Quote of the day—People of New Hampshire

And as it is the opinion of this Convention, that certain amendments and alterations in the said Constitution would remove the fears and quiet the apprehensions of many of the good people of this state, and more effectually guard against an undue administration of the federal government, — The Convention do therefore recommend that the following alterations and provisions be introduced in the said Constitution: —
. . . . .

XI. Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or to infringe the rights of conscience.

XII. Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion.

Convention of the Delegates of the People of the State of New Hampshire
June 21, 1788
New Hampshire’s Ratification
[H/T David Hardy.

Emphasis added.

The original intent of the people of New Hampshire in regards to what we now know as the Second Amendment is very clear. And it is also clear that what we have now is very far removed from that original intent.—Joe]

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9 thoughts on “Quote of the day—People of New Hampshire

  1. Joe, now getting 404 response, along with the other one. Last week, was a couple days before I could access your blog.

    • I’ve harassed my hosting provider several times now without good results. I think I need to change providers, but it’s a lot of work with all the domains I have.

      • Moving just the blog shouldn’t be that hard. Doubly so since it’s on wordpress. If you want I can throw your blog on my server while you move the rest. (Just export and import the wordpress content).

        Also why I like things like cloudflare. It helps the switch over happen almost instantly.

  2. What’s with you old people and your out-dated ideals of human liberty and human dignity? When will you learn that state-sponsored coercion and forced submission is far more hip?

  3. It’s interesting that in that whole process the Federalists kept claiming that this notion of a Bill of Rights was completely superfluous, because the federal government had no power to do any of the things that people were worried about.
    Fast forward 200 years, and think about the hundreds of court cases in which the people have been protected against government intrusion on the strength of one of the first 10 amendments. (Then think about the hundreds of additional cases where dishonest courts held that those amendments were outweighed or outbalanced by “overriding government interests” — an utterly fictional notion with no basis in the Consitutution.)
    It sometimes baffles me that any of the Federalists are still held in high esteem. That’s most baffling, of course, in the case of Hamilton. But while Madison wasn’t an early Wilson the way Hamilton was, he did manage to be wrong about the Constitution a surprising number of times.

    • I have mixed feelings about the Constitution. On the one hand, I think we sometimes mistake the Founding Fathers for borderline anarcho-capitalists, or at the very least, very libertarian. They were not: with very few exceptions, they believed government to be necessary to one degree or another. The Constitution developed as a result of distrust of liberty.

      On the other hand, the Constitution seemed to awaken the pro-liberty elements of America, who insisted that, at a minimum, we have a Bill of Rights; this, in turn, cemented a tradition of liberty in the hearts of (some) American people. Would this have happened under the Articles of Confederation? It’s hard to say. It’s possible that, had the Constitution not been adopted, a more tyrannical system of government would have been later on. It’s also possible that the country would have gone more Libertarian…

      It should be kept in mind that George Washington declined the opportunity to be named King of the States. Had he accepted, where would we be today? Even that is hard to say, because even Great Britain, having a monarchy, has had periods of freedom (and its current anti-gun regime was put into place by a “democratic” ruling class…)

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