[The Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to
protect slaveholders from the people they owned.]
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WHY DID MADISON WRITE THE SECOND AMENDMENT?  
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Carl T. Bogus
April 9, 2023
History News Network [[link removed]]

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_ The Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect
slaveholders from the people they owned. _

Slave patrol examining passes on the levee road below New Orleans
(1863)., Frederic B. Schell

 

_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, U.S. Constitution

When, on June 8, 1789, James Madison took to the floor of the House of
Representatives to propose a collection of constitutional amendments
– some of which, he said, “may be called a bill of rights” –
he faced a steep climb. Few in the First Congress wanted to adopt a
bill of rights, at least then. “The Constitution may be compared to
a ship that has never put to sea,” said one congressman. It needed
to be tested before decisions could be made about amending it.

Madison himself had opposed a bill of rights during the Constitutional
Convention and the ratification process. He believed that rights were
better secured through governmental structure than through what he
called “parchment barriers.” He also worried that any list of
rights would generate arguments that anything omitted was not a right.

What changed Madison’s mind? And why did he include the Second
Amendment?

The answers to those questions begin one year earlier. By its own
terms, the Constitution had to be ratified by at least nine states at
special ratifying conventions. When Virginia’s ratifying convention
convened in Richmond in June of 1788, eight states had ratified, but
if Virginia failed to ratify, it was by no means clear that there
would be ninth state.

Federalists and antifederalists battled fiercely for a nearly a full
month in Richmond. Madison led the federalists, who wanted a strong
national government and favored ratification. The antifederalists, who
feared a strong national government and opposed ratification, were led
by Patrick Henry and George Mason. Henry, Virginia’s first governor
and the most politically powerful person in the state, was considered
America’s greatest orator. Mason was one of three delegates to the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia who had refused to sign the
Constitution.

One of many arguments that Henry and Mason deployed in Richmond
concerned the militia. Until then, states controlled their militia.
But the Constitution gave Congress the power to organize, arm, and
discipline the militia. The states were only given the authority to
appoint officers and train the militia in accordance with the
discipline prescribed by Congress. Time and again, Henry and Mason
argued that Congress might “neglect or refuse” to arm the militia,
on which the South relied for slave control. “The militia may be
here destroyed by that method which has been practiced in other parts
of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless – by
disarming them,” Mason declared. Henry argued that authority to arm
the militia implied the authority to disarm it, and he raised the
specter of Congress – controlled by a faster-growing, increasingly
abolitionist North – doing exactly that.

Southerners lived in terror of slave revolts. In 1739, an insurrection
in Stono, South Carolina by 60-100 slaves, armed with stolen muskets,
left more than 60 White slaveowners, family members, and militiamen
dead. No one knows how large the rebellion might have grown, or what
the death toll would have been, if militia had not snuffed out the
revolt before the end of its first day. In Eastern Virginia, where
many of the Founders lived and the Richmond debate was taking place,
enslaved Blacks outnumbered Whites. At night, militia groups patrolled
designated areas – called “beats” – to ensure slaves were
where they were supposed to be (this is where the
terms _patrols_ and policeman’s _beat_ originated).

But while militia were essential for slave control, the Revolutionary
War had demonstrated they were useless as a military force. Lexington
and Concord were the only true militia victories. In the face of the
enemy, militia repeatedly threw down their muskets and fled. Henry
“Light Horse Harry” Lee, a hero of the Revolutionary War, told the
Richmond convention that he “could enumerate many instances” of
militia unreliability but would describe just one: how Continental
soldiers behaved with “gallant intrepidity” and militiamen fled at
the Battle of Guilford Courthouse. Other Virginians had previously
reported much the same. George Washington repeatedly expressed disgust
with militia. After Virginia militia bolted without firing a single
shot at the Battle of Camden, their own commander told Governor Thomas
Jefferson, “[M]ilitia I plainly see won’t do.”   

When Madison argued that Virginia could arm its own militia if
Congress failed to do so, Henry ridiculed him. The Constitution
allocated some powers to Congress and others to the states. “To
admit this mutual concurrence of powers will carry you into endless
absurdity – Congress has nothing exclusive on the one hand, nor the
states on the other,” Henry said. He was, of course, right.

The federalists prevailed at Richmond, but just barely. The key vote
was 88-80.

Henry then worked to extinguish Madison’s political career. He had
the state legislature send two other men to the U.S. Senate,
gerrymandered Madison’s congressional district by packing it with
antifederalist counties, and recruited rising star James Monroe to run
against Madison for the House. Monroe intended to campaign on his
support for, and Madison’s opposition to, a bill of rights. And so,
Madison flipped – promising, if elected, to write a bill of rights.

Madison won the election, yet he continued in jeopardy as long as
Henry remained powerful. “Poor Madison got so cursedly frightened in
Virginia that I believe he has dreamed of amendments ever since,”
said one of Madison’s congressional colleagues. Another said Madison
was “haunted by the ghost of Patrick Henry.” It makes perfect
sense that, in writing a bill of rights, Madison would try to cure the
problem Henry and Mason raised in Richmond. Madison could not
expressly give states the right to arm the militia because he vowed
his amendments would not contradict anything in the Constitution. In
fact, states rarely armed their militia; they simply passed laws
requiring militiamen to furnish their own arms. By using that model,
Madison was able to write an amendment that assured his constituents
– and the South generally – that they would have an armed militia
for internal security.

_CARL T. BOGUS is an author and Distinguished Research Professor of
Law at Roger Williams University School of Law in Rhode Island. He is
the author of three books: Buckley: William F. Buckley Jr. and the
Rise of American Conservatism (Bloomsbury Press 2011), Why Lawsuits
Are Good for America: Big Business, Disciplined Democracy and the
Common Law (NYU Press 2001) and Madison's Militia
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The Hidden History of the Second Amendment (Oxford University Press
2023). Bogus has received the Ross Essay Award from the American Bar
Association and the Public Service Achievement Award from Common Cause
of Rhode Island._

_HISTORY NEWS NETWORK depends on the generosity of its community of
readers. If you enjoy HNN and value our work to put the news in
historical perspective, please consider making a donation today! 
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* Second Amendment
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* U.S. Constitution
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* Bill of Rights
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* James Madison
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* Patrick Henry
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* slave patrol militias
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* Slave revolts
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