Founding Fathers Second Amendment Quotes by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Richard Henry Lee and many others.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
This [a state militia system] appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters
For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?
A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. […] To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
The people have a right to keep and bear arms.
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an Americans.
No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.
What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty … Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
