The Founders' Second Amendment

by Stephen P. Halbrook

  In consequence of that Provision, His Majesty has, with the Advice of His Privy Council, nominated thirty-six persons, qualified as the Act directs, to be the Council of Massachusetts Bay, from & after the time limited for the Continuance of the present Council, and inclosed herewith I send you His Majesty’s additional Instruction, under the Sign Manual, authorising and requiring you to assemble the said Council, and containing such further Directions as are thought necessary and incident to this new Establishment, and as correspond with the Provisions of the Act in relation thereto.7

  Together with his soldiers and his “Divan” Gage would take the repressive measures that united the other colonies with Massachusetts Bay and hastened the Americans’ march toward revolution. Not the least of these measures was the disarming of the inhabitants. It was no secret that the people were arming themselves. That could be surmised in newspaper advertisements, such as an early 1774 notice in the Boston Gazette that a merchant “has just imported for sale, a neat assortment of guns, complete with bayonets, steel rods and swivels, a few neat fowling pieces, pocket pistols.”8

  Moreover, this armed populace was being arrayed into militia. John Hancock averred in his oration on the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre: “From a well regulated militia we have nothing to fear. . . . They fight for their houses, their lands, for their wives, their children, for all who claim the tenderest names, and are held dearest in their hearts, they fight pro aris & focis, for their liberty, and for themselves, and for their God.” Hancock added that “no militia ever appear’d in more flourishing condition, than that of this province now doth . . . .”9

  The same theme resounded in newspaper commentary: “The establishment of a militia, which is putting arms in the hands of the people, for their defence, was a point which the patriots lately carried in the mother country, and contended for, as essential to the preservation of their liberties.”10

  General Gage was greeted by a component of this American militia when he arrived in Boston to assume his powers as governor. For his official transfer of power to Gage on May 17, 1774, Governor Hutchinson “ordered the Regiment of the Militia of the Town, the Company of Cadets, and the Troop of Horse Guards to appear in arms,” after which a public dinner with invited guests would be served.11 John Andrews wrote:

  Our Militia was yesterday muster’d for the reception of General Gage, who was proclaim’d Governor, amid the acclamations of the people. He express’d himself as sensible of the unwelcome errand he came upon, but as a servant of the Crown, he was obliged to see the Act put in execution: but would do all in his power to serve us.12

  Gage thereby extended an olive branch at a time when the militia could still muster. However, his sword began to be drawn in June and July, when several regiments and warships arrived to execute the Boston Port Act and the Massachusetts Regulating Act.13

  Meanwhile, the colonists were stockpiling large quantities of arms and ammunition. Countless barrels of gunpowder were imported, stored in powder houses, and then distributed as merchants and provincial authorities made withdrawals. General Gage began to restrict the distribution of this stored gunpowder. Redcoats were also beginning to seize firearms. Boston merchant John Andrews noted in a July 22 letter about an incident at the Boston Neck, the only access to the town by land and that was, in those days, only 120 yards wide:

  Its reported for fact, both last evening and this morning, that a country team was stopped by ye. Guards upon the Neck and riffled of two firelocks that they were carrying into the country. Certain I am that the Governor has order’d the Keeper of the Province’s Magazine not to deliver a kernel of powder (without his express order) of either public or private property: which is attended with great inconvenience to the dealers in that article, as he is, for the most part of his time, at Salem, and a personal attendance is necessary to procure an order.14

  Circumstances changed before Andrews could send the letter. He added that “Gov. [Gage] previous to his going out of town, yesterday morning delivered up the keys of the Powder House [on Boston Common] to Slyde again, with liberty to deliver as usual, but not in such enormous quantities as about a month since; being inform’d that he deliver’d near two thousand barrels in ye course of about a fortnight, which gave some alarm to the troops . . . .”15

