Found at Hot Air: written in 1803 in the View of the Constitution of the United States, he said:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty…The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most government it has been the study of rules to confirm 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 of pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
More at the link. This is my shocked face 🙂 that an early American professor of law would state something so shocking about the shocking fact that people might be shocked to learn that the 2nd Amendment means exactly what it appears to mean.
The very next few sentences are also directly relevant:
While he was speaking of England, the same thing happened here. The excuse is safety rather than hunting privileges, but the intent and effect is the same: gun ownership is restricted to only “the right people”.
A polite well armed society and a militarized police can not long coexist.