That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right. Revised and Updated Edition.

by Stephen P. Halbrook

Overview

That Every Man Be Armed, the first scholarly book on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, has played a significant role in constitutional debate and litigation since it was first published in 1984. Halbrook traces the right to bear arms from ancient Greece and Rome to the English republicans, then to the American Revolution and Constitution, through the Reconstruction period extending the right to African Americans, and onward to today's controversies. With reviews of recent literature and court decisions, this new edition ensures that Halbrook's study remains the most comprehensive general work on the right to keep and bear arms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826352989
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/15/2013
Edition description:	Revised and Updated Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Stephen P. Halbrook's recent books include The Founders' Second Amendment and The Swiss and the Nazis. He is an attorney in Fairfax, Virginia, whose works are cited by the Supreme Court.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Revised and Updated Edition ix

Preface to the Original Edition xv

Introduction: Firearms Prohibition and Constitutional Rights xix

Chapter 1 The Elementary Books of Public Right 1

The Citizen as Arms Bearer in Greek Polity: Plato and Aristotle 3

From Republic to Empire in Rome: Cicero Versus Caesar 10

Machiavellian Interlude: Freedom and the Popular Militia 17

Absolutism Versus Republicanism in the Seventeenth Century 22

Arms, Militia, and Penal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Liberal Thought 36

Chapter 2 The Common Law of England 35

The Tradition of the Armed Freeman 36

Gun Control Laws of the Absolute Monarchs 39

That Subjects May Have Arms for Their Defense: The Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights 43

The Common-Law Liberty to Have Arms: From Coke to Blackstone 49

Chapter 3 The American Revolution and the Second Amendment 57

Poore, Endebted, Discontented, and Armed: Bacon's Rebellion of 1676 58

The American Revolution: Armed Citizens Against a Standing Army 60

The Controversy over Ratification of the Constitution 70

The Federalist Promise: To Trust the People with Arms 71

To Keep and Bear Their Private Arms: The Adoption of the Bill of Rights 82

Chapter 4 Antebellum Interpretations 96

Judicial Commentaries: The Armed Citizen as the Palladium of Liberty 97

Carrying Weapons Concealed: The Only Right Questioned in Early State Cases 101

The Disarmed Slave and the Dred Scott Dilemma 105

That "the People" Means All Humans: Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment 108

Chapter 5 Freedmen, Firearms, and the Fourteenth Amendment 117

That No State Shall Disarm a Freedman: The Proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment 118

The Public Understanding and State Ratifications of the Fourteenth Amendment 127

The Impact of the Fourteenth Amendment upon State Constitutions 137

That No Militia Shall Disarm a Freedman: The Abolition of the Southern Militia Organizations, 1866-1869 l50

Against Deprivation Under Color of State Law of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms: The Civil Rights Acts of 1871 and 1875 159

Chapter 6 The Supreme Court Speaks 173

Post-Reconstruction Decisions 174

The Right to Keep and Bear Militia Arms: United States v. Miller (1939) 184

The Logic of Incorporation and the Fundamental Character of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 191

Chapter 7 State and Federal Judicial Decisions 202

The Pistol as a Protected Arm 202

State Court Decisions Since World War II 208

To Disarm Felons or to Disarm Citizens? Federal Court Decisions from 1940 212

Afterword: Public Policy and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms 219

Update to New Edition 225

Notes 233

Index 301

Editorial Reviews

"The definitive book on the historical and legal development of the Second Amendment and our right to bear arms." —Senator Orrin G. Hatch

From the Publisher