Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

1. Abusing Federalist Paper No. 46. (Dist. Ct. Op., p. 14)

.. so how does this opinion fit with yours? .. feeling it might not so well ..

The most frequently quoted words to make the case for a personal or individual right to be armed are from James Madison's Federalist Paper No. 46. The NRA Member Guide (insert, American Rifleman, March, 1991) contains the words from this paragraph in usual distortion:

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Alluding to "the advantage of being armed," James Madison adamantly defended the individual right to arms stating: "Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
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Madison's purpose in Federalist Paper No. 46 was to respond to Antifederalist fears of a strong central government and their strident opposition to ratification of the Constitution. He was not making cogent arguments in political theory. There is no implication in the passage below that Madison meant a individual right to be armed outside of accountability to public authority. Madison was describing a balance of power between state government and federal government, not Sue Wimmershoff-Caplan's "armed citizen guerrillas" (Appendix D) and any and all government. The militiamen, commanded by officers, were beholden to state government. The favorite words that are lifted out of context are in bold:

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The only refuge left to those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors would, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States would silently and patiently behold the gathering storm and continue to supply materials until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads must appear to everyone more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it, however, be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government: still it would not be going too far to say the State governments with the people on their side would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for the common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the late successful resistance of this country against the British arms will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments of the several kingdoms of Europe , which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance that the throne of every tyranny of Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
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Madison provided other comments on the nature of governmental power and the function of the militia as an instrument of government:

The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution

the bold is in the original .. more .. http://www.potowmack.org/emerappi.html#abus46