No 2nd amendment in the constitution

This is somewhat of an aside, but some historians claim that the 2nd amendment was ratified in order to constitutionally preserve the slave patrol militias of Southern states. Thus, the 2nd amendment was never about one's individual right to "bear arms" or the creation of militias for the purpose national security -- it was about maintaining the racial hierarchy of the South and quashing any threats to its 'peculiar institution'. You can read more about this here.

Keep in mind, this claim is fairly controversial.

Given that there is no evidence for this claim in any of the primary documents from that period - not in the records of any constitutional ratification convention, not in any of the documents requesting amendments to the new Constitution, not in the debates about amending the new Constitution in the 1st Congress, and not in the records of any legislative debate concerning the proposed Article of Amendment IV (the 2nd Amendment) - I'd say the need to keep slaves in their place had very, very little to do with why the right to keep and bear arms was widely viewed as an essential right.
 
Given that there is no evidence for this claim in any of the primary documents from that period - not in the records of any constitutional ratification convention, not in any of the documents requesting amendments to the new Constitution, not in the debates about amending the new Constitution in the 1st Congress, and not in the records of any legislative debate concerning the proposed Article of Amendment IV (the 2nd Amendment) - I'd say the need to keep slaves in their place had very, very little to do with why the right to keep and bear arms was widely viewed as an essential right.

Patrick Henry did say in the Virginia Ratification Convention in opposition to the original Constitution:

" The 10th section of the 1st article, to which reference was made by the worthy member, militates against himself. It says, that "no state shall engage in war, unless actually invaded." If you give this clause a fair construction, what is the true meaning of it? What does this relate to? Not domestic insurrections, but war. If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress insurrections. *If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded.* [my emphasis--DT] They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress. The 4th section of the 4th article expressly directs that, in case of domestic violence, Congress shall protect the states on application of the legislature or executive; and the 8th section of the 1st article gives Congress power to call forth the militia to quell insurrections: there cannot, therefore, be a concurrent power. The state legislatures ought to have power to call forth the efforts of the militia, when necessary. Occasions for calling them out may be urgent, pressing, and instantaneous. The states cannot now call them, let an insurrection be ever so perilous, without an application to Congress. So long a delay may be fatal." http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a4_4s9.html

In other words, Henry argued that the original Constitution failed to give the state adequate authority to use the militia to suppress insurrections; and he explicitly mentioned *slave* insurrections (though perhaps just as an example).

I agree that this is far from establishing that the Second Amendment was designed to secure slavery; but it does show that--at least in Henry's case-- *one* reason for dissatisfaction with the original Constitution's militia provisions was a fear that they might not give states sufficient power to quell insurrections, including slave insurrections. (That Henry's interpretation of the original Constitution as denying the power of the states to use their militias to suppress insurrections without first requesting Congress was wrong is neither here nor there; one purpose of the Bill of Rights was to allay fears about the original Consitution, whether those fears were well-founded or not.)
 
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