Tasty tidbits of Aged morsels of Truth.....

"The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the "government", not to "society"; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage."

- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93.

"[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression."

- Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93.

"It was absolutely necessary to carry arms for fear of pirates, &c. and ... their arms were all stamped with peace, that they were never to be used but in case of hostile attack, that it was in the law of nature for every man to defend himself, and unlawful for any man to deprive him of those weapons of self defence."

- Boston Independent Chronicle, Oct. 25, 1787.

"But it is not necessary, for this purpose, that individuals should relinquish all their natural rights. Some are of such a nature that they cannot be surrendered. Of this kind are the rights of conscience, the right of enjoying and defending life, &c. [S]o in forming a government on its true principles, the foundation should be laid in the manner I before stated, by expressly reserving to the people such of their essential rights, as are not necessary to be parted with."

- "Brutus", New York Journal, Nov. 1, 1787.

"Let these truths sink deep into our hearts: that the people are the masters of their rulers and that rulers are the servants of the people ― that men cannot give to themselves what they own from nature ― that a free government is no more than a few plain directions to a number of servants, how to take care of a part of their master's property ― and that a master reserves to himself the exclusive care of all that property, and of every thing else which he has not committed to the care of those servants."

- "One of the People", Federal Gazette (PHILADELPHIA), July 2, 1789.