You are alone, except for me...

[sirs]

So, in other words, you have nothing but the 99% erroneous opinion to stake your claim on.  and BTW, I have read some books on the subject.  I'd recommend you try reading the Constitution some time, especially the Bill of Rights.  Here's a hint, nothing in there had any reference to slavery, or "slave patrols"

[Plane]

It has to do with me knowing the history of this country and your abysmal ignorance of the same.

Slavery was an inseparable part of life in the pre Civil War South. Read some books written back then sometime.

   Is there any indication that the second amendment was discussed in Congress in these terms?

    Or that the revolt in Haiti occurred after the adoption of the second amendment? Years later ?

        So if the second amendment was crucial for slave patrol and popular for slave patrol , why was it also a popular idea where there were few slaves?

       Could we find some reference to how slave patrol was organized?

[Plane]

Looks as if this was a state sanctioned activity.
Thus the Second Amendment is not applicable.

South Carolina and Virginia selected patrols from state militias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_patrol

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Bill of Rights was written in 1789, and ratified in 1791. The French Revolution ended slavery and peonage in France in 1789. The word spread to the French Caribbean and then to the English and Dutch Islands.

In 1733, the slaves of the Danish Island of St Johns actually defeated their masters and took over the island. This is the same St Johns that, together with St Croix and St. Thomas, form the US Virgin Islands.  Most of the slaves came from Ghana. As a result, on other slave territories, slaves from several areas were bought, so that they had no common language and culture and conspiracies could be avoided. In 1734, a French army landed and defeated the slaves. There was a slave rebellion in the State of Veracruz in 1509 in a place called Yanga de los Negros that was never reconquered.

One reason for Greek and Roman architecture was so popular in the Southern US was because both the Greeks and the Romans has plantations on which the labor was done by slaves.  Slave owners were very concerned with preventing rebellions and controlling their slaves. Their motto was "The only way to defeat a slave with a machete is a slave patroller with a gun."

In August of 1791 Dutty Boukmann organized a rebellion at Bois Caiman and a week later 1800 plantations were burned and around 1000 slaveholders were killed.
It had to be a major news event in Virginia during this period.

[Plane]

  That timeline does not make it look like a response to slave rebellion, and if the slave patrol was state sanctioned then the second amendment is not involved.

    In states and cities worldwide, the government has the right to arm its law enforcement appropriate to their task, if there were no second amendment couldn't there still be state sanctioned slave patrols?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think those who wrote the Bill of Rights wanted national implementation. Slaves can escape and run off to other states, after all.
In 1789, the French Revolution made abolition and the end of aristocracy a major issue.
Plantation owners saw that they had two enemies: the British, who would have preferred to have their own aristocracy in charge of the US, and slave revolts, because without slavery, plantations were not viable. The idea of being a "gentleman farmer" involved giving orders rather than getting one's hands dirty. Another problem was posed by the huge booms and busts in the economy of the US that occurred regularly every 7 to 10 years.

After 9-11, there were immediate measures taken. The 2nd Amendment was an immediate measure to benefit slaveholders.

[sirs]

What you "think" and what is is generally a chasm of difference.  What was the reason for the knee jerk reaction to the 1st amendment?  And the 4th, and 5th?

Without some actual support that the 2nd amendment was chiefly some knee jerk reaction to slaves, its going to remain, as per the clear wording of what it really is, the right of the people (NOT the well regulated militia) to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed

[Plane]

I think those who wrote the Bill of Rights wanted national implementation. Slaves can escape and run off to other states, after all.
In 1789, the French Revolution made abolition and the end of aristocracy a major issue.
Plantation owners saw that they had two enemies: the British, who would have preferred to have their own aristocracy in charge of the US, and slave revolts, because without slavery, plantations were not viable. The idea of being a "gentleman farmer" involved giving orders rather than getting one's hands dirty. Another problem was posed by the huge booms and busts in the economy of the US that occurred regularly every 7 to 10 years.

After 9-11, there were immediate measures taken. The 2nd Amendment was an immediate measure to benefit slaveholders.

    No.

    None of the proponents of the bill of rights proposed any of the amendments and argued for them on the basis of better law enforcement.

   The author and the proponents argued in favor of these as guarantees of individual rights.

   Do you spend time second guessing ulterior purpose of the first or fourth amendments?

    Enforcement of slave law did not require the second amendment in any way, and I don't think it came up in the conversation at the time.


