Open Letter to Buckeye Firearms Association regarding the Founding Fathers’ views on gun control
To Whom It May Concern,
Your web page “Gun Quotations of the Founding Fathers” has been the #1 Google search result for the term “Founding Fathers Gun Control” for at least the last three years.
I ask you to please review this web page, because it contains many inaccurate, incomplete, or fake quotations. Some of them are extremely fake.
I don’t think the person who put this page together intended to deceive people. Most of the words on this web page appear in other places, including chain letters, bumper stickers and other websites, so I’m assuming the person assembling this set of quotations thought they were true, but it hurts our dialogue that the internet’s most prominent website regarding the Founding Fathers and the second amendment is almost entirely inaccurate.
What follows are the quotes from your web page with links to their original text. You will notice that almost every quote is either inaccurate, incomplete, taken out of context, or completely fake. There are a couple that are accurate.
Thank You.
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined…”
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790
This is a truncated of part of George Washington’s first state of the union address. In context, the quote reads differently:
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”
The key here is that second phrase: to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite. Washington was calling on the nation, as a whole, to be prepared to fight foreign aggression. There was no central army at the time of Washington’s inauguration, and there was a large debate over whether national security should be handled by a central army or a decentralized system of militias. In his inaugural address, Washington clearly thinks that it’s not enough to just allow men to own guns and wish for the best; he is advocating for a central command. He’s also advocating that the United States produce its own firearms as not to have to rely on anyone else for their weapons.
Two years after this address, the United States army was formed, and it proved to be much more successful and efficient than local militias, so the colonial idea of smaller militias died out.
Source: http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations/
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
This is the first of three drafts of a clause of the Virginia Constitution that was ultimately not included in the final version. The other two drafts include the phrase “within his own lands or tenements.” Thomas Jefferson may or may not have thought this; it may be something someone else wanted added to the constitution. In any case, this clause didn’t make it into the Virginia constitution in any of its three forms. It’s very misleading to include a first draft of something that was ultimately not published.
Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/no-freeman-shall-be-debarred-use-arms-quotation
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
Thomas Jefferson never penned these words to James Madison. In a letter to Madison where he discussed the benefits of democracy as the middle ground between anarchy and totalitarianism, he wrote Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem, a latin phrase that can be translated a number of ways including the above and also “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.” Guns and gun rights were not mentioned at all in this letter.
Source: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/i-prefer-dangerous-freedom-over-peaceful-slavery-quotation
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787
This is an accurate quote, but it reads much differently in context and it was not addressed to James Madison. It was to a man named William S. Smith and dated November 13 1787. In the letter, Jefferson is deeply condescending towards the common American, shrugging off a recent rebellion by basically saying that people are ignorant and that ignorance leads to revolt from time to time. In context, it’s like he’s saying “we might as well let the baby throw a tantrum every now and then.”
Maybe more importantly, at the end of the letter Jefferson lets on that this whole letter was intended as a joke, which pretty much negates this whole quote. He may have been drunk.
Full text of the letter: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl64.php
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774–1776
This is a recent translation of an 18th-century Italian quotation that a young Thomas Jefferson had written down, in the original Italian, in his legal commonplace book. According to the Library of Congress “a commonplace book is a journal or notebook in which a student, reader, or writer compiles quotations, poems, letters, and information, along with the compiler’s notes and reactions. Students from the 1600s through the 1800s were required to keep commonplace books as learning tools.” Thomas Jefferson kept two commonplace books, one for his legal studies and one for his general studies. These commonplace books include quotes from a large number of prominent thinkers and authors, often in their original language, along with his personal notes about those quotes.
It’s extremely cynical to pull an untranslated quote from what is basically Jefferson’s class notes, translate it into modern English, and attribute it to him (the translation is from 1967.) There’s also no way for this to have been put into his commonplace book in 1774; his legal commonplace book dates from the time he was in law school (1762–1767.)
Sources: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/laws-forbid-carrying-armsquotation
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/thomas-jefferson/langarts2.html
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
This is an accurate quote. Thomas Jefferson clearly enjoyed sport shooting and expressed this in a letter to his nephew.
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
This is not a single quote, but a mashup of several statements Jefferson made in a letter to a man named John Cartwright describing the nature of American self-government and state constitutions. “(and of the United States)” appears nowhere in the letter — someone has added that. In context the “right and duty” part does not read as an endorsement but rather his description of things as they were at the time. During the early days of country, most states required that every man own a weapon in the case that they were called to arms.
Text of the letter: http://bit.ly/1ORQ0B6
“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
Why all the added words in [brackets]? The original quote is much prettier and is not hard to read:
2d. On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the
time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested
in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out
of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in
which it was passed.
This is one sentence in a lengthy letter that I honestly did not read. This quote clearly has nothing to do with guns, but does show that he may have been an early originalist.
The text of the letter (letter begins on page 226, quote on page 231): http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t3pv6bn68;view=1up;seq=255
“I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence … I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778
This is an awkwardly edited quote, but at least there is an ellipsis this time to let us know that it’s been edited. What he’s saying is that is half as many Americans were killed in the Revolutionary War as the British, and that this is due to the fact that Americans were better shots. The “every soldier in our army” sentence is accurate.
