Armed Citizens
Although much has changed in the United States since the eighteenth century, our framework for gun laws still largely relies on the Second Amendment and the patterns that emerged in the colonial era. America has long been a heavily armed, and racially divided, society, yet few citizens understand either why militias appealed to the founding fathers or the role that militias played in North American rebellions, in which they often functioned as repressive—and racist—domestic forces.
In Armed Citizens, Noah Shusterman explains for a general reader what eighteenth-century militias were and why the authors of the Constitution believed them to be necessary to the security of a free state. Suggesting that the question was never whether there was a right to bear arms, but rather, who had the right to bear arms, Shusterman begins with the lessons that the founding generation took from the history of Ancient Rome and Machiavelli’s reinterpretation of those myths during the Renaissance. He then turns to the rise of France’s professional army during seventeenth-century Europe and the fear that it inspired in England. Shusterman shows how this fear led British writers to begin praising citizens’ militias, at the same time that colonial America had come to rely on those militias as a means of defense and as a system to police enslaved peoples. Thus the start of the Revolution allowed Americans to portray their struggle as a war of citizens against professional soldiers, leading the authors of the Constitution to place their trust in citizen soldiers and a "well-regulated militia," an idea that persists to this day.
- Alan Forrest, Emeritus Professor of History, University of York, UK, author of The Death of the French Atlantic: Trade, War, and Slavery in the Age of RevolutionClear and convincing, Armed Citizens argues that the United States’ long-held commitment to the idea of a citizen militia was not just a practical necessity given the economics of the moment and the proximity of the frontier, but a matter of republican belief: part of a tradition of republican thought that had elevated militias to a place of honor and glory well above what their lackluster military achievements would suggest. Shusterman unravels the origins of that thinking and its integration into what he calls ‘the nation’s guiding assumptions.’ Written for a general audience, the book will appeal to anyone looking for the history that led up to the current debate on gun control.
- David Waldstreicher, the Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to RatificationWhat does it mean to say one believes in the Second Amendment? Noah Shusterman's deep historical dive is full of familiar scenes and surprising meanings: which is to say, it has the makings of a classic. No one has ever explained the big picture of where militias come from with such clarity and wisdom. This is a work that addresses numerous debates in an exquisitely informed and careful way, from gun rights to slavery to the relation of the Constitution to modern times. It will inspire salutes for many years to come
- Rutgers Criminal Law and Criminal Justice BooksShusterman’s book is an important, and unfortunately timely, addition to thescholarship surrounding the original meaning of the Second Amendment. It is an excellentanalysis of the historical, intellectual, and political forces that made the militia so important at theFounding and resulted in the inclusion of the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights.
- The Eighteenth-Century IntelligencerEvery president and member of Congress and the Supreme Court should read this slim volume. In fact, it ought to be required reading for all Americans concerned about gun rights, gun ownership, gun safety, and gun control in the twenty-first century.
- Eighteenth-Century StudiesA superb overview of... critical issues in contemporary America. Intellectual history surveys such as these can be a bit dry, but this is not: it is sparklingly written and engaging. It is a very good book for graduate and upper-level undergraduate seminars, as well as for the general public. Shusterman contributes to the growing literature on the different nuances of the ideology of white supremacy and the contours of citizenship in the early United States. Armed Citizens illustrates how the long ideological path that brought us to the Second Amendment intersected with the realities of race in colonial America. It is impossible to divine the 'original intent' of the Second Amendment without understanding its roots in racial exclusion. Just as it did before 1791, white supremacy remains at the heart of America’s obsession with guns.
Noah Shusterman, Associate Professor of History at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, is author of The French Revolution: Faith, Desire, and Politics.
Introduction: The Long Road to the Second Amendment
1. Julius Caesar Crosses the Rubicon
2. Niccolò Machiavelli Retires to His Estate
3. The Fall of La Rochelle
4. England’s Parliament Debates the Militia Act
5. Bacon’s Rebels Burn Jamestown to the Ground
6. Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun Publishes A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias
7. The Stono Rebels Head for Florida
8. The Minutemen Turn Back the Redcoats at Concord Bridge
9. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay Publish The Federalist
10. Congress Amends the Constitution
Epilogue: The Long Road from the Second Amendment
Notes
Index
