freedmen's bureau slavery guns
By Waud, Alfred R. (Alfred Rudolph), 1828-1891, artist. - http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c05555Harper's weekly, 1868 July 25, p. 473., Public Domain, Link

Just a few weeks after the Confederate States surrendered at Appomattox, Frederick Douglass declared:

Now, while the black man can be denied a vote, while the Legislatures of the South can take from him the right to keep and bear arms, as they can—they would not allow a negro to walk with a cane where I came from, they would not allow five of them to assemble together—the work of the Abolitionists is not finished. Notwithstanding the provision in the Constitution of the United States that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, the black man has never had the right either to keep or bear arms; and the Legislatures of the States will still have the power to forbid it, under this [Thirteenth] Amendment. They can carry on a system of unfriendly legislation, and will they not do it? Have they not got the prejudice there to do it with? (Frederick Douglass, In What New Skin Will the Old Snake Come Forth? Address delivered in New York City, May 10, 1865, pp. 83-84 [In Frederick Douglass Papers, series 1, vol. 4).

The next year, Congress recognized that disarming the freedmen was indeed part of the efforts of southern state governments and terrorist organizations to keep the freedmen in de facto servitude. So in 1866, the Second Freedmen’s Bureau bill ordered the Union army in the South to protect the freedmen’s “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and estate including the constitutional right to bear arms.” The same year, the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the Fourteenth Amendment was sent to the States for ratification. All were enacted with supporters’ expressly stated purpose of protecting the Second Amendment self-defense rights of the freedmen. McDonald v. Chicago (2010) (Thomas, J., concurring) (detailing legal history, and citing Spooner).

Whether Spooner’s 1845 approach to constitutional interpretation is the best one can be debated. It can be said that parts of his constitutional vision were so compelling–and so much in accord with natural justice–that they became the law of the land. As the Fourteenth Amendment recognizes, slavery and the constitutional right to arms are opposites.

– David Kopel in Does the Second Amendment prohibit slavery?

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73 COMMENTS

  1. Only problem with this article is it places a southern boundary around discrimination. Let it be known democrat party race based atrocities occurred in the North, South , East and West.

  2. “…Now, while the black man can be denied a vote, while the Legislatures of the South can take from him the right to keep and bear arms,…”

    Why haven’t I seen this until now?

    That is a 24-caret, solid fucking *gold* quotation. Have any Leftist scum tried to explain that away with extensive tap-dancing?

    Has that phrase ever been used in a recent 2A case?

      • “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
        DJT

        Yes, he’s doing an amazing job, what would his next project is?

      • Yes, I highly recommend his books and speeches. He was brilliant. His first hand description of the slavery should be required reading for all.

        He said that our rights rest on the three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

      • Booker T Washington is another great black thinker to read on freedom and responsibility. If black children and their white allies had been taught Frederick Douglas and Booker T Washington in public school then we would probably not have Antifastan in the middle of Seattle and violent riots in the name of free stuff all over the country.

        • totes jelly, gramps. i cannot wait, but with two barely minor/ majors, heads still full of mush, i try to be patient.
          if one of them dropped a kid in my old ladies arms she might become lucid.

          we are here approx 40, 24, 24 and change for the far east, demographically speaking. it is the most culturally diverse neighborhood in the city. the ratios of should be carrying to shouldn’t have tipped towards the good this last decade.

        • My dad and I had the great pleasure of teaching my grandsons how to shoot several months ago. Started them off with .22 pistols. They were shooting my .40 and dad’s .44 after awhile, and had a ball. My granddaughter loves fishing more than just about anything. I’ll have to teach her how to shoot next time they visit. Validation of my parenting skills; my daughter has become a wonderful mother with a good husband. Yeah, being a grandpa rocks.

  4. Just a reminder that the left just tore down a statue of Grant…

    Yes, Ulysses Grant…

    Could it be that they are that stupid?

    OR, might I ask…

    Does all this have nothing to do with race, and everything to do with destroying ALL American culture?

