Response To “Necessary To The Security Of Free States: The Second Amendment As The Auxiliary Right Of Federalism”, William G. Merkel
Nov 2016
Response To “Necessary To The Security Of Free States: The Second Amendment As The Auxiliary Right Of Federalism”, William G. Merkel
William G. Merkel
No abstract provided.
A Nation Of Laws: America's Imperfect Pursuit Of Justice, William G. Merkel
Jun 2012
A Nation Of Laws: America's Imperfect Pursuit Of Justice, William G. Merkel
William G. Merkel
No abstract provided.
Mandatory Gun Ownership, The Militia Census Of 1806, And Background Assumptions Concerning The Early American Right To Arms: A Cautious Response To Robert Churchill, William G. Merkel
Dec 2006
Mandatory Gun Ownership, The Militia Census Of 1806, And Background Assumptions Concerning The Early American Right To Arms: A Cautious Response To Robert Churchill, William G. Merkel
William G. Merkel
In "Gun Ownership in Early America," published in the William and Mary Quarterly in 2003,' Robert Churchill drew on probate inventories and militia records to make the case that arms ownership was pervasive in late colonial, revolutionary, and early national America. Churchill concluded with the observation that "[i]t is time to ponder what these guns meant to their owners and how that meaning changed over time."'2 In his substantial contribution to this volume of Law and History Review,3 Churchill takes up that challenge himself and advances the claim that widespread arms ownership engendered a sense of possessory entitlement, and that …
A Cultural Turn: Reflections On Recent Historical And Legal Writing On The Second Amendment
Dec 2005
A Cultural Turn: Reflections On Recent Historical And Legal Writing On The Second Amendment
William G. Merkel
If commentators on the Second Amendment agree about anything at all, it is only that disputants parsing the meaning and importance of the constitutional right to arms cannot avoid involvement in a larger cultural war (and this is the term almost everyone employs)I over the meaning and importance (vel non) of gun ownership to the American psyche and soul. Almost every scholar discussed in this short, inexhaustive review of recent literature calls for reasoned moderation (the other calls for well armed chaos),2 but most writers in the field, including this one, and including those who neither own nor wish the …
Scottish Factors And The Origins Of The Second Amendment: Some Reflections On David Thomas Konig's Rediscovery Of The Caledonian Background To The American Right To Arms, H. Richard Uviller, William G. Merkel
Jan 2004
Scottish Factors And The Origins Of The Second Amendment: Some Reflections On David Thomas Konig's Rediscovery Of The Caledonian Background To The American Right To Arms, H. Richard Uviller, William G. Merkel
William G. Merkel
David Konig has written an important article that makes a welcome contribution to the rapidly evolving field of Second Amendment scholarship.' In the essay that forms the focal piece of this forum, Konig argues that two rival, hotly contested interpretations of the Second Amendment fail to recapture the original meaning of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. To Konig, neither the individual rights nor the states' rights model of the Second Amendment accurately reflects the conceptual universe shared by the drafters and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights. Neither model (and particularly not the individual rights model), Konig …
To See Oneself As A Target Of A Justified Revolution: Thomas Jefferson And Gabriel's Uprising, William G. Merkel
May 2003
To See Oneself As A Target Of A Justified Revolution: Thomas Jefferson And Gabriel's Uprising, William G. Merkel
William G. Merkel
Examines Jefferson's response to Gabriel's Uprising and argues that Jefferson employed the language of criminal theory in urging Virginia Governor James Monroe to spare the lives of convicted conspirators for the sake of justice and the state's image before the enlightened world. Jefferson's analysis of the slave rebels' acts and intentions makes clear that - at least in abstract, philosophical terms - Jefferson saw the slave uprising as justified, while he viewed white Virginia's resort to deadly force to counter the revolt as at best excusable.