  While Gage was prepared drastically to reduce the supply of gunpowder, he was not yet ready directly and lawlessly to disarm the inhabitants by force. On August 1, John Andrews referred to his previous letter, which

  mention’d a waggon’s being riffled of four firelocks by the Centinel on guard upon ye. Neck, which I have since been inform’ d is a fact, and that the officer of the day return’ d them and pleaded much with the party injur’d not to prosecute the matter, as it might be consider’ d as a military robbery: which leads me to think that notwithstanding their hostile preparations and formidable appearance, they as yet esteem themselves as liable to the civil law; whether their dispositions when the two infernal acts arrive, with the royall assent, I can’t say.16

  It is significant that military personnel still considered themselves to be subordinate to the civil power. Just as the civil courts tried soldiers after the Boston Massacre, this suggests that seizure of a firearm would have been considered robbery. This deference to the civil law would not last much longer.

  The colonists saw the handwriting on the wall. None other than Paul Revere engraved a plate diagramming how to refine saltpeter, an essential component in the making of gunpowder. It was published in August 1774 in the Royal American Magazine, the unlikely title for a magazine published by Isaiah Thomas, a member of the Sons of Liberty.17

  The prospect of the use of military force to enforce the Intolerable Acts galvanized the other colonies as never before. An assembly of inhabitants in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, bluntly resolved: “That in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles.”18 “A Carolinian” wrote under the sarcastic title “Some of the Blessings of military Law, or the Insolence of governor gage” as follows:

  With all the plausible Pretences to Protection and Defence, a standing Army is the most dangerous Enemy to the Liberties of a Nation that can be thought of. . . . It is much better, with a well regulated Militia, to run the Risk of a foreign Invasion, than, with a Standing Army, to run the Risk of Slavery. . . . When an Army is sent to enforce Laws, it is always an Evidence that either the Law makers are conscious that they had no clear and indisputable Right to make those Laws, or that they are bad and oppressive. Wherever the People themselves have had a Hand in making Laws, according to the first Principles of our constitution, there is no Danger of Non-submission, nor can there be Need of an Army to enforce them.19

  The Royalists saw the colonists as traitors, but the latter saw themselves as loyal to the law. “Massachusettensis,” aka Daniel Leonard—although quickly transforming himself from a Whig to a Tory—still had the gumption to say: “The man who arms himself in defence of his Life, Liberty, Fortune, Laws and Constitution of his Country, can never be accounted a Rebel by any but a Banditti of villains . . . .”20

  In Gage’s perception, the Boston radicals were spreading their subversion throughout Massachusetts and into Connecticut. Among other instances he cited in a letter to Dartmouth dated August 27 was the following:

  In Worcester they keep no Terms, openly threaten Resistance to Arms, have been purchasing Arms, preparing them, casting Ball, and providing Powder, and threaten to attack any Troops who dare to oppose them. . . . I apprehend that I shall soon be obliged to march a Body of Troops into that Township, and perhaps into others, as occasion happens, to preserve the Peace.21

  Just two days before, Gage had sent two companies of Redcoats to dissolve an illegal town meeting in Salem. The soldiers backed down when swarms of armed patriots began to appear. John Andrews confided about the affair:

  there was upwards of three thousand men assembled there from the a
djacent towns, with full determination to rescue the Committee if they should be sent to prison, even if they were oblig’ d to repel force by force, being sufficiently provided for such a purpose; as indeed they are all through the country—every male above the age of 16 possessing a firelock with double the quantity of powder and ball enjoin’d by law.22

  In the midst of this unrest the Massachusetts Council, consisting of the Mandamus Counselors, met at the Council Chamber in Boston on August 31, 1774. The minutes reflect that Governor Gage presided and that fifteen counselors attended. Gage discussed “the very great tumults and disorders prevailing in many parts of the Province, tending to the intire subversion of Government, and particularly the attacks made upon divers Members of this Board (residing in the Country) . . . .” He then inquired “what they thought expedient and proper for him to do in this exigency of affairs, and whether they would advise to the sending of any troops into the County of Worcester, or any other County in the Province, for the protection of the Judges and other Officers of the Courts of Justice.”23

