Then why have a Bill of Rights?
You wouldn’t be the first person to ask that. Men like Alexander Hamilton asked it. He and many others thought having a Bill of rights was dangerous.
They were afraid that the existence of a Bill of Rights as a part of our Constitution implied that the government not only had the right to change them, but that any rights not listed there were fair game for the government to deny. And, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what has happened. The government seems to have set itself up to be an interpreter of our rights; it acts as if it is also the source of our rights, and whatever rights weren’t mentioned in the Bill of Rights, the government has seen fit to declare exist only at its discretion.
Again, I ask, have you ever read the Bill of Rights? Specifically, have you ever read the 9th and 10th Amendments?
It’s important to understand what they say and know why they are written the way they are because they tie in with how the Founding Fathers viewed our rights and how they expected us to view them.
They were put there to quell the fears of men like Hamilton who were afraid that any rights not mentioned in the Bill of Rights would be usurped by the government.
The 9th says: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This means that any rights not mentioned in the Bill of Rights are not to be denied to the people.
The 10th says: “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.”So any powers not specifically given to the Federal government are not powers it can usurp.”
So it’s enough to show the Founding Fathers thought we had a right for it to fall under the protection of the 9th or 10th Amendment. This means that the Founders didn’t even have to specify we have the right to free speech, religion, jury trials, or anything else. To understand what they felt our rights were, all you had to do was show what they said our rights are. Any rights in the first eight Amendments are just redundant with what the Founding Fathers considered Natural Rights.
So why then do we have a Bill of Rights?
Because even though Hamilton and others feared having one, most of the Founding Fathers were sure that without one the government would eventually take all of our rights.
There are are there actually rights not mentioned in the Constitution that we’ve been denied… The Founding Fathers felt we had a right to unrestricted travel. So, now we have driver’s licenses, automobile registrations, and passports. They also felt we had property rights, so Civil Forfeiture or Civil Seizure laws, now exercised by the Feds and the states, are actually illegal under both the 9th and 10th Amendment.
And, if the Congress or even the Supreme Court decides the 2nd Amendment only refers to formal military organizations, we still have the right to keep and bear arms, because the Founding Fathers considered it a natural right. And if you don’t believe it, read what the Founding Fathers said in their papers, their letters, and their debates in both Congress and the state legislatures.
Weapons have always been important. In Greece, Rome, and even under Anglo- Saxon law, when slaves were freed, part of the ceremony included placing a weapon in the man’s hand. It was symbolic of the man’s new rank.
What The Founders Said
“To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.”
-John Adams, In Defense of the Constitution
“…No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
-Thomas Jefferson, writing on the proposed Virginia Constitution 1776
“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
-Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria—a Milanese criminologist whom he admired who was also his contemporary— in On Crimes and Punishment
Perhaps the reason that our current “educational” institutions don’t teach our youth their true history and rights is that you cannot defend rights of which you are ignorant.