Irony On A Federal Reserve Note

"Paper is poverty...it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself." - Thomas Jefferson, 1788

An excellent cartoon detailing the origin and operations of the Federal Reserve System. If you want to understand how the federal government's monopolization of the money supply affects you, watch and learn!

Firearms & Freedom: Florida Stands Its Ground

George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin has implicated Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law in yet another controversy over whether the Second Amendment actually means what it says. Michael Bloomberg, NYC mayor and nanny-state enthusiast, has called the law a "license to commit murder." Even Barack Obama has not been able to resist running his mouth. While Floridians are sorry that their state cannot be as crime-free and safe as New York City, Bloomberg and other tyrants are wrong about the alleged dangers of strong self-defense laws. Furthermore, “Stand Your Ground” has no bearing on the case. If the pro-Martin narrative of events is true – that Zimmerman stalked and murdered Martin – then Zimmerman is guilty of criminal homicide. If Zimmerman’s account is true, then he was merely defending himself. Whether Zimmerman is a murderer or a victim, the issue of “Stand Your Ground” is irrelevant. Cries against “Stand Your Ground” are mendacious attempts to manipulate a criminal case into a subversion of the right to self-defense - the first step to the enslavement of the people.

Although the provision of defense is commonly considered a legitimate function of government - even by many libertarians - entrusting the government with the defense of people and property is like leaving the fox to guard the hen house. By definition, the government - a parasitic entity which expropriates the property of the people it claims to protect and serve - is incapable of protecting anything except itself. Yet despite the fact that governments (in particular, democratic governments) are guilty of the most evil deeds in human history, most blindly believe that governments have their best interests at heart, and treat the possibility of taking up arms in rebellion against tyranny as a radical and ridiculous conspiracy theory. Such armed rebellions, however, have been fought since the dawn of time - at least twice on America's own shores - are still fought today around the world, and hopefully will continue to be fought forever until freedom reigns supreme. The Founding Fathers, having just risked their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor by taking up arms against tyranny, ratified the Second Amendment to protect the natural right to defend life, liberty, and property from all forms of aggression, whether criminal or governmental.

Stand Your Ground

Florida’s law simply states:

Fla. Stat. § 776.012. Use of force in defense of person

A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

     (1)  He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or

     (2)  Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to  s. 776.013

“Deadly force,” therefore, is justified if a person “reasonably believes” it is necessary to “prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another,” or “to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.” If the aggressing force is merely “unlawful,” a person may use “force, except deadly force” to “defend himself or herself against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force.” These standards of self-defense are intuitive and the legal norm throughout the United States.

Under Florida law, there are other circumstances in which deadly force is permitted, but the relevant issues here are “duty to retreat” and the right to “stand your ground.” Under Florida law, a person who is a) somewhere he has a right to be, b) not doing anything illegal, and c) is attacked “has no duty to retreat,” and, in fact, “has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force, including deadly force.” Again, the defender must “reasonably believe” that deadly force is necessary for the prevention of death, great bodily harm, or the commission of a forcibly felony. A “duty to retreat” exists only if the defender can safely escape.

If the pro-Martin narrative is true, then Zimmerman’s right to stand his ground is not an issue, because Zimmerman would be the aggressor rather than the defender. If Zimmerman’s account of the events is true, then he was merely defending himself against a great bodily harm in accordance with the above statutes regarding “use of force in defense of person.” Zimmerman would only have had a duty to retreat if a safe escape were possible, which he claims was not. Regardless, the “Stand Your Ground” law is not a factor. “Stand Your Ground” pertains only to the defense of personal property, which was not the case of the events in question. Zimmerman either murdered Martin in cold blood or defended himself. The implication that “Stand Your Ground” affords unjust legal protection to those guilty of homicide is false. Sorry, Bloomberg.

Fla. Stat. § 776.031: Use of force in defense of others

A person is justified in the use of force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent or terminate the other’s trespass on, or other tortious or criminal interference with, either real property other than a dwelling or personal property, lawfully in his or her possession or in the possession of another who is a member of his or her immediate family or household or of a person whose property he or she has a legal duty to protect. However, the person is justified in the use of deadly force only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person does not have a duty to retreat if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

Florida law regarding the defense of personal property or others has the same standards as defense of person. Force is justified against an aggressor if the defender reasonably believes that force is necessary to stop a crime against “real property” which he or a family member owns. That is, force can be used against those trespassing on the defender’s or his family’s property. Deadly force is justified if the defender believes it is necessary to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A duty to retreat does not exist if the defender is somewhere he has a right to be, like his home.

Fla. Stat. § 776.032. Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force

(1) A person who uses force as permitted in  s. 776.012 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.

(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).(2)(a)  Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

If a person used deadly force to defend himself in accordance with Florida law, he is immune from criminal prosecution and civil suits. Police may investigate the events according to standard procedure, but cannot make an arrest without “probable cause.” Of course, the government, having arrogated a monopoly on the use force unto itself, grants legal privileges to its enforcers, police officers. To consolidate their power over the people, the government always decrees any resistance to its authority a crime, revealing that government is ultimately based on force of arms, not consent of the governed.

Sanford police did not arrest Zimmerman after the shooting for these very reasons. Since probable cause did not exist, Zimmerman was protected from arrest under Florida law. Zimmerman may have murdered Martin, but there was no evidence warranting arrest. To have arrested Zimmerman would have been an illegal violation of due process.

(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).

If, in the event that the victim of a crime who employed deadly force in self-defense is sued for civil damages, Florida courts will order the plaintiff to compensate the defendant.

Last but not least, Florida law does not afford self-defense rights to aggressors who provoke violence against themselves. Aggressors may only regain the right of self-defense under the following circumstances:

Fla. Stats. 776.041.

(2)(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or
(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force. 

“Stand Your Ground” is nothing more than the codification of the natural right of self-defense. The facts of Martin’s death do not justify an attack on this basic liberty. Zimmerman either murdered Martin or defended himself, but in neither situation is “Stand Your Ground” a factor. The far greater outrage is how anti-gun lobbyists have exploited Martin’s death to advance the imposition of their agenda upon the people over whom they secretly wish to rule.

Natural Rights and Firearms

The freedom to own a firearm and use force in self-defense are derived from the natural right of property. The concept of natural rights originated during the High Middle Ages in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican priest who systematized the entire corpus of Catholic theology in the monumental Summa Theologica. Natural rights experienced a revival during the Enlightenment, espoused by classical liberals such as John Locke, the English philosopher whose Two Treatises on Government laid the intellectual foundation for the American Revolution. Beginning with the axiom of self-ownership (the self-evident truth that an individual is sovereign over his own body and mind), the existence of natural rights can be logically deduced. Since only individuals possess self-ownership, only individuals have a right to the labor of their bodies and the wealth it produces ("the fruit of their labor"), as well as whatever property for which they trade their labor or wealth. This natural right of property equally protects all forms of property from encroachment, including firearms. Firearms, of course, are an especially important form of property, for firearms are the surest means of self-defense by which individuals guard their natural rights. Since the freedom to use and protect one's person or property is a clear implication of ownership - one cannot truly own something if he is not free to use or defend it - individuals are free to use firearms in self-defense against aggression, whether criminal or governmental. Last but not least, because the right of property is ultimately derived from self-ownership, any violation of property rights is a violation of self-ownership, which, taken to its logical conclusion, means that the degree to which property rights are violated (via taxation, inflation, regulation, conscription, or any type of government intervention) is the same degree to which the people are enslaved. Thus, legislation which restricts the right to bear arms is not only an invasion of the natural right to own and defend property, but also a subversion of self-ownership and thus a form of slavery.

