Madison's Militia
The Hidden History of the Second Amendment
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Narrated by:
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Alan Peterson
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By:
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Carl T. Bogus
About this listen
In Madison’s Militia, Carl T. Bogus illuminates why James Madison and the First Congress included the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights. Linking together dramatic accounts of slave uprisings and electric debates over whether the Constitution should be ratified, Bogus shows that—contrary to conventional wisdom—the fitting symbol of the Second Amendment is not the musket in the hands of the minuteman on Lexington Green but the musket wielded by a slave patrol member in the South.
Bogus begins with a dramatic rendering of the showdown in Virginia between James Madison and his Federalist allies, who were arguing for ratification of the new Constitution, and Patrick Henry and the Antifederalists, who opposed it. Henry accused Madison of supporting a constitution that empowered Congress to disarm the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. The narrative then proceeds to the First Congress, where Madison had to make good on a congressional campaign promise to write a Bill of Rights—and seizing that opportunity to solve the problem Henry had raised.
Three other collections of stories—on slave insurrections, Revolutionary War battles, and the English Declaration of Rights—are skillfully woven into the narrative and show how arming ragtag militias was never the primary goal of the amendment. And as the puzzle pieces come together, even initially skeptical listeners will be surprised by the completed picture: one that forcefully demonstrates that the Second Amendment was intended in the first instance to protect slaveholders from the people they owned.
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The story of the Confederate States of America, the proslavery, antidemocratic nation created by white Southern slaveholders to protect their property, has been told many times in heroic and martial narratives. Now, however, Stephanie McCurry tells a very different tale of the Confederate experience. Confederate Reckoning is the startling story of this epic political battle in which women and slaves helped to decide the fate of the Confederacy and the outcome of the Civil War.
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Good view of the confederate inner workings.
- By Amazonian on 08-10-22
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Freedom National
- The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865
- By: James Oakes
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The consensus view of the Civil War - that it was first and foremost a war to restore the Union, and an antislavery war only later when it became necessary for Union victory - dies here. James Oakes’s groundbreaking history shows how deftly Lincoln and congressional Republicans pursued antislavery throughout the war, pragmatic in policy but steadfast on principle. In the disloyal South the federal government quickly began freeing slaves, immediately and without slaveholder compensation, as they fled to Union lines.
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An Excellent Book on an Important and little understood subject
- By Dee M on 12-22-22
By: James Oakes
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The Cause
- The American Revolution and Its Discontents, 1773-1783
- By: Joseph J. Ellis
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the “American Revolution”: Former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams insisted that the British were the real revolutionaries, for attempting to impose radical change without their colonists’ consent. With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783.
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Modest history primer, wished for more substance
- By Buretto on 10-21-21
By: Joseph J. Ellis
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The Virginia Dynasty
- Four Presidents and the Creation of the American Nation
- By: Lynne Cheney
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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A vivid account of leadership focusing on the first four Virginia presidents - George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe - from the best-selling historian and author of James Madison.
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Captivating
- By Jean on 11-19-20
By: Lynne Cheney
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This Mighty Scourge
- Perspectives on the Civil War
- By: James M. McPherson
- Narrated by: Barrett Whitener
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom and many other award-winning books, James M. McPherson is America's preeminent Civil War historian. Now, in this collection of provocative and illuminating essays, McPherson offers fresh insight into many of the most enduring questions about one of the defining moments in our nation's history.
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An Introduction to McPherson
- By Roy on 05-03-09
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Liberty Is Sweet
- The Hidden History of the American Revolution
- By: Woody Holton
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Using more than a thousand eyewitness records, Liberty Is Sweet is a “spirited account” (Gordon S. Wood, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution) that explores countless connections between the Patriots of 1776 and other Americans whose passion for freedom often brought them into conflict with the Founding Fathers. “It is all one story,” prizewinning historian Woody Holton writes.
