RESEARCH PAPER 80

The Hidden History of the Second Amendment

Carl T. Bogus
Professor of Law





This paper can be found at
31 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 309 (1998)




This paper can be downloaded free of charge fromthe
Social Science Research Network: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1465114


THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Carl T. Bogus



ABSTRACT


Professor Bogus argues that there is strong reason to believe that, in significant part, James
Madison drafted the Second Amendment to assure his constituents in Virginia, and the South
generally, that Congress could not use its newly-acquired powers to indirectly undermine the
slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. His argument
is based on a multiplicity of the historical evidence, including debates between James Madison
and George Mason and Patrick Henry at the Constitutional Ratifying Convention in Richmond,
Virginia in June 1788; the record from the First Congress; and the antecedent of the American
right to bear arms provision in the English Declaration of Rights of 1688.










This work, copyright 1998 by Carl Bogus, was originally published in the UC Davis Law
Review, vol. 31, p. 309, copyright 1998 by The Regents of the University of California. All
rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.