A reader of Diana Ravitch’s blog, GregB, offered this commentary on “the perversion of the Second Amendment”:
Today’s event prompted me to look through some old notes I made after reading Henry Adams’ “History of the United States During the Madison Administration” a few years ago:
Adam’s account is dominated by a history of the War of 1812 and provides a lesson of why the 2nd amendment was included in the Constitution.
It was an era of American sectional division, which Adams summed up poetically: “At the beginning of the year 1814, the attitude of New England pleased no one, and perhaps annoyed most the New England people themselves, who were conscious of showing neither dignity, power, courage, nor intelligence.” But a long-forgotten legacy of the war was that it was the first of many eras in which the Constitution was tested and “violated more frequently by its friends than by its enemies.” We find ourselves in just such quandary today when it comes to the willful misinterpretations of the 2nd amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Today’s 2nd amendment fetishists prefer a selective reading, valuing willful fiction over actual history. If they care about the difference, they should give Adams a try. In its early history, the United States was a fragile country teetering on the precipice of failure as a nation. It had a weak standing army, no navy to speak of, and mostly relied on the formation of citizen militias in the event of war against foreign nation or Native Americans. For this to work citizens had to have the right to keep weapons; the government had no stockpiles on which to rely. The 2nd amendment was also never intended to provide citizens with the means to overthrow some mythical tyrannical American government; it was designed to give citizens the tools needed that were “necessary to the security of the State.” It was designed to protect government, not undermine it.
The War of 1812 was the first—and only—time the idea of “A well-regulated Militia” was ever put to the test. And it was mostly a failure. As Adams chronicles, Americans won the war largely in spite of themselves. Thanks to some strategic victories, British support lines that were unsustainably long and skillful diplomacy by John Quincy Adams, the United States was able to prevail. But it also led to the formation of a stronger standing Army, which saw its first major action a few decades later in the Mexican War. The idea of “well-regulated Militia[s]” became obsolete, as did, with time, a rational reading and understanding of the 2nd amendment.
As I watch the perversion of the 2nd amendment used as a basis to justify daily destruction and carnage in the United States, I often think of this account of the War of 1812. Henry Adams reminds us of why history is important to contemporary life. Agendas built on historical ignorance can be deadly.