    The lefts goal is “death to America.”

    • “The lefts goal is “death to America.”

      The Left are training their gullible followers to hate America. Claiming its very founding was illegitimate.

      And since they believe it was illegitimate, they have a moral duty to replace it…

      • If the founding of America was not legit then it cannot be replaced by anything that is legit. They would have to leave the US and return to which ever is the country of their ancestry.

        Simply restarting America makes them the knew colonial power. The oppressors, as it where.

      • The most significant difference (I think, anyway) between Left and Right in America is trajectory. Throughout its history the various versions of leftist politics have always pointed toward totalitarianism and oppression. In contrast classical liberalism—and the way this country moved on the issue of slavery is a signal example— leading to modern-day conservatism’s emphasis on individual liberty and freedom has always stood strongly against the idea that government-dominated people can somehow be more free than a people who are not dominated by government. Protecting gun-rights for freedmen was an important step on our long trajectory toward liberty and freedom.

      • Yeah and everyone knows that of all the funding fathers Grant had more slaves than any of them. He made them keep any mention of slavery out of the Magna Carta. So clearly his white supremacist statue needed to come down. Not only slavery but he massacred all those ingenuous peoples at Little Big Horn. I learned it all in pubic screwl

  5. They are communist in practice. They are “useful idiots” in fact, under demonic manipulation.

  6. Now, if we could only get the States, the US Congress, and the Supreme Court to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution, including the 2nd and 14th Amendments.

  7. I find it to be real interesting why blacks vote Democrat when they want too deny History and pull down statues of Confederate men; then there will be no guidelines on what not too do! Empower the people that stood for slavery and loved slavery laws {Democrat Party} Hoohyah! Vote Democrat and watch our house finish burning!

    • We have LBJ and his “Great Society” programs to thank for that. His infamous quote: I’m gonna have those N*****s voting Democrat for the next 250 years” is the same mindset of “You ain’t Black” quote of Biden. In spite of the fact that the majority of the Great Society programs are the very reason why this country is up in arms. 60 years of Failed Policies that Victimized!

  8. Why haven’t we seen this before?
    We have been. It’s more that there is no will to acknowledge or deal with it.

    Is it really about race?
    Part of it is. But racial intolerance is being used against us (all of us) for a bigger goal. The weak minded are easily manipulated.

    Is it a ‘death to America’ campaign?
    Absolutely. But it isn’t just America. This is global with a much larger goal. The USA must fall for anything else to effectively work though.

  9. If you like Mister Douglas’ statements, in 1865, everyone should become familiar with this excerpt, from the 1857 Supreme Court Landmark Case, Dred Scott vs Sandford:

    It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State.

    Source: https://www.owleyes.org/text/dred-scott-v-sandford/read/opinion-of-the-court#root-130

    Basically, the court decided that Mr. Scott was property, not a citizen, and that if he was a citizen, that he would have the same rights as anyone else, including the ability to keep and bear arms.

    • That’s one of my favorites as a dagger in the heart to Dem lies that the 2A was never historically considered an individual right until Heller made it one with no basis.

    • This is the entire argument for the open carrying of Arms. Something that every normal person did in 1857. Except for the blacks.

      The open carry of arms, long or short, has always been normal. It kept folks safe.

      • No where in the 2nd Amendment does it say “open or openly.” It says “bear” which is to carry, openly or concealed!

        • While many people did have pocket guns of the time. It was custom at the time of the founding that you would bear your Arm openly, as a sign of being a friendly person. And not a threat to a stranger.

          Being seen carrying a gun was not considered a threatening act. You see the difference after 200 plus years have past??? We have changed for the worst. Not every state let’s you open carry. In those states the only way to legally carry is to ask for permission.

          If Dred Scott had been free he would not have had access to a smaller firearm because of cost considerations. He would have had access to the same guns just like most people in his part of the country. A full size handgun with at least a 6 inch barrel.

