Mandatory Gun Ownership, the Militia Census of 1806, and Background Assumptions concerning the Early American Right to Arms: A Cautious Response to Robert Churchill

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-196
Author(s):  
William G. Merkel
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Substantial Contribution ◽  
Early America ◽  
Gun Ownership ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early American ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
Early National ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time

In “Gun Ownership in Early America,” published in theWilliam and Mary Quarterlyin 2003, Robert Churchill drew on probate inventories and militia records to make the case that arms ownership was pervasive in late colonial, revolutionary, and early national America. Churchill concluded with the observation that “[i]t is time to ponder what these guns meant to their owners and how that meaning changed over time.” In his substantial contribution to this volume ofLaw and History Review, Churchill takes up that challenge himself and advances the claim that widespread arms ownership engendered a sense of possessory entitlement, and that this notion of right informed constitutional sensibilities respecting guns and the Second Amendment. He acknowledges that a civic republican understanding focused on the militia was central to the framers' conception of the right to arms, but urges that another stream of discourse—individualistic, personal, and divorced from militia linked obligations—was present from the beginning. By the early nineteenth century, Churchill argues, this purely private view of the right to arms had become ascendant.

Gun Laws in Early America: The Regulation of Firearms Ownership, 1607–1794

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Bellesiles
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Early America ◽  
Gun Ownership ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
James I ◽  
Early American ◽  
Second Amendment ◽  
Official Position ◽  
Gun Laws ◽  
The Right

King James I stated the official position of the English governing elite on gun ownership succinctly. When it was suggested that more of England's subjects should enjoy the right to hunt and own firearms, James responded that “it is not fit that clowns should have these sports.”Discussion of early American gun laws begins with consideration of the English legal heritage. In the last few years, adherents of the self-described “standard model” of the meaning of the Second Amendment have constructed a paradigm of an uninterrupted tradition of legally sanctioned individual gun ownership in America. Such a construction starts with the idea that the British brought an acceptance of the universal ownership of firearms with them to the Americas. That cultural norm gave form to the meaning of the Second Amendment, which institutionalized an individual right to bear arms for purposes of personal and communal defense and as a security against a tyrannical government. This history matters greatly to these scholars in establishing an original intent in the Second Amendment to protect an individual's right to own guns.

Taking a Text

2018 ◽  
pp. 40-62
Author(s):  
Seth Perry
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Reference Materials ◽  
Early America ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Biblical Literacy ◽  
Essential Aspect ◽  
Early National ◽  
Primary Means ◽  
Bible Reading

This chapter examines bible reading and referencing in the early nineteenth century, with particular emphasis on reference as an essential aspect of Protestant religious authority. It first provides an overview of literacy, biblical literacy, and bible reading in early America before discussing the increased availability of reference materials as well as indexes and concordances as part of early national bible culture. It then considers how indexical materials became the primary means of locating scripture texts among all classes of American bible readers and how the resources of biblical citation were utilized by preachers during the period. It concludes with a discussion of the trajectory of Ellen Harmon White's career, and more specifically how she harnessed the print-bible culture of the period to parlay her visionary authority into a fully articulated bible-based authority.

scholarly journals “The Great End of All Government…”: Working People's Construction of Citizenship Claims in Early Nineteenth-Century England and the Matter of Class

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (S3) ◽  
pp. 19-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc W. Steinberg
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Manual Labour ◽  
Working People ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
The Right ◽  
William Cobbett ◽  
A Share

In the heat of the battle for parliamentary reform William Cobbett preached to the working people of England in his inimitable blustery dictums. “[I]f you labour honestly,” he counselled, “you have a right to have, in exchange for your labour, a sufficiency out of the produce of the earth, to maintain yourself and your family as well; and, if you are unable to labour, or if you cannot obtain labour, you have a right to maintenance out of the produce of the land […]”. For honest working men this was part of the legacy of constitutional Britain, which bequeathed to them not only sustenance but, “The greatest right […] of every man, the right of rights, […] the right of having a share in the making of the laws, to which the good of the whole makes it his duty to submit”. Nonetheless, he warned, such rights could not legitimately negate the toiling lot that was the laborer's fate: “Remember that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man […]. It is necessary to the existence of mankind, that a very large proportion of every people should live by manual labour […]”.

Politics, PolicyandPoliceyas Concepts in English and Continental Languages: An Attempt to Explain Divergences

1986 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold J. Heidenheimer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Over Time

This article explores the problem of why most Continental languages lack a term which distinguishes the concept ofpolicy, and to what extent political scientists writing in them are handicapped. It employs a diachronic approach to explore historical shifts of meaning within the “polis-family of words” in English and German, with reference also to French and other languages. The analysis is related to the manner in which the concept and term for state flourished m these languages over time, and explores why a convergence in usages of the Englishpolicyand the ContinentalPoliceywas aborted in the early nineteenth century. The bureaucratic and ideological roots of the broad Continentalpoliceconcept are traced. Then synchronic analysis is used to explore how in the contemporary setting the presence or absence of a policy term effects communication and conceptualization.

scholarly journals The Theme of Educational Transfer in Comparative Education: A View over Time

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Beech
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Comparative Education ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Educational Transfer ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Way

This article analyses notions of ‘transfer’ in the literature of comparative education, searching for continuities and discontinuities in the way that the process of educational transfer has been construed. The analysis shows that the theme of transfer has been fundamental in comparative education from the early nineteenth century until the present day. Although some of the questions addressed in the field since its origins are still crucial today, it is suggested in the final part of the study that these problems should now be addressed in a world in which educational space has become more complex, as supra-national and sub-national actors become increasingly important in the production and reproduction of specialised knowledge about education.

