Re: Second Amendment : How soon they forget

"Leif Rakur" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Less than 6 years after the Second Amendment took effect,  House
> members, in debate, stated their varied opinions on whether or not an
> individual had a right to carry arms.  When told of that event today,
> some gun  enthusiasts might say, "Wait a minute, wasn't that right
> already  settled by the Second Amendment?"  Well, no -- not  that
> anyone in the House remembered in 1797.
>
> And that is very very strange, particularly since several members of
> the Fifth Congress in 1797 were also members of the First Congress
> that framed the Bill of Rights.  One of them, William Smith of South
> Carolina,  had  not only been present in the First Congress - he had
> participated in the  House debate on the Second Amendment itself.
>
> The debate in the Fifth Congress involved whether Congress should pass
> a law to authorize the arming of U.S. merchant vessels, and
> congressmen chose to consider whether the proposed measure might be an
> extension of an individual right to arms.
>
> Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, according to the Annals of Congress,
> thought there was no individual right to self-defense.  He reviewed
> "the different stages of society" to show that established governments
> were expected to provide public defense and that it "was their duty to
> protect individuals, since they did not give them leave to protect
> themselves."
>
> A quite different view was voiced by Robert Harper, of South Carolina.
>  He spoke of a natural right to carry arms for defense, both on land
> and on water.  "If a man on his journey should carry arms for his
> defence against robbers, this would be proper," he said.   He asserted
> that his view was supported by "the best legal opinions in this
> country."
>
> But William Smith, also of South Carolina, seemed less definite:  "The
> question was not whether we should authorize our vessels to arm to
> protect themselves;
> but whether, in the first place, our citizens have a natural right to
> arm and defend themselves, and if they have the right, whether the
> Legislature ought to restrict it, and in what cases.  Though some
> gentlemen had denied this right to exist, no proof had been adduced in
> support of that opinion."
>
> If the Second Amendment had really been written to protect an
> individual right, wouldn't someone in the House have known that a mere
> 6 years later?  And yet none of the above-quoted congressmen nor
> anyone else in the House made any reference at all to the Second
> Amendment.
>
> From this 1797 omission, it's quite clear that the Fifth Congress,
> much closer to the birth of the Bill of Rights than we are today,
> hadn't the faintest inkling that anyone could consider the Second
> Amendment as a statement  of a personal right to arms.  That Second
> Amendment notion is of much more recent vintage.
>
> The remarks of Gallatin, Harper, and Smith, respectively, can be found
> on pages 256, 262, and 279 of the following:
>
>
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=007/llac007.db&rec
Num=21
>
> -Leif

DY: Which Congress was it that passed the Alien and Sedition Acts? Was it
the same Fifth Congress by chance? Does anyone remember what happened
regarding the Sedition Act and the Alien Act and why?

Read the Founders' own period views on the Bill of Rights and Second
Amendment. Gun control cannot seem to locate those Bill of Rights and Second
Amendment related documents from the appropriate period - 1787-1791. Why?

--
David E. Young    [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Editor - The Origin of the Second Amendment:
Cited over 100 times in the Emerson Decision
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-10331-cr0.htm
Info: http://www.secondamendmentinfo.com