          The best way to fight the gun grabbers is to used the Scott v Sanford case. When you start quoting Supreme Court Justice and his statements on carrying a gun their heads will explode.
          (Smile)

        • I see the wording as allowing government to prohibit concealed, or open, but not both. Completely fair to allow open carry for eveyone but require a license for concealed, as most states were for most of my life, but some masterminds see that if you can prohibit one, or the other, then clearly you can prohibit both. Takes a genius.

  10. The cure was worse than the illness. In order to negate the 9th and 10th amendmets, the 14th was required. The result was the usurpation of power from the States, and to the central committee. The states were rendered provinces of the federal government; sovereingty of the states was replaced by the superiority of the national government. It is no random coincidence that around the same time, the national grammar changed from “The United States are…”, to “The United States is…”

    “We the People…” became bereft of any real meaning.

    • Would you be kind enough to share what portions of the 14th amendment you disagree with?

      • What he is intimating, and there is a fair validity to the argument, that the result of the Civil War and the various amendments that followed had the effect of making the federal government the supreme authority, very much contrary to the original intent of the Tenth Amendment and the preamble to the Constitution. The preamble provides that it is the People (in their sovereign capacity) enact the Constitution to unify the thirteen states,. implying that the sovereign power resides in the People, not the federal government. The tenth amendment provides: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, the Constitution sets the limits of federal power, and all other powers, except those denied to the states by the Constitution, are reserved to the States and the People. This against suggests that the People and the States, as the creators of the Constitution, had sovereign power. This argument was used as a justification for succession, that the consitution was an agreement among the People and the Sovereign state,s and the states had the sovereign right to withdraw. The civil War ended that argument in favor or Union, and the power of the federal government has grown ever since. Which isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing,m it is an observation. Then again, this country would not be what it is today but for the outcome of that war.

        • “In order to negate the 9th and 10th amendmets, the 14th was required.”

          Again, I’m wondering what portions of the 14th amendment he finds objectionable?

          Specifically, how does the 14th amendment navigate the ninth and 10th amendment?

          • “Specifically, how does the 14th amendment navigate the ninth and 10th amendment?”

            It is the medium through which the central committee declares that the national constitution is designed to give the central committed power to enforce every provision of the national constitution onto the states. It is interesting that the central government even thought such rendering of the constitution could not be done through the legislative power of Congress, but required permission of the States (via amendment) to subordinate States to the national government.

            The 14th acknowledges, by its being, that the Confederate Stares were correct in determining that the use of simple legislation to abolish slavery was unconstitutional after all; a constitutional amendment being necessary to give the national government power to eliminate slavery. (Note: the Emancipation Proclamation freed no one, and did not apply to the States that remained in the union, because the President had no authority to end slavery in the US by proclamation).

        • You think not? IIRC, the 14th is the amendment for which the official vote tally making it the law of the land, reads “decided on the field of battle.” Corrections?

    • I’m glad we had a civil war where nearly 700,000 Americans died to end tyranny. The only time it’s been worth it.

      Sadly the south refused to stop. And began in acting more tyranny be making racist gun control laws.

      • Unmitigated bullshit. So, it was only those naughty southern states which attempted to outlaw firearms? Certainly New York, in their northern wonderfulness, would no sooner do such a thing than the supremely egalitarian Chicago, IL, huh? Racism has little to do with the overall attempt, it is pressed mostly by the lust for unlimited power … over EVERYBODY!

  12. kap says: >>> June 21, 2020 at 09:39
    I find it to be real interesting why blacks vote Democrat …

    __White liberals, police as well as ordinary people, are groveling to BLM because they believe they’re complicit in a black genocide — except there is no black genocide unless you take abortion into account.

    Abortion [black genocide] in America: In 2018, blacks accounted for 36% of all abortions, despite being only 13.4% of the population. In 2016, in New York, black women aborted more babies than they carried to term. First dems>[KKK founders] enslaved blacks, then they subjected them to Jim Crow, and now, by turning abortion into a sacrament, they’ve convinced blacks to vote Democrat and then kill themselves.

