In writing/researching Nineteenth Century America, I’ve come across a number of journal entries and letters in which the correspondents wrote of infringements of their “Second Amendment Rights by the Union Pacific Railroad. It seemed that one hundred and sixty years before the TSA, The Union Pacific had its Conductors forcing passengers to surrender firearms to the custody of the railroad for a fee. There was no doubt in the mind of the writers that this was an infringement of right.

“By playing the States off against their citizens in matters of rights, the Federal government (through it’s courts), weakens the decentralism that tends to ensure continued freedom.”

You know that *sounds* good Matt, and it may well be that decentralization in some way, fashion or form would in the long run result in “continued freedom,” but it doesn’t really say *why* that would be the case. Nor, even more to the point, does it explain why the exact opposite seems to be the main historical truth.

You’re right of course that the Bill of Rights was initially intended to apply only to the Federal government, but you then ignore the consequence of this which is that it was the *states* that had essentially unfettered power over people.

With the advent of the post-Civil Amendments directly aimed at the states however, including the 14th, and the Supreme Court’s “selective but now nigh total) incorporation” of the Bill of Rights into the 14th, the Rights therein have grown to protect us from state power.

And, I would argue, they have indeed done far more protecting of us than having caused any damage to our freedoms by somehow preventing the states from giving us more.

*Should* the states have given us more, especially under their own Constitutions? Sure. But they didn’t. Not nearly at all. Not ever. Until rather recently in fact, with even that still being at a teensy little level, I think you’ll find the jurisprudence of state constitutions an amazingly desolate field.

Southern states and others continued forever practically until stopped by the federal constitution denying or impeding the most basic right which is to vote.

You go down the list of rights listed in the federal bill of rights and go state by state and I think you’ll find the absolute overwhelming truth to be that what protects people is not state constitutions but the federal one.

If there’s an aspect of the federal constitution that is robbing us of our rights it’s not the Bill of Rights therefore and the Feds “playing us off” our states. Instead I think you’ll find it in the modern interpretation of the Commerce Clause which, amazingly enough, you will find is the almost only constitutional authority cited for damn near every modern federal social program. From Social Security to welfare to banning private racial, sexual and other discrimination to the Americans’ WIth Disabilities to … you name it practically.

Cheers,

The Bill of Rights was instituted to keep the Federal Government from doing certain things. It did not grant us those rights, anymore than it granted us the right to walk on two legs. To the Founders, those rights were so self-evident that no government needed to grant them. What was needed was a formal agreement that this new Federal Government would not use it’s new, unprecedented power to violate basic human rights. For this reason, the 1st amendment begins with “Congress shall make no law” rather than “no-one shall make any law”.

Each state has a constitution that guarantees roughly the same rights to it’s citizens as the Federal one does. By playing the States off against their citizens in matters of rights, the Federal government (through it’s courts), weakens the decentralism that tends to ensure continued freedom.

I see no reason to compromise on constitutional rights. No one seriously believes their first amendment rights vary by state. The same should apply to my second amendment rights.