On an even baser level, however, self-defense is more than just a natural right; it is a natural instinct of any living being, whether man or beast. If people are forbidden from defending themselves - or, more insidiously, deprived of the means to defend themselves - the alternative is submission to aggression against their person and property, an absurd denial of basic survival instincts as preposterous as it is dangerous. "The lesson is inculcated even in wild beasts by nature," spoke Marcus Tullius Cicero of self-defense. "They learn that they have to defend their own bodies and persons and lives from violence of any and every kind by all the means within their power." Furthermore, without the right to use force to defend against aggression, no other right truly exists. Rights do not protect themselves, but must be protected by the people, yet if the people cannot take up arms in defense of their rights, those rights, for all intents and purposes, are void. As Ron Paul, the modern-day champion of liberty, has often said in support of the right to own firearms and defend oneself, "The Second Amendment is the guardian of every other right."

Gun Control & Crime

Without the right to bear arms in self-defense, people would be left to depend on the government for security, but it is in the government's best interests to punish rather than prevent crime. Since government is a parasitic rather than productive entity, it does not acquire revenue from entering into mutually beneficial exchanges, but from confiscation. Since the government's revenue is not linked to the services it provides, it has none of the incentives to satisfy its the people whose property it expropriates i.e. its "customers." Accordingly, government defense services have no incentive to truly protect the people from harm. Indeed, police prioritize the investigation and punishment of crime over prevention. Police will not risk life and limb trying to prevent murder when they can camp out on the interstate to write speeding tickets, trace chalk outlines of victims and put up tape around crime scenes, and shut down roads to throw extravagant parades for themselves.

In addition, restricting the right to own a firearm and defend oneself fails to impact the gangs and cartels responsible for much of the real violence in society. These criminal organizations do not use registered firearms, but weapons acquired from illegal black markets - or, in the case of the Fast and Furious scandal, the Drug Enforcement Agency and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. As a result, legislation which restricts the right to own a firearm disproportionately benefits criminals at the expense of law-abiding citizens simply trying to protect themselves from crime. Furthermore, black markets even offer weapons which the government has prohibited altogether (such as fully automatic weapons), giving criminals a greater advantage in their expropriation of their victims' property. The people, deprived of their right to bear arms in self-defense, are left with no recourse but to depend on the government for protection.

Contrary to popular belief, society is not suffering from an epidemic of gun-driven violence. The crassly sensationalized reporting of violence has increased, whipping people into a frenzy from time to time, but society has grown safer over the years. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, since 1970, violent crimes like homicides, thefts, and burglaries are at a record low. At the same time, firearm ownership is at a record high, spiking in particular over the past few years. In fact, states with freer firearm legislation (such as shall-issue concealed-carry licensing) enjoyed lower levels of violent crimes than states with stricter legislation on firearms. The cause of this inverse correlation between firearm ownership and violent crime is simply that when the right of self-defense is protected by law, the threat of defensive force deters criminals from committing crimes. Rather than preying upon victims who, thanks to gun control, can only cower helplessly in fear and beg for mercy during the commission of a crime, criminals are more likely to confront citizens who are armed, dangerous, and far more capable of defending themselves. Naturally, this probability acts as a fearsome deterrent against crime. The media relishes reporting outlier events such as school shootings, but ignores everyday instances in which firearm owners heroically prevent crime against themselves or others.

Meanwhile, as violent crimes among citizens have fallen, the government's own violent crimes against life and liberty have risen dramatically over the years, particularly under the imperial presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. While Obama sanctimoniously claims that privately owned firearms must be regulated, prohibited, or confiscated in order to prevent tragedy, he is guilty of the very violence he purports to deplore, selling heavy weaponry to Mexican drug cartels in the cockamamie "Fast and Furious" scandal, and casually killing innocent women and children as collateral damage in his merciless drone bombings of Pakistan and Yemen. In the U.S., when a lone, drugged-up psychopath murders American children for unknown reasons, it is a tragedy and an outrage, but when a psychopathic president murders hundreds of Middle-Eastern children as a part of his foreign policy, a bug might as well have been splatted on a windshield. Obama, for all the blood on his hands, is merely inheriting a government guilty of the atrocities at Waco and Ruby Ridge, indiscriminately fire-bombing the people of Vietnam and Cambodia, forcibly repatriating millions of Russian refugees to the diabolical clutches of the Soviet Union, extinguishing the lives of thousands of innocent Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, systematically exterminating the Plains Native Americans in a postbellum genocide comparable to the Holocaust (in fact, "the Final Solution," Hitler's infamous term for the Holocaust, was first used by Yankee war criminal William T. Sherman in reference to the Plains genocide of which he was in charge), and murdering hundreds of thousands of freedom-fighting Southerners and enslaving the shattered remnant. When the ATF incinerated hundreds of innocent children at Waco, this rogue federal agency was not disbanded, disarmed, or even chastised, but was applauded and awarded more money and power. By contrast, whenever a citizen commits a mass shooting, the federal government swiftly calls for the disarmament of innocent firearm owners (armed to protect themselves against such shootings), thus punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty. In the realm of mass murder, the federal government is the undisputed champion, yet it never misses an opportunity to exploit a horrible tragedy as a pretext to usurp the life, liberty, and property of the people over whom it rules, even a right as fundamental to human existence as self-defense. If anyone needs "gun control" in this country, it is not the people, but the government.

Free-Market Defense

In a free society, in which the government does not arrogate unto itself a monopoly on the use of force, defense services would be provided on the market, both in higher quantity and quality. As Austrian economist Murray Rothbard explains in his economic magnum opus, Man, Economy, & State, defense is not a “collective good,” although it is widely considered a textbook example. In fact, Rothbard goes further, demolishing the very idea of collective goods in general. The argument for collective goods is that some goods/services are supplied collectively, and therefore must be supplied by the government. Yet there is no “collective” entity; only individuals demand goods and services. Even if collective goods did exist, it by no means follows that only one agency – the government – should provide them, or that everyone must be forced to pay for them. Furthermore, even if collective goods can only be supplied collectively, that still does not justify coercing beneficiaries into paying for those goods – for the beneficiaries may not even want those goods.

