Justice Joseph Story on our 2nd Amendment...
- The Bear Pit
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Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 3:§§ 1890--91
1833
§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely bedoubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon thesubject. The militia is the natural defence of a free countryagainst sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections,and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is againstsound policy for a free people to keep up large militaryestablishments and standing armies in time of peace, bothfrom the enormous expenses, with which they are attended,and the facile means, which they afford to ambitiousand unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government,or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of thecitizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered,as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offersa strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrarypower of rulers; and will generally, even if theseare successful in the first instance, enable the people toresist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truthwould seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulatedmilitia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised,that among the American people there is a growingindifference to any system of militia discipline, and astrong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be ridof all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the peopleduly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.There is certainly no small danger, that indifference maylead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus graduallyundermine all the protection intended by this clauseof our national bill of rights.
1833
§ 1890. The importance of this article will scarcely bedoubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon thesubject. The militia is the natural defence of a free countryagainst sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections,and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is againstsound policy for a free people to keep up large militaryestablishments and standing armies in time of peace, bothfrom the enormous expenses, with which they are attended,and the facile means, which they afford to ambitiousand unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government,or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of thecitizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered,as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offersa strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrarypower of rulers; and will generally, even if theseare successful in the first instance, enable the people toresist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truthwould seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulatedmilitia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised,that among the American people there is a growingindifference to any system of militia discipline, and astrong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be ridof all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the peopleduly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.There is certainly no small danger, that indifference maylead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus graduallyundermine all the protection intended by this clauseof our national bill of rights.
