SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
The Second Amendment
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.
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
The Second Amendment
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.
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
The Second Amendment
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.
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
THE BRITISH ARMY IN THE
COLONIES
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
THE QUARTERING ACTS
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
The Third Amendment
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be
quartered in any house, without the
consent of the Owner, nor in time of
war, but in a manner to be prescribed by
law.
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
The Declaration of Independence
“kept among us, in times of Peace,
Standing Armies without the Consent of
our legislatures” and had “affected to
render the Military independent of and
superior to the Civil power.”
Excerpts from
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
STANDING ARMY
CITIZEN MILITIA
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
THOMAS PAINE
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
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Article I, Section 8
Congress shall have power…
To provide for calling forth the Militia to
execute the Laws of the Union, suppress
Insurrections and repel Invasions;
THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
Article I, Section 8
Congress shall have 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, reserving to
the States respectively, the Appointment of
the Officers, and the Authority of training
the Militia according to the discipline
prescribed by Congress;
THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
Article I, Section 8
Congress shall have power…
To raise and support Armies, but no
Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be
for a longer Term than two Years;
THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
Article I, Section 8
Congress shall have power…
To provide and maintain a Navy;
THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
THE FEDERALISTS
Image: An advertisement for The Federalist, 1787, using the pseudonym "Philo-Publius"
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
SECOND AMENDMENT
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ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
FEDERALIST NO. 25
“If, to obviate this consequence, it should be
resolved to extend the prohibition to the raising
of armies in time of peace, the United States
would then exhibit the most extraordinary
spectacle which the world has yet seen, that of a
nation incapacitated by its Constitution to
prepare for defense, before it was actually
invaded.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
FEDERALIST NO. 20
“If a well-regulated militia be the most natural
defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be
under the regulation and at the disposal of that
body which is constituted the guardian of the
national security.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
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JAMES MADISON
SECOND AMENDMENT
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JAMES MADISON,
FEDERALIST NO. 41
“security against foreign danger” was an “avowed
and essential object of the American Union” and
“powers requisite for attaining it must be
effectively confided” to Congress.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
JAMES MADISON,
FEDERALIST NO. 46
“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 national
standing army would not be) an army of more
than twenty-five or thirty thousand men…”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
JAMES MADISON,
FEDERALIST NO. 46
“…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…”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
JAMES MADISON,
FEDERALIST NO. 46
“…Besides the advantage of being armed, which
the Americans possess over the people of almost
every other nation, the existence of subordinate
governments, to which the people are attached,
and by which the militia officers are appointed,
forms a barrier against the enterprises of
ambition, more insurmountable than any which a
simple government of any form can admit of.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
GEORGE MASON
ANTI-FEDERALISTS
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE GEORGE MASON
“There is no Declaration of any kind for
preserving the Liberty of the Press, the Trial by
jury in civil Causes; nor against the Danger of
standing Armies in time of Peace.”
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“THE FEDERAL FARMER”
RICHARD HENRY LEE
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
“THE FEDERAL FARMER”
“I see so many men in America fond of a standing
army, and especially among those who probably
will have a large share in administering the
federal system; it is very evident to me, that we
shall have a large standing army as soon as the
monies to support them can be possibly found.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
BRUTUS
“a free republic will
never keep a
standing army to
execute its laws”
SECOND AMENDMENT
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THE BILL OF RIGHTS
SECOND AMENDMENT
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JUSTICE JOSEPH STORY
“The militia is the natural defence of a free
country against sudden foreign invasions,
domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations
of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a
free people to keep up large military
establishments and standing armies in time of
peace, both from the enormous expenses, with
which they are attended, and the facile means,
which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled
rulers, to subvert the government, or trample
upon the rights of the people…”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
“…The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms
has justly been considered, as the palladium of
the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong
moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary
power of rulers; and will generally, even if these
are successful in the first instance, enable the
people to resist and triumph over them.”
JUSTICE JOSEPH STORY
SECOND AMENDMENT
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THE CIVIL WAR
SECOND AMENDMENT
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FREDERICK DOUGLASS
“The black man
has never had the
right either to keep
or bear arms; and
the legislatures of
the states will still
have the power to
forbid it.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
Freedman’s Bureau Act
“laws . . . concerning personal liberty,
personal security, and the acquisition,
enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real
and personal, including the constitutional
right to bear arms, shall be secured to and
enjoyed by all citizens.”;
THE CONSTITUTION
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE IDA B. WELLS
“[A] Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every
black home…When the white man…knows he runs as great a
risk of biting the dust every time his African-American victim
does, he will have a greater respect for African-American life.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
COLFAX MASSACRE
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
CHIEF JUSTICE MORRISON WAITE,
CRUIKSHANK V. UNITED STATES
“Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with
the States. It is no more the duty or within the
power of the United States to punish for a
conspiracy to falsely imprison or murder within a
State, than it would be to punish for false
imprisonment or murder itself.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA V. HELLER
SECOND AMENDMENT
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JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA
SECOND AMENDMENT
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JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS,
HELLER DISSENT
The “distinctly military
Virginia proposal is therefore
revealing, since it is clear that
he considered and rejected
formulations that would have
unambiguously protected
civilian uses of firearms.”
SECOND AMENDMENT
SCHOLAR EXCHANGE
MCDONALD V. CHICAGO