petty revolt resulted in their institution of slavery being wiped away. It still was a bloody civil war, but their right to bear arms destroyed what they had hoped to preserve.
When people call themselves patriots, or say theyre standing for what the founding fathers stood for when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, they are, in fact, doing nothing of the sort. Unless, of course, theyre arguing for the right to press people into involuntary, lifetime-indentured servitude, passed from parent to child in perpetuity. Or perhaps, that was, in fact, the plan all along.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/01/16/founding-fathers-words-reveal-2nd-amendment-was-to-preserve-slavery/
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Surely slavery had something to do with the State Militias in the south.
Per the Constitution, surpressing insurrections (both white and black) was a vital role of the State Militias, as was repealing invasions, enforcing the laws; establishing justice, ensuring tranquility; the common defence, secure the blessings of liberty, etc. etc. etc.
And let's not forget that whole 'large standing army' thing.
Nonsense like the OP will not benefit efforts to pass gun control legislation.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Ignorance is bliss ?
This is a history lesson
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)Vattel
(9,289 posts)was to enforce slavery is not history. It is nonsense.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,256 posts)Kingofalldems
(38,440 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)for the enslavement of people.
The amendment has its roots in the south's enslavement, subjugation, trade of human beings. Your first amendment right didn't do that.
.html?filters[term]=slavery%20patrols&filters[primary]=images
Romulox
(25,960 posts)in that.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)thucythucy
(8,043 posts)Interesting history, and certainly timely, given all the discussion of the ins and outs of the 2nd amendment.
AnnieBW
(10,421 posts)Why the wingnuts are so quick to call upon the Founding Fathers when they talk about Second Amendment rights.
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)To say that the 2nd Amendment was put in place only to protect slavery, or that it was even one of the reasons for its creation, is not only a stretch of the imagination, but, quite frankly, does kinda smack of historical revisionism, and not really of the good kind, either.
Response to AverageJoe90 (Reply #15)
HangOnKids This message was self-deleted by its author.
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)What is said is that the 2nd was revised so that slave owners could not be stopped from mistreating slaves. Had the original version stood, the congress could have halted such uses of militias.
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While we are on the subject ya'll... it is my opinion that slavery kept all wages for the working man depressed. If somebody could coerce a slave to work for nothing, there was no economic incentive to pay anyone else to do the work. The working man at that time had suppressed wages because of slavery. Especially southerners.
Coming full circle to today, the meager wages paid to Chinese, et. al. suppress the wages of the American working person.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Congress could do with the Militias?
RobertEarl
(13,685 posts)Many deals were made to get everyone on board.
The states wanted many things left to them to decide. It even says in the constitution that all powers not enumerated in the constitution go to that state, or the people.
If it was the congress that could make all decisions for the state militias, then congress could shut them down. As it was, states were able to use their militias as weapons against slaves, et. al. Until they seceded. Then Lincoln shut them down.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)What is said is that the 2nd was revised so that slave owners could not be stopped from mistreating slaves.
And even that's a stretch. Yes, it can be said that some slave owners may have used the 2A as an excuse for putting down slave strikes, but in all honesty, there's really nothing plausible, in the proper context, that suggests that it was part of the Founders' intent.
With that said, though, you are actually quite correct on this: Working-class white people, too, did indeed suffer wage depression, Southerners above all, and that the cycle has continued to the present day, just with peasants in Chinese, Latin American, etc. factories instead of African-Americans on plantations, as the slaves of the modern era.
mzmolly
(50,984 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)1. Persons of African descent cannot be, nor were ever intended to be, citizens under the U.S. Const. Plaintiff is without standing to file a suit.
2. The Property Clause is only applicable to lands possessed at the time of ratification (1787). As such, Congress cannot ban slavery in the territories. Missouri Compromise is unconstitutional.
3. Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from freeing slaves brought into federal territories.
Which gave that wonderful rulings
mzmolly
(50,984 posts)part of our history, to be sure.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)And the same general frame of mind that the hardcore right-wing justices of the 1850s, like Roger Taney, used to try to excuse their (wrong, inaccurate) beliefs that blacks were never intended to be citizens, period(when in fact, there were free blacks voting in some states as much as a half century or more before the Civil War, if not earlier!), is really the same one that tried to convince us that "Separate but Equal" was genuine, and that corporations are basically people, etc.
And many reactionaries have always lapped up these and other certain lines of bullshit for about as long as this country's been around, in ALL ages.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Just because this has never been put forth before doesn't mean it didn't play a role...I'd like to read more, and not just from thsi source, thoguh.
Ilsa
(61,690 posts)You might look at his website for additional sources for the origins and development of the 2nd Amendment.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Then I clicked on it and it's another author...thanks.
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)If it was black groups like the Black Panthers, instead of the Tea Party, who were holding demonstrations with signs saying "We came unarmed (this time)" or started marching around carrying assault rifles, do you really think the Republicans who are howling about the Second Amendment would be respectful of their Second Amendment rights?
Or do you think that a SWAT team and the National Guard would bomb them until the place they were standing looked like Fallujah?
lunasun
(21,646 posts)legaleagle_45
(43 posts)There are so many, I do not know where to begin. How about here:
Which is why when Thomas Jefferson had James Madison draft up the 2nd Amendment, he had the language changed, from this:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.
To the language we know today:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Thomas Jefferson never had James Madison "draft up the 2nd Amendment" The language employed by Madison was an almost verbatim copy of the proposal made by the Virginia Ratifying convention on June 27, 1787. Jefferson was in Paris at all relevant times. The proposal made by the Virginia Ratifying Convention which is the ancestor of the 2nd Amend was this was this:
17. That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power.... 19 That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted upon payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead.
Madison initially opposed the inclusion of Any Bill of Rights for reasons not relevant here. However following the Virginia Ratifying Convention he agreed to advocate for a Bill of Rights if he was elected to the House of Representatives. He was elected and he kept his word. The House appointed Madison to prepare a draft for a Bill of Rights and report back to them. On June 8, 1788 Madison made his proposal to the House and it contained the language "best security of a free country"
On June 30, 1789, Madison wrote to Jefferson and enclosed a copy of the proposal he made on June 8, 1789. Jefferson was still in France and did not respond until August 28, 1789 and made absolutely no suggestion that Madison's wording of "free country" be changed to "free state".Jefferson did not even return from France until September of 1789 at which time the 2nd Amend had already obtained its final form.
A link to Madison's proposals made June 8, 1788:
http://www.constitution.org/bor/amd_jmad.htm
A link to the correspondence between Jefferson and Madison for the entire relevant time frame:
http://www.teachingamericanhistory.org/bor/madison-jefferson3.html
So how did it get changed to "free state"? Madison's proposals were referred to a House Select Committee on style and they reported back on July 28, 1789 with the change. Here is a link:
http://www.constitution.org/bor/amd_scom.htm
Madison did not change it, Jefferson did not direct that Madison change it and there is no indication whatsoever that the change was made for purposes of slave patrols.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)And it's a crime to make something out to be racial when it wasn't, or when there was only a trace element of it.
Pure crap. Bogus.