This, however, leads to the alleged problem of “positive externalities,” in which third parties benefit from the economic activity of others. As Rothbard defines the issue, positive externalities occur “if A does something voluntarily which benefits B as well as himself, but for which B pays nothing in exchange.” The fact that “men’s actions may often, even inadvertently, benefit others,” Rothbard says, should be “a cause for rejoicing,” yet critics charge that “from this fact flow evils in abundance.” That some may benefit from an economic activity without paying themselves does not cost the benefactor anything. Indeed, the benefactor made his choice because, first and foremost, it benefited him. How his choice affects others is an ancillary concern. For example, an individual who purchases private defense services for himself has maximized his utility ex ante (from before), and if free riders diminish his utility to the point at which he can obtain greater utility from an alternative use of his money, he will act accordingly, correcting his miscalculation and maximizing his utility ex post (from after). In other words, A has decided that it is in his best interest to provide defense services for his own use, regardless of the external benefits to B. So long as the external benefits of a product do not diminish the value of the product to the benefactor, they are a wonderful case of getting “something for nothing,” and should be celebrated. Instead, the supposed problems of external benefits have been popular “lines of attack” on the free market as well as calls for government intervention:

“The first type of criticism is to attack A for not doing enough for B. The benefactor is, in effect, denounced for taking his own selfish interests exclusively into account, and thereby neglect­ing the potential indirect recipient waiting silently in the wings. The second line of attack is to denounce B for accepting a benefit without paying A in return. The recipient is denounced as an ingrate and a virtual thief for accepting the free gift. The free market, then, is accused of injustice and distortion by both groups of attackers: the first believes that the selfishness of man is such that A will not act enough in ways to benefit B; the second that B will receive too much ‘unearned increment’ without paying for it. Either way, the call is for remedial State action; on the one hand, to use violence in order to force or induce A to act more in ways which will aid B; on the other, to force B to pay A for his gift.”

According to these critics, external benefits cause distortions in the market that render free-market outcomes sub-optimal. Therefore, the government should intervene to restore optimum conditions. As Rothbard explains, however, government intervention is, by definition, sub-optimal:

“Such a view completely misconceives the way in which economic science asserts that free-market action is ever optimal. It is optimal, not from the standpoint of the personal ethical views of an economist, but from the standpoint of the free, voluntary actions of all participants and in satisfying the freely expressed needs of the consumers. Govern­ment interference, therefore, will necessarily and always move away from such an optimum.”

Rothbard further notes that, “Taken together, these arguments against the market and for governmental intervention or enterprise cancel each other out,” although he also refutes each on its own. The first criticism – that A is not providing enough external benefits to B – calls for government intervention forcing A to provide more benefits for B. One example of government intervention to correct this problem is “compulsory thrift,” or forcing people to save more in order to benefit future consumers. Yet, time preferences determine the ratio of savings/investment to consumption. Individuals weigh the value of present consumption versus the present value of saving for greater future consumption, and consume and save accordingly. Whatever ratio the free market sets is inherently optimal, since it is the voluntary expression of everyone’s time preferences. If the government overrules these time preferences under pretenses of “A (current generations) not saving enough for B (future generations),” it is arbitrarily favoring the future over the present, ignoring the fact that the ultimate end of all economic activity is the utility derived from consumption, and benefiting one class at the expense of another. The second criticism – that B is not compensating A for the external benefits he receives – calls for government intervention forcing B to compensate A, which is a bizarre case of “[calling] in the gendarmes to apply punishment because too many people in the society are happy,” or taxing a neighborhood for enjoying the view of a neighbor’s garden.

Finally, Rothbard denounces the contradiction of “[sanctioning] and [advocating] massive invasion of property by the very agency (government) that is supposed to defend people against invasion.” Given the “black historical record” of government “as the great engine of invasive violence,” its claims as “a necessary evil for the protection of person and property” are particularly absurd.

In Power and Market, however, Rothbard demonstrates that defense services on a truly free market need not be supplied collectively, rendering the so-called problem of external benefits moot. Having proved that the theory of collective goods – e.g. defense – is fallacious, it is conceivable that the market can supply defense. Private defense, including police and judicial services, could be sold on “an advance subscription basis,” in which premiums were paid and services provided on call. The first line of defense against crime would be self-defense, of course, but private police forces would serve as a deterrent to crime. As in any free market, competition would ensue, each defense firm striving to win customers by supplying its service more efficiently. Insurance companies, in a preventive effort to reduce claims, may even supply defense services. Insurance would also play a larger role in judicial system, remunerating policyholders for any losses from crimes against their person or property.

If two people are subscribed to different defense services, and one accuses the other of violence against his person or property, then the accuser would initiate proceedings against the alleged aggressor in his private court system. The accused would be invited to defend himself in the accuser’s court, although he would not be subpoenaed, for in a free society force cannot be justly used against the innocent. If the accused is declared innocent, the dispute would end. If the accused is found guilty, however, then the ruling could be taken to a private appeals court. After all, given that accused parties will fairly suspect that the accusers’ courts have conflicts of interest, demand for such arbitrators will exist.

In a free society, “victimless crimes” would likely disappear to market forces. Enforcing such crimes would come at a cost, yet customers would likely only be willing to pay for defense, not the policing of the moral decisions of others. Therefore, prostitution and narcotics consumption would be de facto legalized.  In a free society, only aggression against the person or property of another is a crime.

Far from fanciful, ample precedent exists for private legal codes and court systems. In fact, common law originated as private courts which traveled across England, judging cases according to locally agreed-upon norms. Private judges competed on their expertise to win litigants. Over time, these norms evolved into common law, which is upheld to this day. Another example of private legal codes are admiralty law or the lex mercatoria, the former widely accepted standards governing the interaction of private vessels on the high seas, the latter medieval commercial codes. Self-interest compels individuals to establish norms governing their interaction with each other. Since individuals have more to gain from cooperation than conflict, legal codes are created freely, because they are in everyone’s best interest. Government does not need to paradoxically force people to interact peacefully. Given the advantages of peace – e.g. commerce, division of labor, specialization, capital accumulation, community – people have natural incentives to be peaceful and uphold the legal codes of a free society. To the extent that the "We Do Not Sow" factor (the motto of the piratical Greyjoys of A Song of Ice and Fire) exists, private defense services will compete to protect customers from violence. Government, by contrast, is essentially the legalization and monopolization of force, which is contrary to a free society.

To the objection that privatizing defense services would lead to “organized criminality,” Rothbard responds:

“It is true that there can be no absolute guarantee that a purely market society would not fall prey to organized criminality. But this concept is far more workable than the truly utopian idea of a strictly limited government, an idea that has never worked in historically. And understandably so, for the State’s built-in monopoly of aggression and inherent absence of free-market checks has enabled it to burst easily any bonds that well-meaning people have tried to place upon it. Finally, the worst that could possibly happen would be for the State to be reestablished. And since the State is what we have now, any experimentation with a stateless society would have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

That is, in a free society, the possibility of a rogue private defense agency abusing its power could be checked by the power of other private defense agencies. Under government, however, there is “a secure monopoly for invasion of person and property,” against which it is much harder to defend oneself. Indeed, government is nothing more than glorified organized criminality, the legalization and systematization of pillage against the people.