  13. While the Founding Fathers’ warnings about the importance of defending liberty with an armed populace are as important today as they have ever been, this approach has some flaws.

    For one, the Constitution was not meant to grant positive rights to citizens but rather was intended to recognize the natural rights and restrict the ability of the federal government to limit them. The Founding Fathers did not believe that these rights could not be limited, however. Instead, they saw that legislation that restricted one’s natural rights should be handled by governments closer to the people themselves, including states and localities. This is why the Bill of Rights was not intended to apply to state government.

    Though many state constitutions shared similarities with the Bill of Rights, by 1820 only 9 of 22 states had language explicitly protecting the right to bear arms: Massachusetts (1780), Pennsylvania (1790), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796), Ohio (1801), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Connecticut (1818), Alabama (1819), and Maine (1819). (The number was 18 of 33 by 1886.)

    Of course, that lack of state constitutional protection did not mean that states were necessarily hostile to gun rights – at least, for white citizens. The same could not be said for “Indians,” “Mulattos”; and certainly not slaves.

    Prior to the passing of the 14th Amendment, eight states had gun control legislation that criminalized the possession of firearms by non-white free citizens. Virginia required such individuals to receive government permission. Three additional states had constitutional language that specified that gun rights were reserved exclusively for white men.

    In order to maintain the institution of slavery, the state had to disarm those most likely to empathize with its victims. While the “peculiar institution” was ended as a result of the Civil War, racially motivated gun control laws were not. While the 14th Amendment prevented states from explicitly mentioning race in legislation, state governments still managed to find ways to disarm black citizens. These included laws that banned pistols that were not used by former Confederate officers, severe racial discrepancies in the penalty for unlawfully concealed carrying, as well as gun licensing requirements that were passed for the purpose of disarming the black laborers and were never intended to apply to the white population.

    The racial motivation behind gun control did not end in the 19th Century. The Mulford Act, was a direct response to the Black Panthers’ open-carry patrols of Oakland neighborhoods and banned the carrying of loaded weapons. Note that the NRA actively supported the legislation.

    • “…the Constitution was not meant to grant positive rights to citizens but rather was intended to recognize the natural rights and restrict the ability of the federal government to limit them.”

      This is difficult for some who visit here. The presumption is that the Constitution was designed to be enforced, from day one, upon the states, granting the federal government power of control over the states, just as the laws of parliament in England were designed to control the general population, in service to the Crown.

      • Actually the amendments did apply to the states, except the first, as a plain reading of them will illustrate. It wasn’t until 1833 in Barron v. City Of Baltimore that the Supreme Court decided the Constitution didn’t apply to the states. This was/is a direct contradiction of the wording of the Amendments and parts of the Constitution.

        As to what Sam said, that’s debatable. It can be argued that the Constitution is to be enforced by the federal government on the states. However, it can also be argued that it is to be enforced by the states on the federal government. I say it is both. After all, Article 6 stipulated that all legislative, executive, and judicial officers of the US and the several States are to be bound by oath to support the Constitution. I think it is important to remember that the Constitution starts with, “We the People.” More than anything else it is the responsibility of the people to enforce the Constitution upon both the state and federal governments. How we are to do that is debatable, and one of the greatest questions of our time.

        • You will not find anywhere in the writings of the people organizing the constitution that every provision of the constitution applied to the states, and that the States would be required to conform their constitutions to reflect/replicate the national constitution. If it had been the case that the States surrendered all their power to the national government, we would still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. If, as you say, the constitution applied, in its limits on the federal government, to the States, the 9th and 10th Amendments would be superfluous. The States were not fearful of their own power within their borders. They were fearful of a powerful central government that would seek to wrest all power from the States to manage their internal affairs.

