"If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

"Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? . . . If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"--Patrick Henry, Monday, June 9, 1788. The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution [Elliot's Debates, Volume 3]