On this day in 1792, Congress passes the second portion of the Militia Act, requiring that “every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years… be enrolled in the militia.”The History Channel has an "American Revolution" category summarizing what happened on this date. Perhaps I'll begin including a link as a daily feature...
Monday, May 08, 2006
This Day in History: May 8
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2 comments:
David,
Upon reading the story on the History Channel site I was surprised to read their rationale behind the Militia Act.
They said…
"the federal government should be given the power to put down rebellions within the states."
And this….
"under the auspices of the Militia Act, assembled 15,000 men from the surrounding states and eastern Pennsylvania as a federal militia .... The mere threat of federal force had quelled the rebellion and established the supremacy of the federal government."
Currently the GFW argument is that the Militia as mentioned in the 2nd Amendment are bodies commanded by the individual states whose purpose is to protect the sovereign states from an oppressive Federal government.
Which is it? Both cannot be correct.
I put to you that the argument the "anti's" use is disingenuous on its face.
Actually, it's all of those, plus the unorganized militia that could muster to address a purely local emergency.
I just got in from a 14 hour day, so don't have time to research this for cites, but many of the arguments against a standing army and fear of a central government debated by the founders included the concept that states could defend themselves from tyranny, but the Constitution also has the clear power of the federal gov via Congress to call forth the militia to suppress insurrection and defend against invasion--with the president as CiC--none of which authorizes infringing on individuals' right to keep and bear arms--and from them are drawn the militia. The framers were also carefuyl to provide exceptions for those "scrupulously conscientious" against bearing arm--you wouldn't criminalize an objector like a Quaker, for instance...
Hamilton wrote in Federalist 29 to the effect that for the body of the people, attaining the status of being "well regulated" was impractical, as being a soldier is a profession, requiring professional skills, discipline, training--in other words, a full-time career. People had their own vocations to attend to, and devoting that much time would be way too burdensome to be practical. He advocated select militia, and said for the people as a whole, the best we could hope for was to ensure they were armed and mustered for drill once or twice a year--but don't quote me--all of the above is from memory after a long, full and stressful day far removed from these matters, and I'm hurrying to do this housekeeping because other tasks await...
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