Madison's Militia: The Hidden History of the Second Amendment

by Carl T. Bogus Narrated by Alan Peterson

Overview

In Madison's Militia, Carl T. Bogus illuminates why James Madison and the First Congress included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. Linking together dramatic accounts of slave uprisings and electric debates over whether the Constitution should be ratified, Bogus
shows that-contrary to conventionalwisdom-the fitting symbol of the Second Amendment is not the musket in the hands of the minuteman on Lexington Green but the musket wielded by a slave patrol member in the South.
Bogus begins with a dramatic rendering of the showdown in Virginia between James Madison and his Federalist allies, who were arguing for ratification of the new Constitution, and Patrick Henry and the Antifederalists, who opposed it.
Henry accused Madison of supporting a constitution that empowered Congress to disarm the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. The narrative then proceeds to the First Congress, where Madison had to make good on a congressional campaign promise to
write a Bill of Rights-and seizing that opportunity to solve the problem Henry had raised.
Three other collections of stories-on slave insurrections, Revolutionary War battles, and the English Declaration of Rights-are skillfully woven into the narrative and show how arming ragtag militias was never the primary goal of the amendment. And as the puzzle
pieces come together, even initially skeptical readers will be surprised by the completed picture: one that forcefully demonstrates that the Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect slaveholders from the people they owned.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

01/09/2023

Bogus (Buckley), a law professor at Roger Williams University, investigates why James Madison wrote the first draft of the Second Amendment in this provocative and persuasive history. Contending that the primary reason for the amendment was to assure Southern whites they would be able to maintain armed local militias to help prevent slave rebellions, Bogus traces the history of militias in America and claims that the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina and other insurrections left white Southerners “petrified.” Bogus also cites the poor performance of militias during the Revolutionary War as proof that Madison and America’s other founders “knew that militiamen would be unable to go toe to toe with professional soldiers.” On the other hand, Bogus argues, as a Virginian and owner of some 100 slaves, Madison understood the importance of protecting slaveholders and controlling the enslaved population if the Southern economy was to survive. After the War of 1812, Bogus notes, then-president Madison recommended that Congress “maintain ‘an adequate regular force’ in peacetime.” Careful analysis of the ratification process and Madison’s political career buttress Bogus’s thesis, even if his case is largely circumstantial. Still, this is a vital reconsideration of a contentious constitutional amendment. (Mar.)

From the Publisher

"A vital reconsideration of a contentious constitutional amendment." — Publishers Weekly

"Readers interested in the Second Amendment's origins or in assessing arguments about its meaning will likely and deeply appreciate this comprehensive history." — Library Journal

"At a time when the Supreme Court is increasingly looking at the original meaning in interpreting the Constitution, Professor Carl Bogus has written a riveting account of how the Second Amendment actually came to be added to the Constitution. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Professor Bogus shows that the Second Amendment was meant to protect the slave system and keep Congress from disarming slave patrols. This is an essential history for all lawyers, judges, students, and individuals who are researching the original understanding of the Second Amendment and gun rights." — Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law

"A surprisingly fast-paced account of the events leading up to the Second Amendment. Bogus persuasively suggests that, while Madison and other Founders paid lip-service to the dedication of militias and the threat of standing armies, their primary concern was to suppress insurrections by the people they enslaved. Madison's Militia undermines any claim by the Roberts Court/the Supreme Court to locate the individual right to bear arms in an originalist reading of the Constitution." — Jeannine DeLombard, author of In the Shadow of the Gallows: Race, Crime, and American Civic Identity

"Bogus offers a fresh and fearless investigation into why Madison and his contemporaries added the right to keep and bear arms to the Constitution. Uncluttered by myth or hagiography, this book will likely become the definitive account of the darker side of the Second Amendment's drafting and ratification." — Darrell A.H. Miller, Duke Law School

"Carl Bogus makes an important contribution to efforts to discern the meaning of the 27 words that make up the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Bogus' work provides a rich context to understand what those who drafted and debated the amendment faced, as well as what they hoped to accomplish. Bogus invites readers to reconsider the racially neutral right to bear arms that the amendment protects in light of the immediate racialized threat of uprisings and rebellions by enslaved people against their enslavers. His book offers a radically different way to read and understand the amendment which aligns with, rather than revises, the history surrounding its ratification." — Lisa A. Crooms-Robinson, Professor, Howard University School of Law

"Slavery was the main event—not a sideshow—as the U.S. was founded. In this insightful, crisply written book Carl Bogus tells us that what impelled the now infamous Second Amendment was precisely the rampant fear of slave insurrections, necessitating the formation of a well-armed militia." — Gerald Horne, author, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America

"Madison's Militia offers an illuminating overview of the tangled history of the Second Amendment and its 'right to bear arms.' Whatever the limitations of citizen militias in actually fighting wars, they were indispensable in Virginia and other states worried about suppressing any slave rebellions and about the possibility that the new national government would prove insufficiently protective of slavery. American historians are increasingly studying the intersections of slavery and a desire to maintain white supremacy, and Bogus provides a valuable, extremely well-written, demonstration of those intersections." — Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School and author of Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance

Library Journal

02/01/2023

What was the historical context in which the Second Amendment was drafted by James Madison, adopted by the First Congress, and ratified by the states? Bogus (emeritus, Roger Williams Univ. Sch. of Law; The Second Amendment in Law and History) pursues that question with the findings of his decades of research. His 10 chapters conversationally draw heavily on debates at Virginia's 1788 ratifying convention in Richmond. Their arguments were drawn from the right to bear arms provisions in the Declaration of Rights and state constitutions and from the First Congress's treatment of the text. England's 1689 Declaration of Rights contained the original provision, and many today believe the right to bear arms was always about protecting liberty. This book, however, demonstrates conclusively that the amendment's roots lay in enslavers wanting to have the right to have weapons to use against freedom seekers. VERDICT Readers interested in the Second Amendment's origins or in assessing arguments about its meaning will likely and deeply appreciate this comprehensive history.—Thomas J. Davis

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178336236
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/11/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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