Susanna, I imagine any document that provides for the election of Senators and Presidential electors by state legislatures indicates its crafters’ relative distrust of the people. While I haven’t read Anderson’s THE SECOND, I’ve invested a great deal of effort trying to unpack the Second Amendment. Here are some thoughts.
Susanna, I imagine any document that provides for the election of Senators and Presidential electors by state legislatures indicates its crafters’ relative distrust of the people. While I haven’t read Anderson’s THE SECOND, I’ve invested a great deal of effort trying to unpack the Second Amendment. Here are some thoughts.
Madison, who drafted the Second, would have worded it however necessary to get all the states to sign on to the Constitution. That said, to this day, I cannot distinguish the U.S. National Guard that uniquely existed as both a state and a federal force as per the U.S. Constitution from “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state,…” The second clause “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” I understand was tactically vague and ambiguous to assure assent, particularly from southern slave holding states. This clause later formed the basis for discussions that started in the 1970s and culminated in Heller, granting individuals the right to own arms and also, in my view, the perpetuation of a fraud by these so-called textualists/ originalists. My indictment of these jurists stems from the fact that one need look no further than the Fourth Amendment to recognize that the Founders used “persons” to designate individuals and “people” to reference the collective.
As for the document’s limitations, one need merely note that citizen was defined as a white male property owner. Still, the document was a brilliant, unprecedented instrument of the Enlightenment era.
Susanna, I imagine any document that provides for the election of Senators and Presidential electors by state legislatures indicates its crafters’ relative distrust of the people. While I haven’t read Anderson’s THE SECOND, I’ve invested a great deal of effort trying to unpack the Second Amendment. Here are some thoughts.
Madison, who drafted the Second, would have worded it however necessary to get all the states to sign on to the Constitution. That said, to this day, I cannot distinguish the U.S. National Guard that uniquely existed as both a state and a federal force as per the U.S. Constitution from “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state,…” The second clause “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” I understand was tactically vague and ambiguous to assure assent, particularly from southern slave holding states. This clause later formed the basis for discussions that started in the 1970s and culminated in Heller, granting individuals the right to own arms and also, in my view, the perpetuation of a fraud by these so-called textualists/ originalists. My indictment of these jurists stems from the fact that one need look no further than the Fourth Amendment to recognize that the Founders used “persons” to designate individuals and “people” to reference the collective.
As for the document’s limitations, one need merely note that citizen was defined as a white male property owner. Still, the document was a brilliant, unprecedented instrument of the Enlightenment era.