          As to legislation, one must note that the clause you selected states the legislation must conform, be in accordance with, justified, authorized, by the constitution itself. That is, the national committee cannot simply pass laws as they please, and be self-vindicated as permitted by the constitution. The States (now, states) created the branches of government. Only by being superior to the national government could the States create a national government/constitution. The Constitutional Convention that resulted in our current constitution was not initiated by the national government borne of the Articles of Confederation. No, it was initiated by the representatives of the States.

          One simply cannot logically conclude from the history, the writings and the constitution itself that the founders intended to have the States subordinate to the federal government, except as the founders clearly stated…those powers specifically delegated. An inferior cannot delegate to a superior. The central committee cannot, even today, create an amendment to the constitution. That being so, the federal government has no authority to create laws in contravention of the constitution. Effectively, the voters of the nation, in coordination with people who do not vote, surrendered, through their representatives, the power of the states to control the national government. The constitution itself is nothing more than an uncomfortable relic of the past.

        • The Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
          The federal government is supreme only in those matters in which it was specifically delegated authority by said Constitution.
          The State governments are supreme in matters which
          1. were not delegated to the federal government,
          2. were not denied authority by the Constitution,
          3. were delegated to them by their respective constitutions.
          Both the states and the federal government are subjects of the compact that is the Constitution. It is a dual sovereignty system.
          A mistake is made in asserting that the federal government was created by the states. It was created by the people, just as the states were created by the people. It is from the people that all sovereign governments derive their authority. It is the people, each individual, who are truely sovereign.
          The Constitution is only a relic if the people abandon it.

  14. I’ve been a white slave since I was 7 when my parents said nothing in life is free & nobody”s gonna give it to you, it you want if you have to work for it. Thus began my slavery days!
    Guns didn’t protect me & I’ve got a truck load…..

    • Fast forward to the 21st century & now they want everything free. Just hope I get my Reparations.😁

  15. “Righteousness exalteth a nation – sin is a reproach to any people.” This constitutes my politics, the negative and positive of my politics, and the whole of my politics… -Frederick Douglass

    _______________

    Right is of no Sex Truth is of no Color …
    -Frederick Douglass

    _______________

    [Minneapolis and Seattle … ?]
    Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

    Frederick Douglass > Speech on the twenty-fourth anniversary of emancipation in the District of Columbia,Washington, D.C., Apr. 1886

    _______________

    A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

    Frederick Douglass > “How ‘Crazy Negroes’ With Guns Helped Kill Jim Crow” by Thaddeus Russell, reason.com. July 22, 2014.

  16. It’s always been about guns. The Waco raid was about guns. Ruby Ridge was about a gun barrel being too short.
    The Scott vs Sanford slave case was about guns.
    The battle of Lexington Concord was about gun confiscation.
    Unfortunately very few people are teaching just how essential gun’s are to United States history.

    • The Waco raid was certainly NOT about guns. It took two weeks to get the cover story of select fire guns released, we were all supposed to jump on the band wagon of child rape and other sexual naughtiness instead, until someone finally asked what the ATF had to do with child rape, etc. Mainly, it was about a major “law enforcement” agency completely out of control, and under severe attack for the incredible fuckup which is referred to as “Ruby ridge”. The two, together, should have been the end of the agency, yet they still may decide to kill you or me, tomorrow, and keep everything a secret. Between Ruby ridge and Waco, The ATF made so many unbelievable fuckups that it defies belief, and they were replaced after one day in both cases by the FBI, who in turn employed their snipers to end the conflicts along with many innocent lives, they should have been decimated as well.

      • “The Waco raid was certainly NOT about guns. It took two weeks to get the cover story of select fire guns released, we were all supposed to jump on the band wagon of child rape and other sexual naughtiness instead, until someone finally asked what the ATF had to do with child rape, etc.”

        I seem to remember the local Waco law enforcement being puzzled about the raid. During the coordination meeting, the local cops noted that Koresh was no threat, and if asked, he would come in for questioning (the Branch Davidians had created no local cause for alarm). The feds ignored the locals.

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