9. The Bill of Rights

“Resistance to sudden violence for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I never surrendered to the public by the compact of society and which, perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.… [T]he maxims of the law and the precepts of Christianity are precisely coincident in relation to this subject.”xxxvii

– John Adams, U.S. President, Signer of The Declaration, One of The Two Signers of The Bill of Rights

“[T]o 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…”

– Richard Henry Lee, Declaration Signer

Jury nullification is the practice of a jury determining justice in the case before them, not merely whether the law was violated.

“Self-defense, or self-preservation, is one of the first laws of nature, which no man ever resigned upon entering society.”

– Judge Zephaniah Swift

“The municipal law of our country has likewise left with individuals the exercise of the natural right of self-defense. The right of self-defense is founded in the law of nature and is not – and cannot be – superseded by the law of society.”

– James Kent

“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers and will enable the people to triumph over them. There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt, and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national Bill of Rights.”

– Joseph Story, original Supreme Court Justice

“Forty years ago when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised to disarm the people; – that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them – but that they should not do it openly, but to weaken them and let them sink gradually.”

– George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights

“The Constitution should never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”

– Samuel Adams, Declaration signer

“The advantage of being armed is an advantage which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. In the several kingdoms of Europe, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

– James Madison, father of the Constitution

“No citizen shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands.”

– Thomas Jefferson

“Resistance to sudden violence for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and my life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I never surrendered to the public by the compact of society and which, perhaps, I could not surrender if I would. The maxims of the law and the precepts of Christianity are precisely coincident in relation to this subject.”

– John Adams

“The Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving that existence. He invested man with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety.”

– Alexander Hamilton

“The great natural law of self-preservation cannot be repealed or superseded or suspended by any human institution. The right of the citizens to bear arms in the defense of themselves shall not be questioned.

“Every man’s house is deemed by the law to be his castle; and the law invests him with the power and places on him the duty of the commanding officer of his house. Every man’s house is his castle, and if any one be robbed in it, it shall be esteemed his own default and negligence.”

– James Wilson

“Government is instituted to protect property. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own. It is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties or where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.”

– James Madison

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