  In response, “several Gentlemen of the Council expressed their Opinions, that inasmuch as the opposition to the execution of any part of the late Acts of Parliament relating to this Province, was so general, they apprehended it would not be for His Majesty’s service to send any Troops into the interior parts of the Province . . . .”24 Instead, “the main body [should] continue in the Town of Boston, which might be strengthened by the addition of other Troops,” and there those who found it necessary would find “a place of safe retreat.” The Council unanimously approved.25

  Apparently part of the discussion about making Boston “safe” was a proposal to ban firearms. The Boston Gazette reported that the Council considered the following:

  Tis said an article deliberated upon by the Divan last Wednesday [August 31] was the disarming of the town of Boston, and as much of the province as might be, to which sundry new counsellors advised. Was this also for the good of your country, Gentlemen!

  Governor Gage has at length laid his hand on private property, so far as to deny one cask of powder to be delivered out of the powder house whatever.26

  The above was one of two accounts of the proposed firearms ban to be widely reprinted in colonial newspapers. (Its reference to Gage’s ban on transfer of gunpowder from the powder house is explained below.) The other account of the debate in the Divan included the following details:

  It is said, it was proposed in the Divan last Wednesday, that the inhabitants of this Town should be disarmed, and that some of the new-fangled Counsellors consented thereto, bur happily a majority was against it.—The report of this extraordinary measure having been put in Execution by the Soldiery was propagated through the Country, with some other exaggerated stories, and, by what we are told, if these Reports had not been contradicted, we should by this date have had 40 or 50,000 men from the Country (some of whom were on the march) appear’ d for our Relief.27

  A majority of the Divan may have felt that a firearms ban would be unenforceable at that time. But the rumor that the disarming measure was actually being enforced by the Redcoats sparked widespread protest and led the patriots to escalate their intimidation of the counselors. Some counselors wrote accounts of how literally thousands of patriots, at times led by militia officers and in some cases armed, assembled at their houses and intimidated them into resigning. Others recorded how mobs appeared at their houses, but they were able to flee to Boston and be protected by Gage’s forces.28 Such accounts filled the newspapers.

  The perpetrators of the Crown’s repressive measures were referred to as the “imperial Divan” and as “his most exalted Highness, the most potent, the most omnipotent Bashaw Thomas [Gage], lately appointed by the illustrious Sultan Selim [George] III to the subduction of the military province of B [Boston].”29

  Colonist opposition effectively rendered the Council into a paper tiger. After all the ruckus caused by the very existence of the Council and by its above meeting, Gage called no more meetings. As Lieutenant Governor Oliver wrote to Secretary Dartmouth the following December, “the People have so far put an end to all law and order,” that Gage had governed “rather in the line of a General than that of a Governor.” If the Council met under these circumstances, “the prejudices of the People would only tend to encrease their violences.”30 The Council would not meet again until July 17, 1775,31 by which time the Revolutionary War had isolated the British in Boston and the Council was rendered meaningless.

  While the Council’s rule was effectively ended just as it started, Gage’s own actions fanned the flames. If the Council could not recommend a decree disarming the people, Gage was planning to cut off the colonists’ ammunition supply by forbidding deliveries from, and actually seizing the gunpowder at, the powder houses, which were essentially safe warehouses for importation, storage, and distribution of powder. Gunpowder was imported in large quantities and then, at least in some areas, stored in powder houses, specially built structures located away from other buildings. Merchants stored reserve quantities in powder houses,32 as did the province and the towns.

