Let me toss some of Joseph Story's writing on the Bill of Rights and the 2nd Amendment into the mix. Story was a Supreme Court Justice from 1811 to 1845. This is from his 1840 book A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States:
"A Bill of Rights is important, and may often be indispensable. whenever it operates as a qualification upon powers, actually granted by the people to the government. This is the real ground of all the Bills of Rights in the parent country, in the Colonial constitutions and laws, and in the State constitutions. In England, the Bills of Rights were not demanded merely of the Crown, as withdrawing a power from the Royal prerogative; they were equally important, as withdrawing power from Parliament. A large proportion of the most valuable of the provisions in Magna Carta, and the Bill of Rights of 1688, consists of a solemn recognition of the limitations upon the powers of Parliament; that is, a declaration, that Parliament ought not to abolish or restrict those rights. Such are the right of trial by jury; the right to personal liberty and private property, according to the law of the land; that the subjects ought to have a right to bear arms, that elections of members of Parliament ought to be free; that freedom of speech and debate in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned elsewhere; and that excessive bail ought not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishments inflicted..."
"The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers....The right of citizens to keep and bear arms had justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and it will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." |
