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X-Originating-IP: [65.140.75.172] To: H-OIEAHC <H-OIEAHC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> X-Mailer: MSN Explorer 7.00.0021.1900 Delivered-to: H-OIEAHC@h-net.msu.edu Original-recipient: rfc822;john.saillant@vmh.cc.wmich.edu X-OriginalArrivalTime: 02 Jun 2002 03:34:47.0971 (UTC) FILETIME=[7202CF30:01C209E6] An article entitled "Blackstone and the Militia" that appeared recently in the _American Journal of Legal History_ might shed some different and useful light on what (at least for those who would like to see some of Bellesiles' damage to gun control efforts undone) lurks in the shadows of the founding fathers' thoughts on arming the masses individually or within a militia structure. The author of the article (I admit that the name escapes me) suggests that the eighteenth-century Tory push for the strengthening of the militia and the disbanding of the Whig-supported standing army in Britain grew out of an aristocratic and rural concern that the army would next be used against Tory opponents of the Hanoverians and the Whig ministry. The Tories, whose positions were best articulated in Blackstone's Commentaries, believed that the bulk of the militia would be drawn from the ranks of rural laborers loyal to commanders drawn from the landed class. The militia would offset a professional standing army loyal to its paymasters in the palace and the ministry, therefore it would seem logical that those holding Tory-like sympathies, whether in the home country or in the (ex-)colonies, would have supported the idea of a militia and thus the arming of the people. Conversely, those with Whiggish tendencies would prefer not to see the general populace armed as it would possibly interfere with state power. All that said--and admittedly, the transatlantic time and place issues are noted--it seems to me that given the overwhelmingly Whiggish philosophies of the drafters and signers across the spectrum of opinion of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, then the idea that they would want to encourage the arming of individuals seems somewhat remote. I would challenge anyone to prove to me that Madison or Jefferson, rural aristocrats though they were, had even the slightest Tory sympathies--and by Tory, I don't mean in the Loyalist sense, but rather in the sense that Blackstone would have understood it in the 1750s. Just some thoughts.... J.F. Saddler, ABD Department of History Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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