"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. ...Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
-- John F. Kennedy

Who are the Minutemen that President Kennedy was referring to? Minutemen = Organized Militia which today probably equates to the National Guard. However the Citizen Militia = Unorganized Militia , citizens who were not attached to the military, but were ready to take up arms for the civil defense. The Minutemen that Kennedy was refering to is the Unorganized Militia described in "Title 10 - Armed Forces, U.S. Code, page 95, Chapter 13, The Militia, Sec. 311" (See HERE).

"The power of the sword is in the hands of Congress? My friends and countrymen, it is not so; for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The Militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the Militia? They are not ourselves as politicians and lawmakers. They are those who have elected us into our positions and entrusted us with the power of preserving and carrying out their wishes. Congress has no power to disarm the Militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the Federal or State governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
__ Tench Coxe's letter to James Madison during adoption of the Bill of Rights in United States Congress, 1789.

WHO ARE THE MILITIA?

Who are the militia of the Second Amendment? Are they uniformed government soldiers, such as National Guard troops, as Handgun Control, Inc. insists? Or is the militia the whole armed body of the people, as the NRA believes?

To understand what the Second Amendment means today, we must first understand what the militia signified to the generation that won our Independence. This article begins a three-part series looking at the militia and the Second Amendment in historical perspective.

Undeniably, the militia was a major component of America's fighting forces during the American Revolution. Of the approximately 400,000 men in active service against Great Britain, the militia amounted to about 165,000.

Quite often, the militia was the only force opposing the British. In the South Carolina Back Country in 1780, for example, there were 28 battles, and the militia fought 18 of them unassisted by the Continental Army. The next year, in the Back Country, the militia fought alone in 22 of the 39 battles.

Militias comprised the able-bodied males in the township or county. They elected their own officers, who usually reported to commanding officers controlled by the state governor.

Militiamen were responsible for supplying their own weapons and short- term equipment. If the militia went on a longer expedition, the state governments would supply what they could.

American militias were armed by the militiamen. Instead of taxing the populace to buy common guns, the American states required citizens to bring to militia duty their own private guns. Although many towns kept central armories which contained gunpowder, lead and artillery, the individual was expected to supply his own firearm.

The militias wore no uniform. They were the deliberate opposite of uniformed forces controlled by the government. "The gun offered the sole emblem of an individual militiaman's commitment," writes historian Marie Ahearn.

The militias existed virtually from the first days of white settlement. Many colonies were intermittently at war with the Indians. Frontier settlements were sometimes in a permanent state of war.

The militia was not, by the way, the same as the "Minutemen." While the militia was a hastily assembled volunteer body of mostly adult males in the area, the Minutemen were a more intensively trained citizen force. The Minutemen were first created to protect New England towns against Indian attacks. As the name stated, they were ready for combat at a minute's notice.

The American militias, consisting entirely of Americans, were quite different from other fighting forces of the era. Sometimes, the Americans' unique nature produced unexpected victories.

For example, at the port of Louisbourg, in French Canada in 1745, New England militias were ordered to make a frontal attack on the French fortress. The militiamen, seeing a speedy and futile death ahead, refused. Forced to abandon the frontal assault that would likely have failed, the commanders continued with a siege that eventually captured Louisbourg.

The victory at Louisbourg reinforced for the people of New England the religious message preached at special militia assemblies: New Englanders were chosen by God to claim land in His name, as Israel had in the Old Testament. Aggressive war against the French or Indians was the modern version of the war against the Amalekites. The Americans believed they were both morally and tactically superior to professional European armies. The American militias were composed of the solid middle class, people who were citizens first, and soldiers part-time. It was common for a troop of militiamen to debate whether to follow a commander's order, and the Americans considered their eagerness to question authority a divine virtue.

The British didn't. The English commander at Louisbourg complained that the American militiamen "have the highest notions of the Rights, and Libertys...they must know when, how and what service they are going upon, and be Treated in a manner that few Military Bred Gentlemen would condescend to..."

Life in a professional European army didn't leave room for questioning authority. Soldiers were drilled and disciplined until they could no longer think. They were expected to obey unquestioningly and to move in precise lock-step formations.

Since being a soldier in a standing army was only little better than being a slave, only people who had no other choice joined the army. Most of the middle class -- in Britain and America -- feared the British Redcoats, for the soldiers were "the dregs of society, rounded up from gin mills and jails.

The American militias did not measure up to the standards of the European professional armies. The Americans, being less afraid of their own officers than of the enemy, often broke out of formation to take cover when attacked. One British commander during the French and Indian War derided the American citizen-soldiers as "Naturely an Obstinate and Ungovernable People and Uterly Unaquainted with the Nature of Subordination in General."

Much of the British contempt was well-deserved. The American militia victory at Louisbourg was the exception. The militias were not good for fighting far away from home. Most militias declined to go on long campaigns. Even when under direct British command, American men at arms were not once able to defeat the French regular army in battle during the French and Indian War.

The British concluded that the Americans were poor fighters compared to regular troops from Britain -- troops who were drilled and drilled until they could perform coolly and automatically in the heat of combat, troops who did not question whether orders made sense.

In 1775, the war between Britain and America began. The British thought they could quickly crush the slovenly, self-important Americans. The Americans expected that their skill in backwoods warfare with the Indians would enable their numerically inferior citizen militias to smash the Redcoat puppets and the aristocratic snobs who commanded them. The contest would prove closer than either side expected.

It was the British attempt to seize a colonists' armory that began the war. In April 1775, the British army, responding to a rumor that the Americans had come into possession of a cannon, marched on Concord, Massachusetts, to confiscate the weapons of war in the armory.

On the way to Concord, the British were met by a militia on the Lexington Green. About 70 men, half the town's adult male population, were there. "Disperse ye Rebels -- Damn you, throw down your arms and disperse!" ordered British Major Pitcairn.

One volley from the British regulars, followed by a bayonet charge, sent the American militia scurrying in disarray. The rout at Lexington confirmed what the French and Indian War had already shown the British. Americans could hold their own against the "savage" Indians but the undisciplined American militia could never defeat civilized European regulars. The Redcoats marched on to Concord and destroyed the armory.

At the North Bridge in Concord, the Redcoats met another militia. As the militia advanced, the British fired a volley but the militia did not break. The militia "fired the shot heard 'round the world and a battle raged for two or three minutes. The Redcoats panicked and ran.

The militia was unable to carry out a coordinated pursuit. "Every man was his own commander," remembered one participant. Individually, the Americans pursued the Redcoats as they fled town on the Bay Road.

Rather than fight in open fields, as professional European soldiers did, the Americans hid behind natural barriers, ambushed the British in indefensible natural traps and harried the Redcoats all along the road back to Lexington.

Back in London, Member of Parliament William Pitt urged the House of Lords to attempt conciliation with the Americans instead of attempting to subjugate them by force. Pin warned that the armed American people were formidable opponents: "My Lords, there are three millions of whigs. Three millions of whigs, my Lords, with arms in their hands, are a very formidable body."

Three million armed, independent and undisciplined Americans had provoked a war against the British Empire, the most powerful empire the world had ever known. What could a rabble of armed citizens accomplish against the world's finest standing army? The numerous failures -- and astonishing successes -- of the American militia in the War for Independence is the subject of next month's column.