The2ndAmendment
Gold Member
- Feb 16, 2013
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Here is a 1900 page book (2300 pages on the CD in PDF format) that is absolutely lush with Constitutional History from the days of the Magna Charta (and even before!) explaining historical necessity for the Militia both in the past, present and the future!
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Sovereignty-Constitutional-Principles/dp/0967175941[/ame]
I will link a few pages, so as not to violate copyright:
Here's a small excerpt of the Table of Contents, the Table of Contents itself if over 32 pages!
An excerpt of Chapter 1:
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/The-Sword-Sovereignty-Constitutional-Principles/dp/0967175941[/ame]
I will link a few pages, so as not to violate copyright:
Here's a small excerpt of the Table of Contents, the Table of Contents itself if over 32 pages!
An excerpt of Chapter 1:
Yet Hamilton himself, in that very paper, argued that “[l]ittle more can reasonably
be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed
and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, * * * to assemble them
once or twice in the course of a year”—and then proposed that
[t]he attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the
formation of a select corps of moderate size, upon such principles as will
really fit it for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it
will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia ready to
take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it.
Hamilton did not explain, however, on what grounds “a select corps of moderate
size”, even if well disciplined, but without significant support from the remainder of the
people, could be expected to oppose a domestic “standing army” (let alone a force
of foreign invaders) presumably larger in size and composed of at least equally
competent soldiers. Neither did he preëmptively refute the obvious objection that
the members of “a select corps” might envision themselves as separate from,
independent of, and even antagonistic to the people, and thus become, not just
“subservient to the views of arbitrary power”, but an actual source and instigator of
such “views”. In any event, Hamilton must have been familiar with the relevant
literature of the period,125 including the definition in Article 13 of Virginia’s
Declaration of Rights of 1776 that “a well regulated militia” is “composed of the
body of the people, trained to arms”{EN-1}—with which patriots in every other State
as well would doubtlessly have agreed. He surely would have known that, in
common parlance, “the body of the people” meant “[a] collective mass; a joint
power” and “[t]he main part; the bulk”.126 And more likely than not he would also
have been familiar with the specifically political—and radical—implication that
“the body of the people” was the embodiment of constitutional democracy in its truest
and best sense: incorporating and empowering the entirety of the free adult
individuals from all walks of life, occupations, and economic and social classes
throughout the community in service of the community’s aggregate and permanent
interests.127 Nonetheless, Hamilton frankly opposed preparing most of the citizenry
for some sort of effective Militia service, other than requiring the mere personal possession of arms. Surely he realized that, even if “the people at large” were
“properly armed and equipped”, they would remain otherwise unorganized, and
largely if not completely undisciplined and untrained—and therefore would not
constitute a “militia” at all, any more than contemporary Americans who happen
to possess firearms constitute a “militia” merely as a consequence of such possession.
Contrast this with The Federalist No. 46, in which James Madison contended
that
[t]he only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the
State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal
government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of
ambition. * * * That the people and the States should, for a sufficient
period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray
both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and
systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military
establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should
silently and patiently behold the gathering storm and continue to supply
the materials until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads must
appear to everyone more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious
jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the
sober apprehensions of a genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the
supposition is, let it, however, be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to
the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the
devotion of the federal government: still it would not be going too far to
say that the State governments with the people on their side would be
able to repel the danger. The number to which, according to the best
computation, a standing army can be carried in any country does not
exceed one hundredth part of the whole number or souls; or one twentyfifth
part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not
yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty
thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near
half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen
from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united
and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever
be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.
Of these two, then, who was correct: Hamilton—who proposed Militia the
effective portions of which would be composed merely of “select corps”; or Madison,
who presumed (as any Virginian of that era would have) that the Militia would
always be “composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”? Could the Militia
powers and duties of the General Government and the States allow such mutually
contradictory results? Or perhaps should the statements of Hamilton and Madison be reconciled by reference to the pre-constitutional practice—with which they both
were surely familiar—of creating special units within the Militia (such as
“Minutemen” and “Rangers”to which were tolled off the men most capable of
performing arduous duties, with other men assigned to less-rigorous ordinary
service, yet with all of them at least minimally trained for any tasks they might be
called upon to fulfill in an emergency?
Examples such as these prove that random statements drawn from the
Framers, Founders, or other American patriots in the late 1700s cannot
always—and, really, should never—be naively accepted at face value, but must
instead be read critically in their peculiar historical contexts and then checked for
accuracy by reference to some other, independent, objective, verifiable, and (if
possible) unimpeachable sources capable of providing standards by means of which
to winnow the wheat from the chaff. That being the case, though, such other
sources can better serve in the first instance as authorities for the substance of the
statements than can the statements themselves—thus rendering the statements at
best cumulative and even supererogatory simply as a consequence of proving their
accuracy.
Even if particular Framers, Founders, or other American patriots could in
some sense be considered “experts” on the subject of constitutional principles, and
even if their statements and writings could be assimilated to “testimony” (albeit not
under oath), that “testimony” would not necessarily constitute conclusive evidence
as to the meaning of any constitutional provision. In a court of law, after all, an
expert may be allowed to testify as to his opinion on a matter within his area of
expertise—but then he is subject to cross-examination on the basis for his opinion,
and its sufficiency. So, even if those Framers and Founders were acknowledged
experts, common Americans in the jury of public opinion both then and now would
have been and are entitled to test the witnesses’ expert opinions by investigating the
evidence upon which they had relied, and the methods which they had employed
for evaluating it. Moreover, such a jury would have been and would still be justified
in discounting or disregarding entirely any such expert’s testimony, if it determined
that the basis of his opinion, or his reasoning from that basis, were faulty, or that he
were biased or otherwise unreliable as a witness.
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