Posted on 03/30/2007 5:09:20 PM PDT by neverdem
Earlier this month, in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia, a three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia broke with all other federal circuits by holding that a gun-control statute violated the Second Amendment.
In a split decision, the court found that the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and a companion law that requires that legally owned firearms be stored disassembled could not be reconciled with the text of the amendment.
The amendment reads, "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." The only modern Supreme Court case to look at the issue, United States v. Miller, found that the Second Amendment was designed to preserve the effectiveness of the organized militia.
The Parker case breaks from this precedent by finding that the militia purpose is but one among a laundry list of other individual uses of arms protected by the Second Amendment, including hunting, self-defense, and protection from the "depredations of a tyrannical government."
This last claim, that individuals have a right to take up arms against representative government, was last tried out by the Confederate States of America.
When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, many Southerners, fearing that Lincoln would abolish slavery, felt they had no obligation to accept the results of the election. Southern attempts to withdraw from the union quickly led to individuals taking up arms to fight what they perceived as federal tyranny.
As president, Lincoln acted on his belief that violence against the government was illegal and unconstitutional. In his first inaugural address he stated, "It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination."
As he asked the nation to go to war to protect its sovereignty, Lincoln added, "And this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States ... It presents the question, whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration ... can always ... break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the Earth."
Lincoln made it clear that individuals or even states did not have the authority to determine what was "just cause" to wage a war against the union. As much as it pained him to send young men off to die, he did so to vindicate the idea that the Constitution and its amendments did not create some kind of national suicide pact.
Following the Civil War, the Supreme Court, in the case of Texas v. White, adopted this view and held that the Constitution did not countenance armed rebellion against the federal government.
The Parker court, by implicitly reviving Confederate constitutional theory and wrapping it in the authority of the federal courts, takes the ideals of conservative judicial activism in a lunatic direction.
The case is likely to be appealed. Let's hope that the rest of the D.C. Circuit knows enough history to recog´ nize that Lincoln, not Jefferson Davis, is the guiding spirit behind our system of constitutional government.
Horwitz is the executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
If per-capita GDP is $137, how can a slave which cost $1,500 offer a 10% ROI?
That slavery continued in the South suggests that it was at least slightly better than the proposition of bringing in immigrant laborers, but it wouldn't have had to have been much better. The biggest disadvantage I could see to immigrant labor would be the difficulty of making a smooth transition, since nobody who had slaves would have wanted to take a major hit on their investment.
Market inertia can be strong; I'm curious to what extent slavery persisted because it was economically superior to immigrant labor, and to what extent it persisted because of inertia.
Agree. However, (ya gottalove that word) there is a tangential connection. In order to have a "well regulated militia," those who might be called to serve in such, viz us citizens, have to have effective weapons privately available to ourselves.
IMHO,I don't think the founders were necessarily talking about formally existing state guard units, but rather citizens and states having the ability to form them in times of a perceived need. The Confederate states certainly had both: i.e., existing militia units, and the ability of those states and private citizens to form new ones with armed citizens. In the North, many private militia units were also formed, with privately owned weapons.
"The "hunter" nonsense always personally offends me. Of course, my little arsenal is used to slay various edible creatures, but its real purpose is to be available to me so that I and the neighbors can go out and slay invaders, or the forces of any tyrants, foreign or domestic, that might show up in the neighborhood. It's a basic American thing.
Does the ability of American citizens to form themselves, or to be formed by their political units, into militias with privately owned weapons somehow leave open the possibility of civil war? You bet.
Actually, the Southern States didn't take up arms first -- first, they called constitutional conventions to consider secession. That's the People in convention assembled -- we ratify amendments and the original 13 States created the Union that way, which established the pecking order:
State constitutions and state laws come under the Constitution by the operation of the Supremacy Clause; but within the State sphere there are things the USG cannot touch. The People and the States themselves are two of them.
The People, in fact, are the literal top of the totem pole, the untouchable Sovereign. When we sit as the People and resume our powers, our powers are absolutely unlimited, subordinate to nobody who isn't the invisible high God of Israel. And any powers and rights our States didn't delegate to the Union and the USG, remain with Us. So said John Marshall, when he was a delegate to Virginia's ratification convention -- and the Tenth Amendment was a memo to the future to the same effect.
Wrong on the facts as demonstrated, and also as respects the United States: the power to amend is in itself the power to dissolve.
It has always been a maxim of U.S. Government that the People have the right and power to unmake their handiwork if it displease them.
The Southerners didn't even do that much. They just resigned and left the club, some of the other members having grown unpleasant. They had the right to do so, since they -- we -- never gave it up.
Largely because of the presence of slavery, few immigrants came to the South. It's not like southern landowners really had a choice which method to use. Nobody wanted to compete with slave labor, a major factor behind northern opposition to slavery and its spread.
There is considerable evidence that plantation slavery, on a well-run large plantation, was more "economically efficient" than free labor. One source I ran across claimed that plantations were about 40% more efficient on average than northern family farms, and about 60% more efficient than southern family farms.