      They were thinking more of the time that the British confiscated all the firearms of Boston, which we all resented as repression.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Slavery was not mentioned, because it was a controversial issue. The Congress even passed a law prohibiting the subject from being discussed in Congress.

So they appealed to other motives. But that does not mean that slave patrols were on the minds of those who controlled the country.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, JQ Adams, Van Buren and Jackson. Of our first eight presidents, six were slave-owning Southerners.

[sirs]

Regardless of your opinion as to why slavery isn't mentioned,  the FACT IS THAT IT IS NOT.   What IS THERE stands on its own and can't be any clearer, especially when taken in context with the rest of the Constitution in general,  and Bill of Rights specifically

[Plane]

Slavery was not mentioned, because it was a controversial issue. The Congress even passed a law prohibiting the subject from being discussed in Congress.

So they appealed to other motives. But that does not mean that slave patrols were on the minds of those who controlled the country.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, JQ Adams, Van Buren and Jackson. Of our first eight presidents, six were slave-owning Southerners.

Missing the point!
Slave patrols never needed the second amendment, they were state sanctioned and need the second amendment no more than the sheriff does.

This is not an issue at all.

Was the Second amendment written to make sure that the Government would be armed?

Quite the opposite, it was written to ensure that the citizen would be armed, and this is the reason cited by Justice Taney in his Dred Scott opinion that there was no citizenship rights for Negro persons.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If it was written to ensure that every citizen would be armed, it would have read, "Every citizen must be armed".

Chief Justice Taney was apparently quite popular in Missouri. They named a country for him. Then they named Lake Taneycomo after Taney County.

There was nothing at all in the Constitution barring Blacks from citizenship.

[sirs]

Again missing the point. ... its the FREEDOM to chose, not that they must, and more importantly,  that the Government NOT be allowed to remove that RIGHT,  unless of course they committed some criminal act, ..... or covered up some incompetent government act

[Plane]

If it was written to ensure that every citizen would be armed, it would have read, "Every citizen must be armed".

Chief Justice Taney was apparently quite popular in Missouri. They named a country for him. Then they named Lake Taneycomo after Taney County.

There was nothing at all in the Constitution barring Blacks from citizenship.

  So you think Justice Taney wrong?

   Not too surprising , almost everyone in this modern day agree that Justice Taney was wrong , but he was in agreement with a very large faction at the time.

     Ever heard of the three fifths compromise? Some congressmen wanted to have the representation in congress proportional to the entire population whether slave or free, other congressmen thought that it was unfair to claim to represent people that would never be allowed to vote and wanted representation to reflect only the voting population.

    It was horse trading and compromise that made slaves count as three quarter persons for representation in Congress, that is in the Constitution , as time has passed amendments have mooted this , but we still have it on the page , a good thing in my estimation , we need that humiliation.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Taney was wrong about the citizenship of free Blacks. The Constitution says that all things not forbidden are permitted. No where does it say that Blacks are excluded from citizenship. It DOES mention the exclusion of "Indians not taxed", however. Missourians do not apparently pronounce Taney's name correctly in the name of Taney County: they pronounce it as though it rhymed with "sanely", and the Taney family pronounced it to rhyme with "brawny". 

It is certainly true that many Americans, even Northerners, agreed with the Dred Scott decision. Its main result was that escaped slaves, who could previously resettle in Massachusetts, could no longer feel safe from being recaptured and sent back to a life of slavery. After Dred Scott, they had to make it to Canada. Most of the Balcks in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are descendents of these escaped slaves.

America was seen as a land of opportunity from the beginning. However, opportunities for amassing wealth were not seen as they are today: inventing new gadgets or drugs, coming to preside over a large corporation, marketing innovative products.

The best opportunities before the Civil War were:

(1) discovering gold or silver.
(2) marrying a rich spouse
(3) trading in slaves
(4) loansharking
(5) cardsharping
(6) acquiring free or cheap land from the government, buying slaves and growing tobacco, indigo or cotton.

The latter was probably the most long lasting. Marrying for money was difficult due to the preference of rich people to marry other rich people, just as today.
Claim jumping was a common occurrence in most gold rushes, California being the greatest.
Trading in slaves was risky and dangerous.
Loansharking and cardsharping tended to provoke being tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.

The Plantation option was the choice that led to respectability. Just as there are millions of Americans today that approve of casinos and state lotteries because they are certain that it will result eventually in their hitting the jackpot, slavery was seen as a possible way of becoming a genteel and respected citizen.