Archaeology and the Liberal Revolutions (c. 1820–1860): Nation, Race, and Language in the Study of Europe’s Past

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Diaz-Andreu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
The State ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Old Order ◽  
Financial Growth ◽  
The Right ◽  
Ancien Régime

There was no return to the Ancien Régime after Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. Firstly, the early nineteenth-century economy was increasingly strengthened by the industrial, imperial and trading expansion of the European powers throughout the world (Chapters 5 to 10), which helped to stimulate Western Europe’s financial growth. Adding immeasurable impetus to this movement was the territorial expansion of Russia and the US, and later in the century other countries such as Japan contributed by broadening their frontiers manifold (Chapters 9 and 10). Factors such as these accelerated the enlargement and aspirations of the middle classes, who were precisely the group leading most of the revolutionary activity in the first half of the nineteenth century. Secondly, the reforms in administration made the state machine more efficient than that of the Ancien Régime and this impeded a full restoration of the old order. Also, for the efficient functioning of the state, the enthusiasm with which educated individuals identified with the nation was extremely important to ensure their loyalty. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century socio-political revolutions had brought a series of new meanings to concepts such as conservatism, liberal, democrat, party, and the distinction between left and right (Roberts 1996: 21). For example, liberalism was a doctrine that favoured ‘progress’ and ‘reform’. It was also linked with the type of nationalism that the French Revolution had promoted with the sovereignty of nations and the belief that all citizens were equal in the eyes of the law (although at this time ‘citizenship’, as propagated by the proponents of this doctrine, mainly meant the prosperous classes and male citizens). For progressive liberals, it was not only the established states that had the right to be a nation. The nationalist sentiments and claims by Greeks, Slovaks, Czechs, Brazilians, Mexicans, Hungarians, and a myriad of would-be nations, illustrate the growth of the widespread notion of nationhood that reached to other people with distinctive pasts and cultures. Liberals also had to confront, or negotiate with, the reactionary forces that brought down Napoleon in 1815. They were mainly made up of the nobility, and also supported by conservative intellectuals.

4. Taking the farther West

2014 ◽  
pp. 46-61
Author(s):  
Stephen Aron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Fur Traders ◽  
Louisiana Purchase ◽  
Over Time

By the time the last Indian removals from the First West were being carried out in the early nineteenth century, the demands of Americans for lands farther west, within and beyond the borders of the Louisiana Purchase, were creating conflicts with existing occupants and rival claimants. Over time, these claims displaced prior arrangements between fur traders and Indians. They also led to war between the United States and Mexico. ‘Taking the farther West’ describes this United States expansion, the war with Mexico, and the subsequent discovery of gold in California, which precipitated an unprecedented number of people heading to the western end of the continent. The Gold Rush had devastating consequences for the native Californian Indians.

“A Church-going People are a Dress-loving People”: Clothes, Communication, and Religious Culture in Early America

1989 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Eric Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
North Carolina ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Religious Culture ◽  
Early America ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century

When the early nineteenth-century pastor William Henry Foote reflected upon the eighteenth-century Christians who were his forebears in North Carolina and Virginia, he paused at one point to make an observation about the clothes they wore. “A church-going people are a dress-loving people”, he said; “The sanctity and decorum of the house of God are inseparably associated with a decent exterior; and the spiritual, heavenly exercises of the inner man are incompatible with a defiled and tattered, or slovenly mein. All regular Christian assemblies cultivate a taste for dress, and none more so than the hardy pioneer settlers of Upper Carolina, and the valley and mountains of Virginia” As they readied themselves for worship, Foote elaborated, the faithful “put on their best and carefully preserved dress” in preparation for “their approach to the King of Kings”.

scholarly journals A “Defect of Justice”: Congregationalism, the Calvinist Problem, and the Unitarian Solution in Sylvester Judd's Margaret

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Woods
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New England ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Religious Organization ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Village Society ◽  
Over Time

This article contributes to a small body of criticism concerning Sylvester Judd’s 1845 novel Margaret. Largely described as a “Transcendentalist” novel that critiques the Calvinist theology prevalent in late-eighteenth-early-nineteenth century New England village society, I argue for an interpretation of the novel that is concerned the interaction between Calvinism and the Congregationalist model of social and religious organization over time. Rather than just exposing the negative social ramifications Calvinist doctrines like total depravity can have on New England society, I assert that the novel exposes the limitations in Puritan Congregationalist ideals espoused by early figures such as John Winthrop through the example of Livingston. The new Unitarian-congregationalist model Livingston adopts in discarding Calvinism suggests Judd’s resolute faith in Winthrop’s original Congregationalist mission. Judd does not imagine a radical Utopia, but instead offers a more pragmatic reform that is fundamentally Unitarian in its emphasis on humanity's essential goodness and limitless capacity for moral improvement.

Healthcare for the Poor

2021 ◽  
pp. 99-127
Author(s):  
Gabriel J. Loiacono
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Rhode Island ◽  
Hard Work ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early American ◽  
Native Woman ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Newspaper Articles

Early American poor relief included extensive healthcare. Doctors’ visits, nurses’ care, and medicine could all be covered by poor relief. One nurse, called “One-Eyed” Sarah, healed poor residents of Providence, Rhode Island, in the very early nineteenth century. One of thousands of women, nationwide, who did the hard work of physically tending to their needy neighbors, Sarah’s work was highlighted in newspaper articles in 1811. Sarah was “Indian,” and her impoverished patients requested her by name. While her actual identity remains mysterious, this chapter explores what we can learn about a Native woman who nursed the poor back to health, while being paid by poor relief funds. Sarah’s life shows evidence of being controlled by overseers of the poor, as Cuff Roberts’s was. It also shows how she could use her experience to find income from overseers of the poor like William Larned.

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