Freedom and Firearms: The War of American Independence & the Second Amendment

The consolidation of power is the real reason why governments are obsessed with the disarmament of the people, for a disarmed populace is defenseless against tyranny. The British Empire's attempt to seize the weapons of the American colonists sparked battles before the colonies had even officially declared independence. In the early 1770s, when American outrage over the steady erosion of colonial self-government was brewing, Parliament imposed draconian laws – known as the Intolerable Acts – to punish the colonists for challenging the government and asserting their natural rights as freeborn Englishmen. In addition, Parliament dispatched troops to the American Colonies to enforce its laws, suppress rising dissent, and even instituted martial law in rebellious colonies like Massachusetts. In 1774, Thomas Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts, ordered the seizure of an arsenal of firearms in Somerville. Thanks to Paul Revere (who rode from town to town warning, “The British are coming!”) and the Sons of Liberty (a secret society of patriots), local militia rapidly assembled to protest the confiscation of their firearms. Later, in 1775, Gage ordered another raid on an arsenal in Concord, but this time the colonists were ready. In the ensuing Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts militia triumphed over the English. Later, in the War of American Independence, many colonists fought as minutemen, arming themselves with their own weapons, joining a local militia, and wreaking havoc against English forces in ambushes and skirmishes. Decisive battles, such as Kings Mountain, were won by these heroic, self-armed, independent militias. George Washington's exploits, although famed in U.S. history, were not what won the War of American Independence; it was the gritty, guerrilla resistance of self-armed, independent militias fighting tooth and nail for their rights which finally expelled the English invaders from American shores. Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, a Revolutionary cavalry commander and Robert E. Lee's father, wrote in his memoirs that the War for American Independence was chiefly characterized by "a general rising of the people," in which "every man capable of bearing arms" had a duty to use them.

With the history of the War of American Independence in mind, the Founding Fathers were resolved to protect the people's natural right to defend liberty from tyranny. Under the classical-liberal Articles of Confederation, in which state sovereignty was protected, every state constitution contained a provision protecting the natural right to keep and bear arms. "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in times of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power," read the Pennsylvania state constitution of 1776, representative of the texts of many other states' constitutional protections of the right to bear arms. The central government of the Confederation united the states "into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual...welfare," otherwise leaving the people of the states free to govern themselves. In the Confederation, the sovereign states secured the right to bear arms; the central government had no constitutional authority or power to legislate otherwise. Scheming Federalist politicians, however, craving more money and power, convinced the states to hold another constitutional convention, ostensibly for amending the Articles of Confederation, but truly for overthrowing them in place of the Constitution. Anti-Federalists, Founders who championed the Articles of Confederation and prophetically feared that the Constitution centralized excessive power in the federal government, were opposed to the Philadelphia Convention root and branch, but chief among their concerns was that the new federal government, to consolidate its newly won money and power, would disarm and enslave the people.

George Mason was a famous Anti-Federalist who authored Virginia's Declaration of Rights in 1776, and would later be dubbed "The Father of the Bill of Rights" for the constitutional amendments he recommended. Speaking at Virginia's constitutional convention in 1788, Mason warned that disarmament was the first step towards enslavement:

“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised…to disarm the people. That it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them. But that they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually.” 

In 1774 Mason, along with George Washington, formed the Fairfax County Militia Association, a voluntary, self-armed militia of citizens which were independent from English authority. In the militia's charter, Mason explained that "to protect our ancient laws and liberty," the people must form "a well-regulated militia, composed of gentlemen, freeholders, and and other freemen."

Noah Webster of Connecticut, the namesake of Webster’s Dictionary, in a pamphlet he published personally in 1787, recognized that an armed populace was a strong check on tyranny:

“Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.”

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, the first to call for American independence at the Second Continental Congress, was an avowed Anti-Federalist who published a series of letters between 1787 and 1788 under the pseudonym "Federal Farmer." Lee believed, "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." Lee countered the specious argument that "select militias" (known today as the National Guard) were a genuine militia, for, "A militia, when formed, are in fact the people themselves, and render regular troops in a great measure unnecessary." The militia which the Anti-Federalists fought to protect was not an official army subject to governmental authority and financed by governmental expropriation of property, but an independent, organic force of self-armed freemen rooted in a local community, voluntarily united in defense of their natural rights. In the words of an anonymous Anti-Federalist writing as "M.T. Cicero" in a South-Carolina newspaper, "A well-regulated militia [is] composed of the freeholders, citizen, and husbandmen, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen." Firearms were an essential part of a militia, for they enabled militias to do their patriotic duty. Firearms and the militia were two sides of the same coin; one could not exist without the other.

Samuel Adams of Massachusetts may be more famous today for his Boston brew than his politics, but he was once a patriot who fanned the flames of revolution on the bloody streets of Boston. In 1774, inspired by armed militias such as Mason and Washington's rising in resistance to English tyranny, Adams encouraged his Boston compatriots to "provide themselves without delay with arms and ammunition, get well instructed in the military art, embody themselves and prepare a complete set of rules that they may be ready in case they are called to defend themselves against the violent attacks of despotism." An Anti-Federalist, Adams, writing on behalf of the Massachusetts constitutional convention, recommended, among other things, "that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress...to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

Patrick Henry of Virginia, the fiery orator of "liberty or death" fame, was as ferociously opposed to the Constitution in 1787 as he was to Parliament in 1776. Speaking at the Virginia constitutional convention in 1788, Henry protested that only the people are the only trustworthy guardians of life, liberty, and property:

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

"Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies," asked Henry, "when our only defense, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?" To Henry and the Anti-Federalists, surrendering authority over the militia to the federal government was absurd, for the militia was meant to protect the people from the government. "The great object is, that every man be armed," concluded Henry. "Everyone who is able may have a gun."

Thomas Paine, a native Englishman who emigrated to Pennsylvania, and author of the revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense, wrote in his Thoughts on Defensive War, that disarming the people would leave the people defenseless to the depredations of those who remained armed, namely, the governments doing the disarming in the first place:

"Arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived the use of them...the weak will become a prey to the strong."

Luther Martin of Maryland, a tenacious Anti-Federalist who history has undeservedly forgotten, reminded his countrymen at the Maryland constitutional convention that the right to bear arms in defense of liberty from tyranny was recently exemplified in the War of American Independence. "By the principles of the American Revolution," Martin fumed "arbitrary power may, and ought to be, resisted even by arms, if necessary."

