For the government of citizens, as it is of two kinds, an equal or an inequal commonwealth, the reasons why it is the hardest to be conquer’d, are also of two kinds; as first, the reasons why a government of citizens, where the commonwealth is equal, is hardest to be conquer’d, are, that the invader of such a society must not only trust to his own strength, inasmuch as the commonwealth being equal, he must needs find them united, but in regard that such citizens, being all soldiers or train’d up to their arms, which they use not for the defence of slavery, but of liberty (a condition not in this world to be better’d) they have more specially upon this occasion the highest soul of courage, and (if their territory be of any extent) the vastest body of a well disciplin’d militia that is possible in nature: wherfore an example of such a one overcom by the arms of a monarch, is not to be found in the world.
~ The Oceana and Other Works, James Harrington, 1771
This excerpt shows, as much as anything, some reasoning behind the words of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Harrington's work was known to our Founding Fathers, and no doubt his comments about the use and utility of arms, both for and against a monarchy, played a key role in shaping the thoughts of those who drafted the Bill of Rights.
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