It should be noted that this is from a gushy, brown-nosey thank-you letter to a man who appears to have been a benefactor of the American cause.
The full letter: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/let11.asp
“The thoughtful reader may wonder, why wasn’t Jefferson’s proposal of ‘No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms’ adopted by the Virginia legislature? They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin, “Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor”, November 11, 1755
This is the most cynically inaccurate of all the quotes on this page. Shame on whoever concocted this and shame on anyone who knowingly spreads this type of garbage!
First of all, the Virginia constitution was enacted in 1776. How could Ben Franklin have known about it in 1755? He was an inventor but not an inventor of time machines. And this is not the correct wording nor the correct context for Franklin’s famous “essential liberty / safety” quote. Here is what Franklin wrote in his letter:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
This needs to be shouted from the rooftops to every member of the NRA and every gun lobbyist who misuses this quote: Benjamin Franklin’s “essential liberty / safety” quote has nothing to do with guns or gun laws.
So what was that quote referring to? It was written in response to the colony of Pennsylvania giving up its right to tax the wealthy Penn family in return for the Penn family’s promise to defend the colony from any aggression. In this letter, Benjamin Franklin is literally admonishing Pennsylvania for giving up its right to levy taxes on a wealthy family. The original quote, in context, is Ben Franklin advocating for the right of a government to tax its people, even its most powerful and elite families. To give up that right of taxation in exchange for a family’s promise to help defend the colony seemed ludicrous to him. So the quote has nothing to do with guns, with surveillance, with Thomas Jefferson, or with anything other than a specific taxation issue from the colonial era.
“To disarm the people…[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them.”
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
This is another quote regarding the militia that is edited to remove its context. In context it should read:
Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia. This was a most iniquitous project. Why should we not provide against the danger of having our militia, our real and natural strength, destroyed?
He goes on to speak of the duty of the federal government to arm the militia, and that if the federal government fails to do this the states should be allowed to arm their militias themselves.
Source: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/print_documents/a1_8_12s27.html
“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
- George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788
This quote is taken out of context. Here it is in context:
I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor; but they may be confined to the lower and middle classes of the people, granting exclusion to the higher classes of the people.
He’s warning against a system where only the lower classes of people fight in wars.
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
Noah Webster did say this, and it is a very strong statement made during a time when standing armies — like the one we have now — were associated with tyranny. None of this applies to the 21st century, of course. We do have a standing army and we also have very permissive gun laws, and our current army could crush any rebellion that might come along.
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
- James Madison, Federalist №46, January 29, 1788
This is a quote best understood in its context. Despite being an author of the Federalist papers, Madison believed that a system of state militias would be ultimately more powerful than a centralized army. Of course, the United States military today is the most powerful military in the world, so this is pretty irrelevant to the discussion of individual gun rights.
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
This is one of many drafts of what became our second amendment. It’s a draft of something that we all know it its final form. Why are we including all of these drafts on this list? Even if the majority quotes on this page were accurate — and they are not — including all these drafts implies that you can’t find better evidence.
“…the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone…”
- James Madison, Federalist №46, January 29, 1788
This heavily ellipsed quote is not about guns. Another quote from Federalist №46, this was written during the time that the constitution was being drafted. In context he’s saying that people on both sides of the debate over whether the states or the federal government should be more powerful need to remember that the ultimate authority in the United States is the people, not any government.
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
- William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783
This is not from a founding father and it is not about guns. It is from a British politician speaking in the British parliament and it is in regards to British matters in 1783, after the United States had become independent. This does not belong on a page of quotes from the founding fathers.
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer №18, January 25, 1788
This quote is awkwardly edited but is accurate. When you read the full text, Lee clearly believed that the 18th-century militia should include every capable man, and that every man should be trained from a young age to use a gun. This was seen by many at the time as superior to a national army like we have now, but only a few years after Lee wrote this, the United States formed its permanent army, and this idea of national defense being handled by local militias died away.
Full text of the article: http://www.constitution.org/afp/fedfar18.htm
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
Bullshit. The part after the ellipsis is not in the speech. Henry does not say “The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.” in this speech. You can read the speech for yourself.
Source: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/patrick-henry-virginia-ratifying-convention-va/
“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…. The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
- St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803
This quote appears to be accurate. Tucker was a prominent intellectual and former militia man who shared a common view at the time that a standing army, like the one we have now, would lead to tyranny or perpetual war.
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
- Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788
Of all the founding fathers, Samuel Adams seems to be the only one who consistently advocated for the rights of people to keep firearms. However, this is another example of a quote that has had parts removed without an ellipses. The original quote, attributed to Samuel Adams, was recorded as follows:
And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.
As you can see, he’s advocating for much of what was to be written as the Bill of Rights, and he includes the popular notion that the United States should be prohibited from raising a standing army. This motion was voted down as something that should be included in the constitution itself, but much of this became our bill of rights.
Source: https://archive.org/stream/debatesandproce00peirgoog#page/n109/mode/2up/search/peaceable