This is, of course, the efficiency for that particular organization. It seems pretty clear that it was not an economically beneficial system for the society as a whole. Just as illegal immigrant labor today can be highly profitable for a restaurant or lawn service, while having detrimental side effects that the whole society pays for.
Thanks, Bro!
I have walked that Ground many times as a re-enactor.:)
Liberals know that an armed society can overthrow their gov't...but that would result in a conservative gov't.
Liberals prefer the use of courts to overthrow their gov't.....that results in a socialist gov't.
I agree with you. We would have had a another war over the Western territories. The CSA would have solicted the Indians to fight for them. Perhaps even Mexico. It would have been nasty but in the end we would have re-united because the struggle would have been too costly.
People claim the war was about states rights. That's not true. It was about a handful of rich thugs who were not willing to give up their way of life.
John
The economics of slavery were very favorable, as Eugene Genovese detailed in his "The Political Economy of Slavery". Up front costs were an investment, same as buying land or real estate. The value of a slave appreciated during their prime working years. Feeding the slave wasn't a big investment - just about all the food they ate was raised on the plantation itself. Clothing was rudimentary and housing wasn't a continuing cost, slave quarters were built only once. Genovese reports that the cost of maintaining a slave was nominal at best. In return the slave owner had a real asset that could be easily converted into cash and a predictable source of free labor.
Hire an immigrant off the boat and you'll avoid the up-front cost; in addition, if the pay is inadequate to keep the worker healthy and he becomes sick, no problem--just hire another worker off the boat.
You also don't have the return on your investment, the knowledge that the labor will be there when you need it, and most importantly the need to bid against others for that labor. Free labor tended to go where they made the most. The immigrants off the boat that you speak of weren't available in the South. The plantation owner would be in the position where he needed the labor at the same time everyone else did, and unless there was a surplus the cost of that labor was unpredictable.
The tougher issue with slavery, I expect, would be what to do with generations of people who had deliberately not been taught to exercise their own initiative. The Civil War didn't solve that problem; its effects persist 140 years later.
The toughest issue was what to do with all those black people, suddenly free and expecting to enjoy the same privileges as the white folk. That wasn't settled for 140 years either.
It'd be interesting to see what the slaves felt about that logic.
The CSA are much closer geographically and had a resent Revolutionary war in common. The USA and CSA had common ancestors and relatives across their borders. The US and CSA at the time were culturally opposed to Monarchy.
Having rebelled in the first place to defend their institution of slavery, or because of states rights, or because of the overreaching federal government, or because they were in a minority status in Congress, or what ever excuse du jure you want to toss out there, what possible combination of events could cause those same Southern states to suddenly chuck their independence and go crawling back to the Union? Any ideas?
And what part of that Constitution allows those states to wash their hands and walk away from obligations like the national debt that was built by the country as a whole while they were a part? Or treaty obligations entered into by the country as a whole while they were a part? Or to seize without compensation every piece of federal property they could get their hands on, which could be said to be owned by all the states? Where does the Constitution give them that right?
I think the Founding Fathers would agree with me for we should always remember the opening line of the declaration, "We the people of the united States of America". "States" is capitalized while "united" is not.
Take another look at it. Compare it with the U in union. It looks to me like a capital U and a capital S.
The civil war was NOT a law enforcement problem.
This author is one of those dangerous revisionist types who intentionally makes stuff up about the law to justify their collectivist (communist) desires.
It is too bad degrees can't be revoked for such journalistic malfeasance.
Neither England or France had a large section of their country willing to launch a rebellion to protect against what they saw as threats to their institution of slavery. The U.S. did.
What upkeep would they really require? Food was rudimentary and grown or raised on the plantation iteslf, by slave labor. Clothing was nothing fancy and certainly not expensive. Slave housing was not a recurring expense. The upkeep of a slave amounted to very little and in return you got an investment who worked for free, could be sold for a good profit, and who if paired with another slave could crank out additional assets every 9 months or so.
An interesting debate to be sure. And I suppose that once we join any organization, we are never allowed to leave? The same questions can be asked of individuals across-the-board. Does that mean I have to forever attend church where I was raised?
The federal government only "owns" land where it has purchased land. Once it sells that land to individuals, it no longer owns it. I would agree that some device for compensation for remaining federally-owned land (ie. Ft. Sumpter) should have been made, but I disagree that the Southern states would be forevermore tied to federal debt or federal treaties.
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scroll down...;0)
LOL,,,I'm always under the "Big Oak Tree" near the Cannon,,
When I'm not in the sutler's tents or puttin' finger-prints
all over the glass in the museum,,,WAAAY KOOOL !!
TANKS and Hat-Tip to all of ya'll who bring History to life...;0)
Yes, Lincoln suspended that pesky Writ of Habeas Corpus, as well as the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Tenth and possibly the 8th amendments.
And, of course, if his theory for pursuit of the war was valid, he violated Article 4, Section 3 as well. Lincoln is not the poster child of a constitutional scholar.
Of course, under the Confederate theory of government, state enacted gun bans might be legal under a theory of state's rights, although Art I, Sec 9, Para 13 of the Confederate Constitution tracks the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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