Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765: March 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Why the "2nd Amendment House" is Important!

Why the "2nd Amendment House" is Important!
By JW Ross

Why it matters where the principles of our "Right to Bear Arms" were first established! Why the origins of the 2nd amendment are important!

Because it matters to the Supreme Court and the lawyers who argue before them. . . in both of the recent cases, original intent and the history behind the "Right to Bear Arms" amendment were a critical part of the debate, and the decision. It matters in the same way the origins of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence matters.

Why does it matter that there is a place where all this happened? It matters because critics of the "Right to Bear Arms" can deny the words on a page or in a book, but it is hard to look at brick and mortar and deny its existence. To anyone who has visited the Alamo, Gettysburg, or the beaches at Normandy, this concept is easily understood. To be able to stand in a place and know that what they did there (to their extreme risk and peril), some 245 years ago, established the groundwork for one of the most important "rights" in the Bill of Rights.

It is one thing to read the 2nd amendment and its assertions, but it is quite another to stand where the very principles were argued and established.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Historic Smith House Saved - To Be Relocated - New Site Sought in Franklin County

By Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

The William Smith House in Mercersburg will be taken apart piece by piece and relocated.

A history-loving physician has worked out a deal to save an 18th-century home in Mercersburg.

Paul Orange said Tuesday that the William Smith House will be taken apart piece by piece over the next several weeks and reassembled on a new site elsewhere in the Franklin County community in southcentral Pennsylvania.

The future of the building has been in question since the structure and land on which it stands were acquired two years ago by a local volunteer fire company. The MMP&W Fire Co., which has its headquarters and garages next door to the Smith House on Main Street, had plans to demolish the building and expand on the property.

It All Started Here . . .

Frontier Mercersburg in 1765 was the "birthplace" of the right we now refer to as "the Second Amendment", or, "the right to bear arms". It was here that individuals for the first time, some would say divinely, embraced the link between "Life and Liberty". . . and struck the first blow for Freedom.

Historically the right to bear arms goes back even before our founding as a nation to the Glorious Revolution of 1689 when William III agreed to the English Bill of Rights. If one can look at revolution like a volcanic eruption in nature, you understand that often from the destruction come the seeds of new human values and beliefs. In this case the independence of the human spirit, the right to know God for oneself, and to trust your conscience was hard won in this revolution of the human soul.

One crucible begets the necessity for another and on the frontier in America the right to defend ones religious beliefs was becoming the right to participate in the decisions of government that impact my "self". Freedom of the soul was becoming freedom of the heart and mind. Smith's Rebellion began as an act they justified under the rubric of defending oneself because government had failed in its obligation to protect Life, Liberty and Property. This was the first assertion of this principle aimed directly at British Military Authority as well as the incompetent government of John Penn - anywhere in the colonies.

In the end, Smith's Rebellion was the first armed resistance against British Military Rule leading up to the American Revolution. It was the first American triumph over the best military force in the world. It was the first time upon defending oneself that Americans had proclaimed we can rule ourselves.

It would be ten years before the battles at Lexington and Concord.

...Let Them Take Arms

The "Right to Bear Arms" . . .or 2nd Amendment is one of the most discussed and contentious of all the amendments of the Bill of Rights. It is, in fact, the only amendment that contains not only the seeds but the actual instruments of the revolution itself. Further, it gives real affirmation to Thomas Jefferson's quote . . .
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

It is for this reason, if no other, that the Government and its functionaries vociferously assail and obfuscate the text of this simple assertion. More, it is for this reason, and in the face of the perennial onslaught that its defense and affirmation is essential to the survival of the republic.

Frontier Mercersburg & The Justice William Smith House

The frontier town of Mercersburg, PA. in the 1760's, although typical of many settlements along the Appalachian Mountains played a pivotal role in the creation of what was to become the "Bill of Rights".

Frontiersmen like James Smith and the Black Boys, many of whom were inhabitants of the Mercersburg environs, were early participants in a series of conflicts with the British government that established principles the eventually lead to the inclusion of the "right to bear arms" in the Bill of Rights.

Much of the focus, centers on the domicile (and likely place of business) of Justice William Smith.

Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765

Pages

Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

Preservation and Proposition

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Why the "2nd Amendment House" is Important!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Historic Smith House Saved - To Be Relocated - New Site Sought in Franklin County