2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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An interesting piece on the fact that it is the Collective Right for gun ownership that is the new argument, as a means for gun control, and that the Individual Right to own guns has always been the norm.
bearingarms.com
The article linked in the first article....
Adam Seybert, a doctor who served in Congress from 1809 to 1815, wrote a book in 1818 whose title was quite the mouthful: Statistical Annals: Embracing Views of the Population, Commerce, Navigation, Fisheries, Public Lands, Post-Office, Establishment, Revenues, Mint, Military and Naval Establishments, Expenditures, Public Debt and Sinking Fund of the United States of America.
Yet, as comically lengthy as his title was, Dr. Seybert’s view on the Second Amendment was concise and to the point. Dr. Seybert explained that “our constitution guarantees to every citizen the right ‘to keep and bear arms,’ while in other countries this very important trust is controlled by the caprice and tyranny of an individual.”
Dr. Seybert was not alone, and others went even further to talk about how the right the Second Amendment protects applies not just to defense against tyranny or foreign invasion but also personal defense. Joel Tiffany, a prolific 19th-century American author, stated this quite clearly in his 1850 work A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery Together with the Powers and Duties of the Federal Government in Relation to that Subject. Tiffany wrote that the right to bear arms “is accorded to every subject for the purpose of protecting and defending himself, if need be, in the enjoyment of his absolute rights to life, liberty, and property. And this guaranty is to all without any exception; for there is none, either expressed or implied.”
Lysander Spooner, one of the earliest and most influential libertarian political philosophers, added in 1845 that the Second Amendment “obviously recognizes the natural right of all men ‘to keep and bear arms’ for their personal defence; and prohibit both Congress and the State governments from infringing the right of ‘the people’ — that is, of any of the people, — to do so.”
The famous newspaper publisher and abolitionist Horace Greeley said in an 1867 speech to a Black church in Richmond that “our Federal Constitution gives the right to the people everywhere to keep and bear arms; and every law whereby any State legislature undertakes to contravene this, being in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, had no longer any legal force.”
thereload.com
Individual nature of Second Amendment not a modern invention
bearingarms.com
The article linked in the first article....
Adam Seybert, a doctor who served in Congress from 1809 to 1815, wrote a book in 1818 whose title was quite the mouthful: Statistical Annals: Embracing Views of the Population, Commerce, Navigation, Fisheries, Public Lands, Post-Office, Establishment, Revenues, Mint, Military and Naval Establishments, Expenditures, Public Debt and Sinking Fund of the United States of America.
Yet, as comically lengthy as his title was, Dr. Seybert’s view on the Second Amendment was concise and to the point. Dr. Seybert explained that “our constitution guarantees to every citizen the right ‘to keep and bear arms,’ while in other countries this very important trust is controlled by the caprice and tyranny of an individual.”
Dr. Seybert was not alone, and others went even further to talk about how the right the Second Amendment protects applies not just to defense against tyranny or foreign invasion but also personal defense. Joel Tiffany, a prolific 19th-century American author, stated this quite clearly in his 1850 work A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery Together with the Powers and Duties of the Federal Government in Relation to that Subject. Tiffany wrote that the right to bear arms “is accorded to every subject for the purpose of protecting and defending himself, if need be, in the enjoyment of his absolute rights to life, liberty, and property. And this guaranty is to all without any exception; for there is none, either expressed or implied.”
Lysander Spooner, one of the earliest and most influential libertarian political philosophers, added in 1845 that the Second Amendment “obviously recognizes the natural right of all men ‘to keep and bear arms’ for their personal defence; and prohibit both Congress and the State governments from infringing the right of ‘the people’ — that is, of any of the people, — to do so.”
The famous newspaper publisher and abolitionist Horace Greeley said in an 1867 speech to a Black church in Richmond that “our Federal Constitution gives the right to the people everywhere to keep and bear arms; and every law whereby any State legislature undertakes to contravene this, being in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, had no longer any legal force.”
Analysis: Historical Texts Show Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms Isn’t an NRA Invention
What did 19th-century Americans think of the Second Amendment?
thereload.com