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The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same
- By M. H. Raful on 11-03-21
By: Woody Holton
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The Fall of the House of Dixie
- The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South
- By: Bruce Levine
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The J. G. Randall Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Illinois and associate editor of North and South magazine, Bruce Levine presents a gripping chronicle of the cultural and economic upheaval the South experienced during and after the Civil War. Drawing upon a treasure trove of diaries, letters, newspaper articles, and government documents, Levine offers a unique perspective on the old South's demise through the voices of those who lived through the conflict.
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Merely ok. . .
- By Steve E. on 03-19-13
By: Bruce Levine
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President Lincoln
- The Duty of a Statesman
- By: William Lee Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 19 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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The American president has come to be the most powerful figure in the world. And back in the 19th century, a great man held that office. William Lee Miller's new book closely examines that great man in that hugely important office: Abraham Lincoln as president.
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An analysis of Lincoln's life, not a history
- By D. Rairigh on 05-24-09
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Break It Up
- Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union
- By: Richard Kreitner
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The novel and fiery thesis of Break It Up is simple: the United States has never lived up to its name - and never will. The disunionist impulse may have found its greatest expression in the Civil War, but as Break It Up shows, the seduction of secession wasn't limited to the South or the 19th century. With a scholar's command and a journalist's curiosity, Kreitner takes readers on a revolutionary journey through American history, revealing the power and persistence of disunion movements in every era and region.
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Completely Partisan
- By Patrick Tobin on 11-06-22
By: Richard Kreitner
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The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
- By: Brion McClanahan Ph. D.
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Here to rescue the reputations of our Founding Fathers from the plague of modern political correctness is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers. Author and Professor Brion McClanahan shows how patriots like Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton laid the foundations of American civil liberty and had a better understanding of the problems facing us today than our current Congress.
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Highly Recommended
- By Colleen H. on 08-13-09
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John Jay
- A Captivating Guide to an American Statesman, Patriot, Diplomat, Governor of New York, the First Chief Justice, and One of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jamie Peters
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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John Jay was a master statesman and strategic diplomat who associated with all the great men of his day in the mid-18th century. However, his contemporaries said that he was modest and humble. They indicated that they could be at a party or gathering and guests had to coax him into discussing his role during the American Revolution or as the first Supreme Court Justice of the new nation.
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Enjoyable
- By Mack Zonee on 10-04-19
What listeners say about Madison's Militia
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-20-23
Amicus Curiae Brief for Overturning DC vs. Heller
This is an incredibly detailed and comprehensive analysis of the history of militia, and militia clauses starting with their use in 17th Century England and through the ratification of the Bill of Rights. If Roe v. Wade can be overturned, Heller should be easy the next time we have a balanced court. Thank you Carl Bogus!
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- TheDude
- 05-06-23
Brilliant analysis of the history behind 2A
The book delves deep into the constitutional convention debates, the major players behind it, their motives (Patrick Henry being the biggest slave holder in VA, A.K.A. the "give me liberty" guy, with VA being the largest state and being the ninth state to barely ratify the Constitution), slave revolts in the Caribbean and the South (and how much that terrified the slave owners) as well as history prior to and after the convention. ---
It is apparent that slave states were more concerned with preventing and suppressing slave insurrections (which happened more frequently than reported because the South insisted on continuibg to propagate the "happy slave" myth) than affording an individual right to bear arms or even defending the country against foreign invasions. ---
Hence the amendment is comprised of a single sentence which mentions "security" (which is a passive word) of a "free state" - not the defense of the country as a whole; and "a well regulated militia", which was organized into slave patrols to seek runaway slaves. ---
Indeed, during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the British repeatedly overcome militia which frequently fled the battle (except for Lexington, Concord and possibly Bunker Hill). ---
There's no mention of an individual right to bear arms. Also, during the Revolutionary war, very few people owned guns. And before the Civil War, guns were made with iron and not steel, which made them useless after a dozen or so shots, unlike the guns today. ---
It simply makes no sense for a newly formed government, which barely held itself together by a handful of states that did not always get along, to enable its own populace to easily topple it. ---
In fact, today 48/50 states outlaws the forming of private militias without the supervision of the state. ---
All the militia was originally "good" for was maintaining the peculiar institution. That's what the second amendment was all about.
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