St. George Tucker of Virginia was a preeminent Jeffersonian jurist and Anti-Federalist who Southern historian Clyde Wilson has credited with establishing a "dynasty of legal and constitutional talent that carried on Jeffersonian principles through successive generations." During the War of American Independence, Tucker volunteered in the Chesterfield county militia, of which he was elected colonel. Tucker, in his 1803 American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, wrote, “In America we may reasonably hope that the people will never cease to regard the right of keeping and bearing arms as the surest pledge of their liberty.” Calling the Second Amendment the "true palladium of liberty," Tucker elaborated on the importance of an armed militia in the defense of liberty against tyranny:

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible.  Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

William Lenoir of North Carolina was a veteran of the War of American Independence, hero of Kings Mountain, and distinguished statesman. At the North Carolina constitutional convention, Lenoir feared that disarmament of the militia would prevent the people from protecting themselves from federal invasion of their liberty:

"If they were armed, they would be a resource against great oppressions...If the laws of the Union were oppressive, they could not carry them into effect, if the people were possessed of proper means of defense."

Having served as captain at the Battle of Kings Mountain, in which "Overmountain Men" from the Appalachian wilderness (the western regions of Virginia, North Carolina, and what is today eastern Tennessee) spontaneously mustered into a militia which ambushed and routed a superior English force stationed in North Carolina, Lenoir personally understood the value of independent militias as a defense against tyranny. Without the Overmountain Men - a "set of mongrels," according to the defeated English commander - bravely answering the call to arms, trekking across the the Blue Ridge Mountains in the dead of night, and "shouting like hell and fighting like devils" against the entrenched English, the cause of American independence might have lost what Thomas Jefferson called "the turn of the tide of success" at Kings Mountain.

Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, a Founding Father whose patriotism no man can question, firmly believed in the right of revolution. In a letter from France, Jefferson wrote in defense of Shay's Rebellion, a Massachusetts armed uprising against state taxes:

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion...And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

In another letter from France, Jefferson echoed his approval of Shay's Rebellion in particular and rebellion itself in general:

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

The Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson authored in 1776 to officially announce the secession of the American colonies, is itself an inspiring vindication of the right of armed rebellion against a government which violates the natural rights of life and liberty of the people. Nullification, a constitutional principle for which Jefferson fought throughout the latter portion of his life - although a peaceful alternative to the extremes of submission or rebellion - ultimately relied upon the people of the states' freedom to take up arms against the federal government if it attempted to enforce unconstitutional legislation.

Even Alexander Hamilton of New York, a committed mercantilist who worked relentlessly to recreate an English-style tyranny in D.C., acknowledged that private ownership of firearms was a crucial check on government. Writing in Federalist 28, Hamilton argued that, "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government." Hamilton would live to understand these words, for during his term as George Washington's Treasury Secretary, Western-Pennsylvanian farmers (who commonly distilled their surplus crop into rye whiskey for use as money) rebelled against his unconstitutional whiskey tax. Washington himself, in an apparent impersonation of King George III, ordered an army into Pennsylvania to suppress the rebellion, and although armed resistance ceased after this invasion, no rebel was ever prosecuted for any crime, and widespread evasion of the whiskey tax continued unabated until its repeal under the Jefferson presidency. Just a few years after the ratification of the Constitution, the federal government had already waged war against its own people for resisting unjust taxation, proving the Anti-Federalists' points for them.

Even the classics agreed with the Anti-Federalists. At the time, the canon of antiquity was an essential part of any education, and thanks to its renaissance during the Enlightenment, was a deep spring of tremendous inspiration to all of the Founding Fathers.

Aristotle, the pupil of Plato and mentor of Alexander the Great, in his monumental Politics, recognized that arms conferred power on whomever possessed them, and that the monopolization of arms by a ruling class would lead to a society in which the armed exploited the disarmed. "Both the oligarch and the tyrant mistrust the people," observed Aristotle, "and therefore deprive them of their arms." In accordance with his belief in the virtue of the "golden mean" between two extremes, Aristotle believed that in order to prevent tyranny from emerging, class privileges should be abolished, and arms should be equally distributed among the people in a "polity" of equal citizens. At the time - save for the militaristic society of Sparta -  hoplites were not trained soldiers, but a voluntary militia of farmers, merchants, and artisans who supplied their own arms and armor in times of war. Indeed, Aristotle believed that the possession of arms was essential to citizenship in a polity. "For those who possess and can wield arms," wrote Aristotle, "are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not." To protect the constitution (by "constitution," Aristotle meant a polity's way of life, such as its laws, customs, and institutions, not an official document) from internal and external aggression, a citizen must be armed. James Burgh, a Scottish classical liberal whose work influenced the Founding Fathers, paraphrasing Aristotle in his Political Disquisitions, wrote, "Those who have the command of arms in a country, says Aristotle, are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make whatever revolutions they please."

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman lawyer and senator who dedicated the twilight of his life to the defense of the Roman Republic from the imperial ambitions of Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Representing Titus Annius Milo, a republican, accused of murder for killing Publius Clodius Pulcher, a crony of Caesar, in self-defense, Cicero described justice of bearing self-defense, emphasizing the difference between bearing arms with the intent to commit crime versus bearing arms with the intent to prevent crime. 

"There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to use not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. When weapons reduce them to silence, the laws no longer expect one to await their pronouncements. For people who decide to wait for these will have to wait for justice, too - and meanwhile they must suffer injustice first. Indeed, even the wisdom of the law itself, by a sort of tacit implication, permits self-defense, because it does not actually forbid men to kill; what it does, instead, is to forbid the bearing of a weapon with the intention to kill. When, therefore, an inquiry passes beyond the mere question of the weapon and starts to consider the motive, a man who has used arms in self-defense is not regarded as having carried them with homicidal aim."

Cicero was a staunch opponent of Caesar, whom he believed was a dire threat to the Roman Republic. On his own, a man like Caesar was just another conspirator, but at the helm of a loyal and experienced standing army, Casear had the power to overthrow the Roman Republic and declare himself a dictator for life - which is exactly what he did after his crossing of the Rubicon. After the tyrannicide of Caesar - which Cicero vindicated in De Officiis, ingloriously labeling Caesar "that king who with the Roman people's army brought the Roman people themselves into subjection" - Cicero then set his sights on Antonius ("Marc Antony"), a friend and lieutenant of Caesar's attempting to exploit his departed commander's death to seize power for himself. In the Philippics, a series of orations Cicero delivered against Antonius, Cicero urged the Roman people to take up arms to protect their liberties as Roman citizens. "We are all of us carried along by a fiery zeal to recover our liberty," thundered Cicero, "our arms cannot be wrested from our hands." To those who argued that the peace of submission to Antonius was preferable to civil war, Cicero scornfully retorted:

"Do you call slavery peace? Our ancestors indeed took up arms not only to win freedom, but also empire; you think our arms should be thrown away to make us slaves. What juster reason is there for the waging of war than to repel slavery?"

Tragically, Cicero, along with his beloved Roman Republic, were both slain in the same year, as if neither could bear to live without the other. Cicero was murdered in his villa, his mutilated hands and head prominently displayed in the Roman Forum as a gruesome warning of what happens to those use their hands or tongues to write or speak against tyrants.

