And while we are at it..

[Kevin]

How about spending a little time on the history of the 2A as a sop to slave owners? The 2A has always been portrayed as a response to the fear of a standing army but that's only part of the story.

The rest is that Patrick Henry, saw danger in Article 1, Section 8:

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

He feared that this language would override state militias that were used to pursue runaway slaves and suppress rebellions. He explicitly invoked this reasoning while arguing against ratification of the Constitution. In response, James Madison wrote the 2A, in which militias, in which in the south only white men were armed, were protected:

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.

Madison, who was also a slave owner, drew a connection between the militia and the right to bear arms as a specific response to Henry's objection to Article 1 perhaps being used by the federal government to keep the Virginia state militia, which primarily dealt with slave issues, from doing its job. Virginia was needed for ratification and without the militia being protected, that wasn't going to happen.

Scalia found an individual right to bear arms, but Alito's new basis for originalism opens up the very real possibility of Heller being overturned. And now you have the rest of the story - the 2A was, in part, required to get slave states to ratify the Constitution.

[Kevin]

And in the name of even-handedness:

The 3/5 compromise when counting population for representation was a sop to the non-slave states so THEY would ratify the Constitution. If the population of the slave states were counted including slaves, then slave states would gain much power in the new Congress. The non-slave states insisted on only counting 3/5ths of the slave population to limit slave state power. The northern states did not want slaves to be counted at all.

Between the 2A and the 3/5 compromise, I guess you could say that the issue of slavery had a major effect on the language of our foundational document. Screwing over slaves is the original originalism in the Constitution.

[Dave Grubb]

...and that my dear friend will prompt the originalists to label you a trouble maker

[UTAH]

I am both appalled and proud of the way our nation resolved slavery. And, if our CB members were there at the time, they'd have landed on the right side of it.

Hunter

[Dave Grubb]

As Kevin points out, there is a backstory to this piece of the Constitution. The same is true for most every aspect of that document and it is important to know that backstory.

[UTAH]

E.g., Federalist Papers?

Hunter

[Kevin]

The Federalist Papers are a good source but not the only source for understanding the intent of the Constitution. They represent the polished argument being made for general consumption. As such, they are the agreed-upon story that was sent out for publication to sell the Constitution, not necessarily the down and dirty nitty gritty of the debates at the Constitutional Convention. And interestingly, Federalist 84 is about opposing the idea of a Bill of Rights. Hamilton was against the Bill of Rights. Madison also opposed it. But during the debates at the Constitutional Convention, it was clear that without a Bill of Rights, the delegates who were opposed to a strong federal structure, wanted something akin to several listings in various other political documents. To get their votes, Madison wrote the Bill of Rights.

When you look at the Federalist Papers, you get a viewpoint into why they are creating what became the basic structure of government but you don't get the debates and compromises that went on.

[UTAH]

An interesting description of how the Bill of Rights occurred hand in hand with the Constitution, Kevin. Nice work.

It would have been amazing to be there and see it happen.

Hunter