  The black gunpowder of that age was far more volatile than modern smokeless powder. As a fire prevention measure, in 1736 the General Court had provided for the building of a powder house.33 Partly as a result of a 1771 petition by patriots such as John Hancock, Sam Adams, and Paul Revere, a new powder house was built on the west side of Boston, by the Charles River and just above the Common, safely away from populated areas to the east.34

  With scattered powder houses throughout Massachusetts, the question became whether the patriots or the agents of the Crown would seize the powder first. Apparently referring to an incident in August, it was reported: “The Selectmen of Wrentham have published a notification, offering a reward of Sixty Dollars for the discovery of the person who, about five weeks past, broke open the Powder-house there, and carried off six half-barrels of powder, about 1300 flints, and a quantity of lead.”35

  On September 1, the day after the Council debated the disarming of the inhabitants, Gage took decisive action in what came to be known as the Powder Alarm. On August 27, Brigadier William Brattle wrote to Gage about the Massachusetts Provincial Powder House in Charlestown: “This morning the Select Men of Medford came and received their Town stock of powder which was in the Arsenal, on Quarry Hill. So there is now therein the King’s powder only, which shall remain there as a sacred Depositum till ordered out by the Capt. General.”36

  The patriots did not regard the remaining powder as belonging to the king. Brattle’s message became known to the public on August 31, when it is said that Gage himself dropped the letter on a Boston street. As John Andrews interpreted it, Brattle “was apprehensive the Province Powder was in danger; all other either belonging to particular towns, or individuals, had been withdrawn. It being private property, he could not do otherwise than deliver it, and as a friend to good government he should do his utmost endeavour to preserve that as a sacred depositum.”37

  Alarmed by the withdrawals of gunpowder, and aware that the patriots could not be trusted to regard the remaining powder as belonging to the king, Gage decided to seize it. Before daybreak on September 1, some 260 soldiers from Castle William sailed to a point on the Mystic River and then marched ashore to the powder house on Quarry Hill, which may still be seen today. While the town slept, the Redcoats seized between 250 half-barrels and 300 barrels of gunpowder.38

  After Brigadier Brattle’s letter to Gage become known, an assembly of perhaps 4,000 “country people” surrounded his Cambridge home. Brattle fled to Castle William. The patriots also visited other Tories and pressured Royal counselors to resign.39 John Andrews wrote from Boston on September 2:

  But a report having prevail’d through the country (by reason of the seizure of the powder yesterday) that ye. same game had been play’d here, and ye. inhabitants disarm’d has rais’d such a spirit as will require the utmost prudence to allay; for they are in arms at all quarters, be
ing deter min’d to see us redress’d. At eight o’clock this morning there were about three thousand under their regular leaders at Cambridge common, and continually increasing; had left their arms at a little distance . . . .40

  According to another report, on the evening of September 1 the inhabitants of Middlesex County “began to collect in large bodies, with their arms, provisions, and ammunition, determining by some means to give a check to a power which so openly threatened their destruction, and in such a clandestine manner rob them of the means of their defence.” The next morning “some thousands of them had advanced to Cambridge, armed only with sticks, as they had left their fire-arms, &c., at some distance behind them.”41

  News that the army was approaching against them reached the crowd gathered at Cambridge, according to Andrews, “which set the people in a prodigious ferment (who before were become quite calm and compos’d) and every one retir’d to Watertown, where they had left their arms, and return’d to take the Common fully equipp’d and well dispos’d to make a tryal of skill.”42 But the Redcoats did not come, and the situation was diffused.

  Meanwhile, reported Andrews from Boston, “a Guard of Soldiers is set upon the Powder house at the back of ye. Common, so that people are debar’d from selling their own property; and the Guard upon the Neck is doubled . . . .”43 By preventing merchants from withdrawing their gunpowder from the powder house, Gage could reduce the ammunition available to the inhabitants.

  According to a newspaper account, “Your Excellency has been pleased to order the powder from the magazine in Charlestown, to forbid the delivery of the powder in the magazine of Boston, to the legal proprietors, to seize the cannon at Cambridge, and bring a formidable number from Castle William, which are now placed at the entrance to town of Boston.”44