Despite the dire warnings of the Anti-Federalists, most of the state constitutional conventions ratified the Constitution anyway, unaware that they had sealed their fate as slaves to a central government. For good measure, however some states amended their constitution to reiterate the protection of the right to bear arms. Pennsylvania, for example, two years after ratifying the Constitution, amended its constitution to read, "The right of the people to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned." A few states, however, were willing to ratify the Constitution under certain conditions. Suspicious of the Federalists' soothing assurances that the federal government would truly restrict its powers to those which the sovereign states expressly delegated in the constitutional compact, Virginia, North Carolina, New York, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island predicated their ratification on a Bill of Rights. In Virginia's petition, Mason (writing on behalf of the constitutional convention), declared, along with many other liberties, that, "The people have a right to keep and bear arms," for "standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty." Virginia's fellow petitioning states used practically identical language to assert the people's right to own firearms. James Madison took these states' petitions of rights to form the basis of the Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment. Although the Bill of Rights assuaged the fears of the majority factions in the states, the Anti-Federalists stood stalwart in their opposition to the Constitution - particularly over the nebulous "general welfare" and "necessary and proper" clauses, which would soon be cited to concoct "implied powers" - but remained a hopelessly outnumbered conservative minority in a sea of change, America's own crying Cassandras. "We may now surrender," mourned Anti-Federalist Thomas Tredwell in the New York constitutional convention "with a little ink, what it may cost seas of blood to regain."

Therefore, contrary to public-policy debates, the Second Amendment is far from a utilitarian tool to deter crime (which was not yet public menace as it is today) or a special privilege for hunters and sportsmen (at a time when hunting was work and shooting sports did not yet exist). The Founding Fathers, first and foremost, intended for the Second Amendment to protect the people’s right to bear arms in defense of their life, liberty, and property from tyranny, a right which had just recently won them their freedom from the British Empire. Henry exhorted his fellow Virginians to be ever vigilant in defending liberty from tyranny, admonishing them to remember that only the people, not paper, can enforce their natural rights:

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

From the success of own fight for freedom, the Founders learned that a militia  - not a "National Guard" subject to governmental authority, but an independent, voluntary force of self-armed freemen united in common defense - was essential to the defense of liberty from tyranny. Such a militia would be the source of the Second Amendment's strength, turning individuals and their private armories into an army capable of resistance. To the Founders, the right to bear arms and the duty to serve in a militia were two sides of the same coin. Without a militia, the Second Amendment was all bark and no bite, a protection of arms which were not wielded; without arms, the militia, disarmed and thus defenseless, would cease to exist. For example, in the War of American Independence, individual Americans did not fight the English invaders on their own, but banded together in local militias as "minutemen," as at battles such as Lexington and Concord and Kings Mountain, as well as countless small skirmishes which slowly but surely sapped the English will for war. Therefore, to defend liberty from tyranny, those who champion the Second Amendment must also, in the tradition of the Founders, champion the militia in all its patriotic glory.

Years later, Confederate patriots hoisting on high the Bonnie Blue Flag would wish their ancestors had heeded the warnings of the Anti-Federalists, for the writing which was on the wall in 1787 had become a living nightmare by 1861. Indeed, history has vindicated the Anti-Federalists, although they would be far too heartbroken by the decline and fall of their country to take any satisfaction in their brilliant foresight.

Freedom and Firearms: The War of Southern Independence & the Border States

In 1860, seven Southern states - South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana - seceded from the Union for freedom from federal protective tariffs, which the neo-Hamiltonian Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, were threatening to triple. Since the ratification of the Constitution, tariffs had driven a bitter divide between the North and South. The North, barren in natural resources, relied upon federal tariffs as a subsidy to its industry. Rather than bear the costs of competition, Northern industries manipulated federal power to levy taxes on their European competitors, protecting their privileged profits. In stark contrast to the North, the South, rich in natural resources, was an agrarian economy which exported most of its crops and imported most of its manufactures. Southern prosperity, therefore, was founded upon free trade. Given the South's reliance on imports, tariffs - taxes levied on imports - enriched the North at the South's expense. In particular, tariffs held Southerners hostage to overpriced Northern manufactures or overtaxed European manufactures, forcing a lower standard of living upon them. Furthermore, since federal tariffs inflated the price of European imports, Southern demand for imports naturally decreased, negatively impacting European industries. As a result of the decrease in Southern demand for European goods, European demand for Southern crop exports decreased in turn, for the reduction of Southern consumption left Europeans with less money to spend. This tariff-driven vicious cycle led lowered production in both Southern agriculture and European industry, leaving both sides poorer. Ultimately, federal tariffs disrupted trade between the South and Europe, reduced the standard of living, income, and employment in the South and Europe, and granted an unnatural monopoly to Northern industry. After years of suffering indignity and exploitation, the sovereign Southern states, in the American tradition of 1776, united in defense of their natural rights, declared independence from a government which had become destructive of the very liberties it was founded to protect.

Initially, the Northern attitude towards Southern secession was "to let our erring sisters go in peace," but when the North realized that the newfound Confederacy's laissez-faire policy of free trade would impoverish its parasitic, perfidious industries (along with the federal government, which depended on tariffs for almost all of its tax loot), it could no longer afford to live and let live. To preserve its money and power, the North had to preserve the Union. "No wonder they cry aloud for glorious Union," remarked Robert Toombs of Georgia, a U.S. Senator and future Confederate Secretary of State, "for by it they got their wealth." Lincoln, swearing "bloodshed" in his First Inaugural Address if the free and independent Confederacy did not continue to surrender tribute to the federal government in the form of taxes (which would negate the entire reason for Southern secession in the first place), received the pretext for war he craved when Confederate forces bombed Fort Sumter, a federal fort menacing the port of Charleston. Champing at the bit for war, Lincoln unconstitutionally ordered U.S. governors to marshal troops in preparation for an invasion. Lincoln's maniacal plot to subjugate the Southern states for economic gain, as well as his brazen usurpation of Congress' constitutional authority to declare war was so appalling to the people of Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Virginia that they seceded as well, wanting no part of a Union that betrayed the peaceful principles on which it was first founded.

The federal government, as in the Whiskey Rebellion, was once again waging war against the people of the sovereign states, fulfilling the worst fears of the Anti-Federalists. Even the Anti-Federalists, however, despite their dark view of government, could not have foreseen the total war that would ravage the South, the callous disregard for the time-honored laws of war that would define Federal strategy and tactics, the rapacious confiscation and destruction of Southern property, the barbaric murder of Southern civilians, and the zealous crusade against the Southern people and Southern culture, but it was precisely against such unimaginable possibilities that firearms in the hands of an independent militia were meant to defend. Indeed, many of the Confederate soldiers who fought for the freedom of their people were militiamen who armed themselves, just as their patriotic forebears did against the English invaders generations ago. As legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson observed of the men under his command, "The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth." Sadly, the War of Southern Independence would end in tragedy, with Federal advantages in manpower, munitions, and money ultimately overwhelming the courageous patriot volunteers of the Confederacy in a grisly total war of attrition. In addition to Northern numerical advantages, Lincoln's shrewd - albeit tyrannical - move to conquer the border states not only deprived the Confederacy of likely allies, but also gave Federal forces convenient staging areas for the invasion of Southern states like Virginia and Tennessee. Nowhere was Lincoln's tyranny more flagrant than in  the border state of Maryland, the wartime experience of which serves as a sobering example of the dire consequences of disarming the people.

