Resolutions of the Hartford Convention

[Eugene Volokh]

    There's no doubt that the states and the federal government had powers
to arm the militia.  But There's also no doubt that the militia -- which is
to say the armed citizenry -- was meant to be, among the other things, a
defense for the state against foreign invasions (the Resolutions' concern).

    But this doesn't suggest that the right of the people -- or, as some
state Constitutions said, the citizens, or, as several state Constitutions
(ncluding the Connecticut and Maine ones)enacted within a few years of the
Hartford Convention said, the right of "every citizen . . . to bear arms in
defense of himself and the state" -- instead was a "state right."  The
people, the citizens, and every citizen had a right to bear arms.  But
beyond that legislatures could order people to use their arms (as in the
Militia Act of 1792) or government-supplied arms to defend the state, a
question of citizens' duties, not citizens' right to bear arms.

    Eugene

Elizabeth Dale writes:

Apropos this question, how do the Resolutions of the Hartford Convention,
which appear to distinguish between some sovereign powers (eg, those
relating to taxation to pay for self defense) that the states must petition
Congress to give back to them, and those (creating and arming a militia)
which the Convention seems to feel remain vested in the states and may be
exercised by state legislatures without first petitioning Congress, fit into
this discussion? I would have thought that the Resolutions at least
indicated that New England federalists treated the right to bear arms as a
state right (in part because they suggest that the states will have to
provide the arms). And I would have been inclined to argue that indicated
that at least some people in the early republic took this view, which would
seem to argue against a single interpretation.  But perhaps I am missing
something. (Or perhaps this is a point someone has already addressed, if so,
I apologize, I have been grading papers for the past week and not paying
complete attention to this debate as a result).

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