What My Favorite Founding Father Would Have To Say about Guns & Marriage…

The “Foundingest” Father

ONE MAN dreamed it all up ahead of time…walked into 1787’s Constitutional Convention on Day 1 already picturing in his head the government we have today. The man whose “first answer” became our “final answer” was James Wilson, a 45-year-old Scottish lawyer from Pennsylvania who also co-signed the Declaration of Independence and sat on America’s first Supreme Court.

Wilson foresaw an independent judiciary, a legislature where one house responded to the pulse of the People and the other housed wise men, and, to the dismay of his colleagues: a popularly elected President! He believed that for the President to truly embody the National Will, the People had to choose him…

But no one else agreed with him – no one. Back then, the consensus was that “ordinary” citizens were either too ignorant or too gullible (or both) to be entrusted with selecting their helmsman. So after a few weeks, Wilson (yup, him again) broke the impasse after he dreamed up a system of special representative districts, where popularly elected “Electors” chose the President. This system eventually became our Electoral College.

Today’s Constitutional Issues

Upon discovering the story of James Wilson in Richard Beeman’s Convention narrative, “Plain, Honest Men,” I began imagining what Wilson might have to say about today’s Constitutional issues…

So please pull up a chair, grab an ale to go with your serving of “bangers and mash,” and join me in my imaginary dinner conversation with Founding Father James Wilson:

Me:  Justice Wilson, this is a real dream – thank you! I must say, your Constitution is certainly on quite a good run…Why do you think it’s still so relevant today?

Wilson:  My good man, the pleasure is mine… You know, a Constitution is society’s permanent memory – its collection of immutable Truths. Societies hold themselves and their descendents to these Truths because they understand the tendency for every generation to believe its special – more enlightened perhaps, or more civilized…or just plain cleverer.

And today’s youngsters are undoubtedly no different. You’re sure to hear them say things like, “Those kinds of things will never happen to us” or “These days are different.” And with the very best of intentions, they’ll end up proffering bad policies. But don’t be upset with them, because they simply haven’t thought things all the way through… Rather, be assured: the Constitution I helped author will block them. So just protect it, and it will protect you!   

Gun Rights and the Second Amendment

Me:  Wow…  OK, Justice Wilson:  what about guns and the second amendment? A whole bunch of people are really concerned about that these days.

Wilson:  Well that doesn’t surprise me, because we were certainly concerned about it ourselves… And yet, it was a relatively new issue for us. You know, nobody ever dreamed of disarming one’s own citizens until 1687, when, feeling a bit vulnerable, England’s last Catholic King, James II, enlarged his standing army and began seizing the arms of Presbyterians. Long-story-short:  James’ nephew, William of Orange, gathered an army and chased him away in 1689. And shortly after that, Parliament passed the world’s first Bill of Rights, which guaranteed, among other things: “No royal interference in the freedom of the people to have arms for their own defense, as suitable to their class and as allowed by law.”

You know our Second Amendment really says the same thing…but we used the phrase, “security of a free State” instead of “no royal interference in the freedom of the people.” In the end, both guarantee citizens and States the collective means to protect themselves from despotic central governments, which pop up every so often.

Me:  OK – good stuff! But how can we tell the difference between a government keeping its militia extraordinarily “well regulated” – to use that phrase loosely – and that government infringing upon the People’s right “to keep and bear arms”?

Wilson:  Excellent question!  And let me begin by stating the obvious: We all have to obey all the laws – not just the ones we agree with. Having said that, we always modify our laws with respect to children, the mentally impaired, and felons… We have to keep arms away from those groups – no exceptions; and in order to do that, we have to determine whether a potential gun owner falls under one of those categories.

So universal background investigations are proper…with two important caveats:

1. The investigations must be conducted by the states, and all pertinent information gathered must be protected by the states.
2. Being a blood relative is a de facto form of background check. So it’s OK for close family members to transfer a gun…but probably not cousins, and definitely not extended in-laws – it took me years to discover who the whacky ones were in my wife’s family!!

Me:  (laughing politely)  Well sir, what about efforts to ban certain models of “one-shot per trigger-pull” rifles just because they have pistol grips and recoil buffer springs? And what about the government limiting the capacity of magazines?

Wilson:  Oh gracious, No!  A free people’s government can’t do that … it’s patently unconstitutional. If your state is doing that, you should take it to court!

Traditional Marriage

Me:  Actually sir, that’s exactly what we’re doing in Maryland. And speaking of “in-laws,” here’s something I always wanted to ask a man from your times:  what does the term “traditional marriage” mean to you?

Wilson:  Well, young man, back in my day marriage never required a license… Martha and General Washington, for example – they never had to get a marriage license. Nobody did! We all just went by common law – if you publicly pronounced your union, or behaved in all respects as a married couple behaves, then by golly, you were a married couple.

After all, a license isn’t created to allow someone to do something; it's created to disallow someone else from doing it… Around about the Civil War, marriage licensing was instituted to prohibit certain types of marriages. And by the 1920’s, 38 states disallowed whites from marrying blacks, “mulattos,” Japanese, Chinese, Indians, “Mongolians,” “Malays” or Filipinos. Twelve states wouldn’t issue a marriage license if one partner was a drunk, an addict, or a “mental defect”… 18 states set barriers to remarriage after divorce…

BUT TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION:  I think “traditional marriage” is any union that’s entered into under the guidance of a minister, with the consent and blessing of both sets of parents.

And on that Happy Note, I think I’ll have a refill... “Waiter, another Sam Adams, please!”

[To be continued…]