The Founders' Second Amendment by Stephen P Halbrook

Author:Stephen P Halbrook
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781566637923
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

MARYLAND

Luther Martin’s “Letter on the Constitution,” which was delivered to the Maryland legislature in early 1788, became a major antifederalist tract. Martin had served in the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. Among his many objections was that the proposed government was given power “to increase and keep up a standing army as numerous as it would wish, and, by placing the militia under its power, enable it to leave the militia totally unorganised, undisciplined, and even to disarm them.”91 This was contrary to the principle that the armed citizenry should be able to check oppression: “By the principles of the American revolution, arbitrary power may, and ought to, be resisted even by arms, if necessary.”92

Records on the Maryland constitutional convention are sparse, partly because the Constitution’s supporters knew they had a majority and refused to debate. Opponents were allowed to speak, but members of the majority simply remained mum. The majority then voted to ratify the Constitution on April 28, 1788, without proposing any amendments.93

After doing so, a committee was appointed to consider possible amendments. Three of the committee members had been members of the committee that had drafted the Maryland Declaration of Rights of 1776,94 but they were apparently now in the minority. While the 1788 committee would not recommend a bill of rights, it drafted several amendments concerning the structure of government, the first of which was “that Congress shall exercise no power but what it expressly delegated by this Constitution.”95

The committee also proposed that the militia shall not be subject to martial law in peacetime, “for all other provisions in favour of the rights of men would be vain and nugatory, if the power of subjecting all men, able to bear arms, to martial law at any moment should remain vested in Congress.”96 However, the committee rejected proposals against standing armies and a national religion.97 Despite the above tentative proposals, the committee ultimately determined not to report any proposed amendments at all.98

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