The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

and gun control was supported by the original klan. Do you have a point?

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery




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."

It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains.

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.

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings. As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband - or even move out of the state - those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.

These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves).

Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia, could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free the slaves.

This was not an imagined threat. Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces. "Liberty to Slaves" was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps. During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779. And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington's army.

Thus, southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves rebelling, but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through military service.


*snip*
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

When people write stuff like this and the right doesn't denounce it, it shows these people have left society long ago.

Am I supposed to denounce the Magna Carta because it was ratified to protect the rights of the rich and powerful to protect themselves, or should I get past that and realize it was the first step on a journey to individual freedom from government control?
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

When people write stuff like this and the right doesn't denounce it, it shows these people have left society long ago.

Am I supposed to denounce the Magna Carta because it was ratified to protect the rights of the rich and powerful to protect themselves, or should I get past that and realize it was the first step on a journey to individual freedom from government control?

What does the Magna Carta have to do with this statement:

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery ?????
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

When people write stuff like this and the right doesn't denounce it, it shows these people have left society long ago.

Am I supposed to denounce the Magna Carta because it was ratified to protect the rights of the rich and powerful to protect themselves, or should I get past that and realize it was the first step on a journey to individual freedom from government control?

What does the Magna Carta have to do with this statement:

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery ?????

What does that statement have to do with the 21st century?
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery | The Smirking Chimp


At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:


"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."
George Mason expressed a similar fear:


"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 [under this proposed Constitution] . . . "

Henry then bluntly laid it out:


"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. 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 [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia."

And why was that such a concern for Patrick Henry?


"In this state," he said, "there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."


Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias. He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they'd use the Constitution to free the South's slaves (a process then called "Manumission").



The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):


"[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission," said Henry. "And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?


"This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

He added: "This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."


James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.


"I was struck with surprise," Madison said, "when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not."


But the southern fears wouldn't go away.


Patrick Henry even argued that southerner's "property" (slaves) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:


"In this situation," Henry said to Madison, "I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."

So Madison, who had (at Jefferson's insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.


His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: "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 [emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."


But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:


"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren.

You are a bit lost in the woods there. You are looking at one perspective, acting like it is the sum total, it is not. 13 States Ratified the Constitution, both Slave and Non Slave States. Virginia's reasons were not New York's or Massachusetts.
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery | The Smirking Chimp


At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:


"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."
George Mason expressed a similar fear:


"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 [under this proposed Constitution] . . . "

Henry then bluntly laid it out:


"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. 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 [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia."

And why was that such a concern for Patrick Henry?


"In this state," he said, "there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."


Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias. He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they'd use the Constitution to free the South's slaves (a process then called "Manumission").



The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):


"[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission," said Henry. "And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?


"This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

He added: "This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."


James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.


"I was struck with surprise," Madison said, "when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not."


But the southern fears wouldn't go away.


Patrick Henry even argued that southerner's "property" (slaves) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:


"In this situation," Henry said to Madison, "I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."

So Madison, who had (at Jefferson's insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.


His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: "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 [emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."


But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:


"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren.

You are a bit lost in the woods there. You are looking at one perspective, acting like it is the sum total, it is not. 13 States Ratified the Constitution, both Slave and Non Slave States. Virginia's reasons were not New York's or Massachusetts.
Do you have a breakdown for what each state's reasons were?

I'd like to see Massachusetts.
 
Am I supposed to denounce the Magna Carta because it was ratified to protect the rights of the rich and powerful to protect themselves, or should I get past that and realize it was the first step on a journey to individual freedom from government control?

What does the Magna Carta have to do with this statement:

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery ?????

What does that statement have to do with the 21st century?

In the 21st century, someone made it the title of the thread you are posting on. Of course, you don't bother to discuss the topic of a thread, do you?
 
The 2nd amendment was because the British tried to lock up the colonists guns, in one area,not because of slavery.

I think it's pretty unlikely that the British or anyone else is going deprive us of the arms we need to defend the nation. My point is that the reason the founders adopted the 2nd amendment is just not applicable today. People want guns for sport and to defend themselves certainly not to overthrow the government.
 
The 2nd amendment was because the British tried to lock up the colonists guns, in one area,not because of slavery.

I think it's pretty unlikely that the British or anyone else is going deprive us of the arms we need to defend the nation. My point is that the reason the founders adopted the 2nd amendment is just not applicable today. People want guns for sport and to defend themselves certainly not to overthrow the government.

The military is the check against tyranny and these people who think otherwise are living a fantasy. The military isn't going to support a tyrant.

They can have the best arsenal you can buy in this country and it isn't going to matter, if the military comes after them. There is no lawful order to follow a tyrant and the people in the military are patriotic.
 
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery




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. ...

...


*snip*

Thom Hartmann can be foolish. You may want to read this to understand history of guns and militias...

The James Madison Research Library and Information Center

NEW HAMPSHIRE RATIFICATION CONVENTION

(June 21, 1788)

Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion.

