"Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm, and shrewdly relapsing into repose."
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
As part of the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment was written by James Madison in order to appease Anti-Federalists who were concerned that individual liberties might not be upheld under the Constitution.
It was introduced to the House of Representatives by Madison on June 8, 1789, approved on September 25, 1789, and ratified by the states on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.
Its influence is drawn from the English Bill of Rights of 1689 which gave Protestants the rights to arms for the purpose of self-defense:
"That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law."
When first proposed on June 8, 1789, the Second Amendment read:
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."
It went through several other versions before the version we read today was finally accepted.
There is debate about how the Second Amendment is to be interpreted. Some argue it refers to the collective right of the state to arm its militia in order to protect the state against tyranny while others argue it refers to the individual right of citizens to possess arms for individual protection.
So why was the Second Amendment included in the Bill of Rights? In short, at the time of its proposal there was debate between Federalists and Anti-federalists regarding whether there would be a standing army. Anti-federalists feared a standing army would disarm state militias and turn on its people. The Second Amendment was primarily a way for Federalists to assure these Anti-federalists that this would never happen — state militias would not be taken over by a federal army.
Although the current debate has shifted from these concerns to those of individual gun rights, it is nevertheless insightful and necessary that we understand the context in which the Second Amendment was ratified.
It is easy to complain about the Constitution and those who framed it, but the reality is the Framers had an incredibly difficult job ahead of them. Here are just a few of the challenges the Framers face: they had to please states which were used to ruling themselves, they had to please the people without giving in to mob-rule, they had to give the federal government enough power to be functional but not too much as to become oppressive, they had to figure out how slaves were to be counted, they had to figure out whether states would vote equally or proportionally in Congress, they had to decide how a president would be elected and for how long, they had to protect liberty in the process, and most of all, they had to get the Constitution passed. I would like to focus on three challenges here: how to create a much stronger federal government while still ensuring the sovereignty and authority of the states, how to represent the states in Congress, and how to prevent against tyranny by the people and the government.
First, there was the issue of how to please states that up until the Constitutional Convention in 1787 had basically operated as separate countries. On the one hand, the national government had to be strong enough to solve the problems that arose from a weak national government under the Articles of Confederation, but on the other hand that national government couldn’t become so strong as to nullify the sovereignty of individual states. This challenge was ultimately overcome through a system of government called Federalism which basically split the power between the state and national government. Federalism can be defined as such:
A system of government in which power is divided between a national(federal) government and various regional governments.
Thus, states under the constitution were given their own legislative, executive, and judicial branches to pass, enforce, and interpret laws. In Federalist 28 Hamilton wrote regarding state and national governments that:
If [the peoples'] rights are invaded by either, they can make use of the other as the instrument of redress.
Federalism, therefore, gave the federal government more power while maintaining the sovereignty of the states. It served as a check to make sure neither the states nor the federal government became too powerful.
A second challenge was how states were to be represented in Congress. At the Convention representatives from smaller states wanted equal representation in Congress (i.e. New York and New Jersey get equal say in Congress). William Paterson proposed the “New Jersey Plan” which would have consisted of a Congress with just one house that would resemble today’s Senate with each state being equally represented. However, other larger states favored proportional representation (i.e. if New York has 5 million people it gets 25 representatives while New Jersey with 1 million people only gets only 5 representatives). Delegates from Virginia put together what they called the “Virginia Plan” which would have consisted of a Congress with just one house that would resemble today’s house of representatives where larger states greater representation than smaller states.
This disagreement about the nature of Congress was a huge challenge to overcome and nearly frustrated the efforts of the Framers. Fortunately, a man named Roger Sherman came up with a compromise: there would be a two house Congress—one house would have equal representation and the other house would have proportional representation.
Another challenge the founders faced, was how to protect against tyranny by the people and tyranny by the government. The founders hated tyrannical governments but feared almost equally the mob-rule that comes with pure democracy. This challenge required that the founders both limit the power of the people and limit the power of the government. How did they accomplish this? First, they made America a republic. A republic can be defined as:
a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
To further limit the tyranny of the people, the founders set up Congress so that only one house would be directly accountable to the people (The House of Representatives). Representatives would be voted for directly by the people and be most sensitive to the people’s needs. Senators, on the other hand, would be voted for by state legislators (a further power given to the states).
The founders, however, also protected against tyranny by the government. The first way they did this was by separating the government into three branches (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial) and by giving each branch the power to check the other two branches and make sure no one branch was overstepping its authority. This separation of powers made it so that actions in government usually involve two, if not all, branches of government in some way. A second way they protected against tyranny by the government, as already mentioned, was to make the federal government responsible to state governments. This meant that not only are the branches of government checking each other, but the states governments are also checking the federal government to make sure it does not become too powerful.
Although there were many, many challenges to be overcome, these were three significant ones the founders had to deal with. Even though their solutions aren’t perfect, they are remarkable considering the circumstances in which they were in.
