The Origin Of The Second Amendment - Early Sources On America's Armed Civil Population, Part 8

General Gage Attempts Cannon Seizure At Salem, Patrick Henry Gives His Liberty Or Death Speech In Virginia, And The Revolutionary War Begins At Lexington

Updated September 24, 2024

Note that Britain banned imports of arms and ammunition into the American Colonies by November of 1774. Even fancy, expensive fowling pieces arriving in New York were seized by customs officers. Needles to say, none of this sat well with most Americans.

General Gage ordered a second action to disarm the people of Massachusetts on February 28, 1775. British troops sailed for Marblehead on a mission to Salem to avoid detection. The object was seizure of cannons and military supplies stored there. Quick action by the townspeople delayed the troops from entering by simply lifting Salem's drawbridge, all the while pelting the redcoats with insults and laughter. The delay allowed for relocation of the sought items making the British mission impossible to complete. However, the alarm bells went off early on, and there were companies of minutemen from surrounding towns arriving at Salem as British troops departed in failure.

Down in Virginia, Patrick Henry gave his famous "give me liberty, or give me death" speech on March 23, 1775, at the colony's convention. This speech was in support of his proposed resolution recommending the militia of the colony be put into a state of defense. The introduction stated:

"Resolved, That a well regulated militia, composed of the gentlemen and yeomen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government; that such militia in this colony would for ever render it unnecessary for the mother country to keep among us, for the purpose of our defence, any standing army of mercenary soldiers, always subversive of the quiet, and dangerous to the liberties of the people, and would obviate the pretext of taxing us for their support."

By this time, well regulated militia language had become a common American motto or maxim of the Revolutionary Era based upon repeated earlier usage. It was very similar to language in George Mason's earlier Fairfax County Committee of Safety resolution copying Maryland's language regarding a well regulated militia, quoted in Part 5. Henry's resolution went on to note necessary laws for defense could not be passed "to secure our inestimable rights and liberties, from those further violations with which they are threatened." The threat was from the royal governor, who was blocking legislative meetings under the colony's charter, and planning to seize the colony's powder supply to more easily compel obedience by armed government force.

The relevant period sources indicate that our ancestors understood well regulated militia references to relate to the body of the people, meaning an armed civil population capable of defending their country and rights, as well as keeping the government's armed forces under control. Well regulated simply meant that the people were capable of organized defense, something impossible without widespread arms possession and use. As noted in the previous part, the people could simply self embody by voluntary associations or private agreements if the law making apparatus was denied them, and the government was violating their rights as well as attempting to rule by force.

Back up in Massachusetts, General Gage sent out a third expedition to seize arms and supplies, this time to Concord well before dawn on April 19, 1775. Vigilant patriots noted military activity and express riders went out to spread the alarm. Some were seized by disguised British officers on the road, but they escaped and eventually the alarm was spread. The British were also trying to capture John Adams and John Hancock, who just happened to be at Lexington that night.

At Lexington's green, where the minutemen of town were assembled by dawn, the officer of the lead British column of troops rushed forward and ordered the minutemen standing at attention to throw down their arms several times. They did not. That officer later told people in Boston that a firearm misfired behind one of the rock walls around Lexington's green. His troops began firing on the militiamen without orders to do so. A number of militia were killed and injured, and the others fled the field faced with the much larger British force suddenly attacking them. Each side blamed the other for initiating hostilities.

The British troops then marched on to Concord and began burning military stores found there. The local militia observed their actions from a nearby hilltop, marching down to prevent the destruction of their town when smoke started rising from behind the buildings. They engaged the redcoats and routed them back towards Boston as reinforcements from all surrounding towns arrived in the area. The British were constantly fired at from behind stone walls by incensed farmers on their march back to Boston. The militia stopped pursuit at Charlestown, allowing for British wounded to be tended by the townspeople. Once inside Boston, British troops were confined there by a mass of militia preventing their march out anywhere into Massachusetts again.

In Part 9, Patrick Henry leads the Hanover Volunteers to retrieve powder clandestinely removed from the Williamsburg powder house in the night by British marines under orders of Virginia's governor.