During the War of Southern Independence, the Lincoln regime illegally imposed martial law in border states like Maryland, confiscating firearms in direct violation of the Second Amendment. Maryland, a cash-crop economy suffering from the exploitative burden of federal protective tariffs, was likely to secede along with its Southern sisters until Federal forces seized control of the state government, indefinitely detained public figures and censored newspapers who were secessionist or antiwar, rigged state elections, and established a military dictatorship which foreshadowed the coming horrors of Reconstruction. Maryland's state anthem, "Maryland, My Maryland," is a pro-Southern ballad calling for the people of Maryland to overthrow the Federal invaders and join the Confederacy. "Sic semper 'tis the proud refrain," sang Marylanders against the "minions" of Lincoln, damned as a "tyrant," "despot," and "vandal."  Prior to Lincoln’s coup d'etat - part of his "new birth of freedom" to ensure that "government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth," no doubt - the Maryland legislature issued a proclamation praising the Confederacy, condemning the federal government, and advocating peace:

“Whereas the war against the Confederate States is unconstitutional and repugnant to civilization, and will result in bloody and shameful overthrow of our institutions; and while recognizing the obligations of Maryland to the Union, we sympathize with the South in the struggle for their rights – for the sake of humanity we are for peace and reconciliation, and solemnly protest this war, and will take no part in it.”

After furious antiwar riots in Baltimore forced Federal troops from the city, Lincoln, fearing rebellion, instituted reigns of terror in the border states. Citing implied “war powers” analogous to the powers of the ancient dictators of Rome, Lincoln decreed that as commander-in-chief he had the authority to overrule the Constitution - including the Bill of Rights - if it interfered with his supreme will. In April of 1861, for the purpose of suppressing political dissent, Lincoln unilaterally suspended habeas corpus (the centuries-old legal tradition of due process), generously granting himself the unlimited power to arrest, imprison, and indefinitely detain anyone he deemed a threat to the federal government, whether a critic of his administration, a personal political rival, or a Southern sympathizer. In August of 1861, after the conclusion of the a special session of Maryland legislature, Lincoln, armed with his self-appointed unlimited war powers, ordered Federal troops to arrest and imprison any members of the Maryland legislature who supported secession. Various other public figures had been targeted over the summer, but Lincoln desired to nip Maryland's secession in the bud with a single stroke. Storming into their homes in the dead of night, Federal soldiers placed twenty-six of Maryland legislators under arrest, throwing them into prisons in which they would be indefinitely detained for the rest of the war. At the same time, Maryland newspaper editors who wrote in support of secession were also arrested and imprisoned, apparently for the crime of exercising their First-Amendment rights. In effect, Lincoln had authorized a military coup d'etat against the sovereign state of Maryland, the brute force of martial law having overthrown not only a duly elected civil government, but also the Constitution which he had just sworn to uphold. Nevertheless, to consolidate his unconstitutional usurpation of power, Lincoln then commanded the confiscation of firearms in order to weaken the people of occupied states such as Maryland and minimize the threat of an uprising.

Lincoln placed Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts (later known as "Beast" for ordering Federal soldiers to mass-rape the women of New Orleans), in charge of the Federal military dictatorship in Maryland. Butler wasted no time in disarming the people of Maryland, seizing stores of arms and ammunition he feared might find themselves in the hands of rebel militias, closing businesses he suspected of selling arms to rebel militias, banning public assemblies to abort potential riots, and, for good measure, forbidding the display of the Bonnie Blue Flag. Butler firmly fortified Federal troops in the captured cities of Baltimore and Annapolis, and stationed more at strategic points throughout the state to guard the railroads from sappers and hijackers. Federal soldiers, instructed to shoot first and ask questions later, shot any armed Marylander on sight, many of whom were simply hunting. Federal artillery emplacements in Baltimore and Annapolis surveyed the cities from commanding vantage points, threatening to unleash their deadly salvo upon any stirrings of rebellion. Federal troops were deployed in force on election days, not only illegally voting in the elections themselves, but also intimidating Marylanders by guarding the polls with brandished bayonets.

John A. Dix of New York later took command in Maryland, pledging that the rebellious city of Baltimore would be "controlled by the strong arm of government." Dix, however, became a laughingstock in Maryland for banning the "secession colors" of red and white from public display, since the red and white "Crossland Banner" of Maryland founder Cecilius Calvert's ancestors (which now comprises half of the state flag) had become a symbol of secession in Maryland. A satirical pamphlet circulated in Baltimore urged red-haired citizens to avoid arrest by dyeing any white whiskers blue as a sign of loyalty to "His Majesty, Abraham the First."

In Missouri, the Federal occupiers were even more oppressive than in Maryland. John C. Fremont, a former Republican presidential candidate in charge of the Federal military dictatorship in Missouri, ordered Federal soldiers to summarily execute any Missourian for mere possession of a firearm and to requisition all private firearms for redistribution to Federal forces, just as Julius Caesar routinely executed any conquered Gauls who bore arms - or if he was feeling generous, simply severed their hands, their bloody stumps serving as a warning to future generations.

Even though their state government had been overthrown before it could secede, many Marylanders remained undaunted, taking the initiative of organizing regiments on their own to travel South to fight alongside their brethren ("The Maryland Line"), or simply volunteering in preexisting Confederate regiments in need of more men. As in the War of American Independence, independent militias of freemen defending their liberties answered the call to arms, in spite of the federal government's best efforts at disarmament. Sadly, it would not be enough.


While Maryland was ruled under martial law, Baltimore's Fort McHenry, the heroic resistance of which against an English bombardment in the War of 1812 inspired Francis Scott Key' to compose what would later become the national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner," was commandeered into one of Lincoln's many 19th-century Guantanamo Bays. Many of Maryland's preeminent legislators and journalists, illegally arrested for the crime of exercising their constitutional rights, were imprisoned in Fort McHenry, along with thousands of other Marylanders guilty of supporting their homeland in its struggle for independence. Key's own grandson, Francis Key Howard, one of the Maryland newspaper editors critical of Lincoln and supportive of secession, was, ironically, illegally locked in Fort McHenry. Howard, reflecting of his time in what he labeled "an American Bastille," mused on how much the country had changed since his grandfather's time:

"When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. Francis Scott Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed."

In the summer of 1861, Roger Taney of Maryland, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, ruled in Ex Parte Merryman that Lincoln's unilateral suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional:

"These great and fundamental laws, which Congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms. Such is the case now before me, and I can only say that if the authority which the Constitution has confided to the judiciary department and judicial officers, may thus, upon any pretext or under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds his life, liberty, and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found."