VIRGINIA CONVENTION

(June 27, 1788)

17th. That the people have a right to keep and bear to 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.
VERMONT

(July 8, 1777)

XV. That the people have the right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State …

MASSACHUSETTS

(October 25, 1780)

XVII. The people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

(June 2, 1784)

XXIV. A well regulated militia is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a state.
BOSTON EVENING POST

(Unknown author, defending a vote by Boston colonists requesting their fellow citizens to purchase arms)

Nor is there a person either in or out of Parliament, who has justly stated and proved one single act of that town, as a public body, to be, we will not say treasonable or seditious, but even at all illegal.... For it is certainly beyond human art and sophistry, to prove the British subjects, to whom the privilege of bearing arms is expressly recognized by the [English] Bill of Rights, and who live in a Province where the law requires them to be equipped with arms, &c. are guilty of an illegal act, in calling upon one another to be supplied with them, as the law directs.

April 3, 1769
 
Last edited:
The 2nd amendment was because the British tried to lock up the colonists guns, in one area,not because of slavery.

Poppycock.
slap.gif


Nobody tried to take their guns. They were used to produce dinner!

And anyways, the thread title is correct.
yes.gif
 
The 2nd amendment was because the British tried to lock up the colonists guns, in one area,not because of slavery.

Poppycock.
slap.gif


Nobody tried to take their guns. They were used to produce dinner!

And anyways, the thread title is correct.
yes.gif

There are many levels of stupidity, just in one post you created a whole new level.
 
What does that statement have to do with the 21st century?

In the 21st century, someone made it the title of the thread you are posting on. Of course, you don't bother to discuss the topic of a thread, do you?

In other words, nothing.

In other words, there is no good reason not to place you on an ignore list, because you aren't even funny and aren't a good read. Go waste someone elses time with your nonsense!
 
The 2nd amendment was because the British tried to lock up the colonists guns, in one area,not because of slavery.

Poppycock.
slap.gif


Nobody tried to take their guns. They were used to produce dinner!

And anyways, the thread title is correct.
yes.gif

sorry, we keep forgetting that everything is a racist plot

Synthia aligns himself with Black Separatists/Communists. It's always nice to know about the poster you're debating, no? Is it any wonder he sees the US Constitution as "WHITEYS RACIST LAW?"
 
Read what the law says and not the lies put out there
2nd Amendment

The only thing ratified by the states in what congress passed was the capital letter M in militia and the placement of the comma.

As passed by the Congress: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.

As ratified by the States: 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.

Why the states ratified the 2nd amendment.
It’s difficult to determine the difference between having a capital M and a lower-case m in the word militia. Generally, a capital letter means a proper noun. In that case, the upper case M, as in the Congressional version, references a particular militia, that being the armed forces of the United States. The lower-case m in the second version would refer to a group of individuals who form an ad hoc army, most likely to oppose the armed forces of the United States. Therefore, it would be okay to keep and bear arms only as part of the official armed forces of the United States. This argument supports a limited version of the right to bear arms; only when serving in the official armed forces of the United States.

The comma in the first version (between the words Arms and shall) also changes the meaning of the amendment. The first version with the comma maintains the reference to the official armed forces of the United States. That is further evidence that the right to bear arms is limited to serving in the official military of the United States. The lack of a comma (between arms and shall) in the second version, implies that there is equality or parity between bearing arms for the official forces of the United States and for personal use of firearms.

It had nothing to do with Slavery.
The States changed the meaning for individuals to keep and bear arms, not just the militia.

Your analysis is flawed, except it is true that the 2nd Amendment had nothing to do with slavery.

Amendment II: House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution

These were all state militia and the states didn't make those changes in capitalization and punctuation. In a state militia people feed themselves and volunteer their time for training and conducting militia business. There was universal support to not have a standing army, because they feared it could be controlled by a tyrant. There was no money to pay or feed a standing army. They weren't able to pay the soldiers the money they owed from the Revolutionary War.

The wording of amendments was worked out in committee, before being sent to the houses of Congress for approval. During the process changes were made, like capitalization and punctuation. It's a little known fact, but there were 13 amendments in the Bill of Rights and 3 didn't passd. Once the Bill of Rights passed, the amendments were sent to the states. Some of the original documents survived in state records and what you are seeing are the differences in the documents that have survived from the US Congress and states. Once the amendments were approved by Congress in the form agreed upon, copies of that form were made and sent to the states for approval.

The original proposed 2nd Amendment was:

"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms."

They couldn't agree on what to do about the religious exemption, so they dropped it and left it to the states to decide. They also dropped "composed of the body of the people" because it was unnecessary.

The original copy of the Bill of Rights as approved by Congress is in the National Archives.

bill-of-rights-large.jpg
 
In the 21st century, someone made it the title of the thread you are posting on. Of course, you don't bother to discuss the topic of a thread, do you?

In other words, nothing.

In other words, there is no good reason not to place you on an ignore list, because you aren't even funny and aren't a good read. Go waste someone elses time with your nonsense!

I'll take a slice O that! Put me on your ignore list too!
 

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