We Hold These Truths
©By Genie Jennings
Second Amendment Sisters
Maine Coordinator
June 2006
If we question anything about our Founders, it must be how they determined the equality of all men, and rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be “self-evident.” Philosophically, such a priori knowledge would be the only explanation, for there was certainly no empirical evidence to support such a theory. Instead, to this day it is easy to find evidence to the contrary.
Yet, we are each of us born with this innate knowledge of freedom and equality. There is a striving within all humans to achieve both. The history of western civilization portrays a long, bloody struggle that culminated in our American Revolution. Then, mankind took a quantum leap and “. . .brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” 1
Our Founding Fathers had two compelling concepts when they met to construct our Constitution. First, they wanted to devise a form of government based on the needs and desires of the governed people themselves. Second, they wanted to limit the powers of that government.
As students of history they were aware and wary of the tendency of power to be concentrated. The three branches of our government were designed to avoid that concentration. One segment, the legislature, is responsible for making laws; a second, the executive, for carrying out those laws; and a third, the judicial, for determining the validity of those laws. This federal government would honor the rights of states to conduct internal matters, and would honor the rights of individual citizens. .It is essential to remember this mind-set, and the circumstances under which the Constitution was written. The country had just concluded a horrific war of rebellion. The war had severed ties not only with a European kingdom, but also with neighbors and family. The American Revolution was not the desire of all the colonists. The aftermath was brutal and vindictive. The war had taken a tremendous toll in lives and fortunes and energy and spirit. Their sacrifices were not in vain, for the result was a country that has been the beacon to the world since its inception. There is something in the heart of man that longs for liberty and equality.
There is something in the nature of man that attempts to deny both to others. The Constitution of the United States is primarily a description of the limits of the federal government. It was divided into branches to dissipate power, thus making it difficult to deprive the citizenry of their Creator-given rights. The Bill of Rights was added as amendments to the document to list some, while cautioning that there are other unenumerated ones. Assaults are constantly made against those rights. They are eroded before a complacent public unless and until their importance is understood by enough people to spark a protest. Few have been as contested as the Second Amendment.
Its importance cannot be denied. It is the second amendment to the Constitution. The right to keep and bear arms was considered paramount to our founders. In the original ten amendments it comes immediately after that which describes our inherent rights to think and worship and gather together and communicate. We have the right to protect all those other rights.
Each of us has a vested interest in maintaining our unique form of government. Our elected officials, as do our military, swear an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States. Each citizen has a duty to do the same. It is, after all, a government of the People, by the People, for the People.
The first clause of the Second Amendment has been a stumbling block in recent years. ‘Militia’ say those who would limit the right to keep and bear arms, ‘now is the National Guard; therefore, there is no individual right.’ Many activists, who strive to protect all Rights, especially enumerated Rights and particularly this Right; often ignore that first clause because of its seeming ambiguity.
Constitutionalists understand that “militia” is the key to the Second Amendment. It not only defines the Right, but is the essence of its true importance. For the militia is the citizen army, not forces under the command of state or federal governors.
It was the citizen who grabbed his musket and rushed to “ . . .that rood bridge that arched the flood” to “fire the shot heard ‘round the world.” 2 It was the militia, the citizen army, who augmented Washington’s forces. It was the militia, ordinary citizens, who turned out in Baltimore to fight off the British blockade.
Individuals kept their muskets ready to protect their homes and families. Cannons sat on town greens to protect the public buildings. The militia, the citizens, hastened together to fight fires and invaders.
Our population has grown and we have become a nation of specialists. We hire soldiers and sailors to protect us against foreign invasion. We hire police to protect us against criminals. Yet, ultimately, we cannot depend upon these others; we cannot shirk our duties. We are the militia. Self-defense is a basic human right. The Second Amendment is the Constitution’s self-defense. We must honor it. We must uphold it. We, too, must be prepared to sacrifice for it. Our nation was conceived in liberty. It can long endure.
1Abraham Lincoln2 Ralph Waldo Emerson
http://www.2asisters.org/