Taney further noted that one of the American grievances stated in the Declaration of Independence was the English elevation of military authorities over civil authorities, which was exactly what Lincoln was doing in Maryland by suspending habeas corpus and enforcing martial law. When Lincoln first heard of Taney's verdict, he petulantly demanded that Taney - the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court - be arrested for treason, but was ultimately convinced to simply ignore the ruling, and later expanded the suspension of habeas corpus to encompass the entire country.

Since the Northern press was crushed beneath the heavy hand of Lincoln's censorship, it fell to the Southern press to make sure that people were aware of Lincoln's atrocities against life, liberty, and property, including the right to bear arms. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, says the Constitution," wrote T.W. MacMahon in an 1862 issue of DeBow's Review, "but upon this privilege he has trampled in Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky." In the North, at the 1864 Democratic Convention - which nominated retired Federal general George B. McClellan to wage a very different sort of campaign against his former commander-in-chief - Northern Democrats vehemently denounced Lincoln's countless crimes against the Constitution, such as "the interference with and denial of the right of the people to bear arms in their defense." Sadly, Lincoln and his Republican regime - through massive voter fraud and intimidation tactics - were reelected in 1864 to complete their conquest of the Confederacy.

Charles C. Burr of Maine was a prolific journalist and outspoken Copperhead fiercely critical of Lincoln and the Republican Party. In 1864, Burr published "Notes on the Constitution," a contemporary commentary on the Constitution with special references to "the present administration." Burr began his commentary on the Second Amendment with a quote from Chief Justice Story on the importance of an armed populace in the protection of a free country:

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes, is, by disarming the people and making it an offense to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men. The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers."

Burr then proceeded to compare Lincoln's actions in office to those of Story's imaginary tyrant:

"The present administration has violated this article of the Constitution in every particular. It has, in a great many instances, disarmed the people by forcibly entering their houses and seizing their arms of every description. It has sent overwhelming numbers of U.S. soldiers into peaceable and law-abiding communities, to overawe the people, and render the militia ineffectual for the preservation of the peace and the protection of the citizens. In a word, it has substituted U.S. soldiery for militia."

As an example of Lincoln's tyranny, Burr cited the federal government's occupation of New York City. Since the federal government's brutal suppression of the 1863 draft riots - in which hundreds of New Yorkers were slain for protesting the unconstitutional conscription of the population into an unjust, imperial war in which they wanted no part - 20,000 Federal troops had been garrisoned in the city. Lincoln's unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus, although used effectively in the conquest of border states like Maryland, was eventually expanded to the entire country for the suppression political dissent in the North, especially in Copperhead hotbeds like New York City, the shipping industry of which gave it strong commercial ties to the South. Burr explained that the "invasion of the state on the part of the federal administration" placed New York City "virtually under military law," which meant that the military possessed the power to arrest anyone for anything, or even for nothing. "The same power by which he seizes one, menaces the liberty of all," warned Burr to no avail.

In September of 1862, victorious from Seven Days and Second Manassas, Robert E. Lee rode triumphantly into Maryland. Lee's strategy was to relieve war-torn Virginia of the ravages of Federal invaders, liberate Maryland from Federal occupation, and demoralize the North by crushing the Federal army on U.S. soil. Upon entering Maryland, Lee, to distinguish himself from the conquering Lincoln, issued a proclamation promising to respect and protect the life, liberty, and property of the people:

"It is right that you should know the purpose that brought the army under my command within the limits of your state, so far as that purpose concerns yourselves. 

"The people of the Confederate States have long watched with the deepest sympathy the wrongs and outrages that have been inflicted upon the citizens of a Commonwealth, allied to the states of the South by the strongest social, political and commercial ties. 

"They have seen with profound indignation their sister state deprived of every right, and reduced to the condition of a conquered province. 

"Under the pretense of supporting the Constitution, but in violation of its most valuable provisions, your citizens have been arrested and imprisoned upon no charge, and contrary to all forms of law; the faithful and manly protest against this outrage made by the venerable and illustrious Marylanders to whom in better days, no citizens appealed for right vain, was treated with scorn and contempt; the government of your chief city has been usurped by armed strangers; your legislature has been dissolved by the unlawful arrest of its members; freedom of the press and of speech, of the Federal Executive, and citizens ordered to be tried by a military commission for what they may dare to speak. 

"Believing that the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a government, the people of the South have long wished to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke, to enable you to again enjoy the inalienable rights of free men, and restore independence and sovereignty to your state. 

"In obedience to this wish, our army has come among you, and is prepared to assist you with the power of its arms in regaining the rights of which you have been despoiled. 

"This, citizens of Maryland, is our mission, so far as you are concerned. 

"No constraint upon your free will is intended, no intimidation is allowed. 

"Within the limits of this army, at least, Marylanders shall once more enjoy their ancient freedom of thought and speech. 

"We know no enemies among you, and will protect all of every opinion. 

"It is for you to decide your destiny, freely and without constraint. 

"This army will respect your choice whatever it may be, and while the Southern people will rejoice to welcome you to your natural position among them, they will only welcome you when you come of your own free will."

Lee hoped his presence and proclamation would inspire the people of Maryland would rise from their enslavement and overthrow the Federal occupiers. Sadly, by the time Lee led the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland, Lincoln's tyrannical ploy had worked: the people of Maryland were a spent force, disarmed and subjugated, just as the Founding Fathers feared would happen under tyranny. Marylanders had fought for freedom for as long as they could, but the oppression of disarmament under martial law had killed their rebellious spirit. After the stalemate at Sharpsburg - in which McClellan, despite possessing confidential Confederate war plans, was still unable to defeat Lee - the war returned to the blood-soaked fields of Virginia. Although Lee would continue to win inspiring victories against overwhelming odds, the disappointing Maryland Campaign dealt a devastating blow to the hopes of a free and independent Confederacy.

A Farewell to Arms?

In both the War of American Independence and the War of Southern Independence, tyrannical governments sought to disarm people fighting for their freedom so that they would be defenseless to resist. If the English had succeeded in disarming the American colonists, American independence might never have been won. Likewise, Lincoln could not have conquered the Confederacy without first disarming the people of border states like Maryland. When the people were armed, liberty lived, but when the people were disarmed, tyranny triumphed. Despite these stirring lessons of history, many have forgotten that the Second Amendment is ultimately the "people's check" on the government, the last resort of liberty in times of tyranny. "Those ignorant of history," warned Edmund Burke of Scotland, "are doomed to repeat it."

With a gargantuan standing army occupying every corner of the globe, a nuclear arsenal strong enough to obliterate the world several times over, flying killer drones able to assassinate anyone anywhere for anything, the pervasive surveillance of private life, and the statist indoctrination of the people, the full force of the federal government appears impossible to overcome. The federal government has already stripped the people of their most powerful arms, and now, like carrion circling a carcass, returns to feast on the Second Amendment's remains. Armed patriots whose hearts and minds are afire with the spirit of their Revolutionary forebears are liberty's only hope. Any invasion of the natural right to bear arms in defense of life, liberty, and property against aggression - whether criminal or governmental - must be resisted until the bitter end, for a farewell to arms is a farewell to freedom.