![]() ![]() Virginians Patrick Henry and George Mason balked, and raised the specter of a massive slave revolt left unchecked because Congress could not be trusted to summon the forces to protect the plantation owners. ![]() In 1788, at the constitutional ratification convention in Virginia, a major source of contention was that the draft constitution had placed the training and arming of the states’ militia under federal control. ![]() Access to guns for white people was essential for this function. On the other hand, where the militia had been steadfast was in controlling the enslaved Black population. Boston merchants had to hire mercenaries to put down the rebellion. In Shays’ Rebellion, bands of armed white men, who were in the state’s militia, attacked the Massachusetts government because of foreclosures and debt seizures, demonstrating, again, how unreliable the militia were. Nor was the militia reliable as a force to uphold the law. George Washington was disgusted with their lack of fighting ability and the way the men would just cut and run from battling against a professional army. ![]() But “a well-regulated militia” wasn’t, as the story goes, about how valiant and effective the militias were in repelling the British. ![]()
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