"The Ten Commandments of American Freemen...."

 

...But while giving you this explanation, I wish you to distinctly understand that I claim and assert the right to sell or dispose of arms to any citizen or citizens resident in the States now in the Union, who recognize the obligations of the Constitution. In the second amendment of that Constitution I read, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

   Lincoln loyalty would interpret this to mean--such people only as Lincoln pleases to permit. I do not subscribe to this interpretation, never having belonged to a Loyal League or shared the profits of a war contract. The right "to keep and bear arms," I take it, carries with it the right to sell and to purchase.

   Our fathers seem to have set great store by the amendment, for they place it among the first of those not unaptly called "The Ten Commandments of American Freemen." It stands next to the right of an unmolested religion, a free press, free speech, and the right to assemble to petition for redress of grievances. If these were not written upon tables of stone, and delivered mid the lightnings of Sinai, they were traced by the finger of the Almighty on the hearts of freemen; and the man who would deprive the citizen of them is a tyrant, and the people who would submit to such deprivation without a struggle only fit to be slaves.

                                                                                             Yours, respectfully,
                                                                                                 James W. Wall.

[Daily State Sentinel, Indianapolis, IND., Wednesday Morning, September 07, 1864. Volume XII. Number 4,333. Pg. 2 - Excerpted from the article; "The Indiana Conspiracy Story--The Humbug Exposed. Letter From Hon. Jas. W. Hall."]

   (James Walter Wall, (May 26, 1820 – June 9, 1872), was a U.S. Senator from New Jersey during the American Civil War. He was the son of U.S. Senator Garret Dorset Wall).