A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,…

This declaratory clause in the Second Amendment is both maligned and misused today, but it was well understood and incredibly important to the American Founders. The Founders were strongly against keeping large armies during times of peace. These standing armies, they believed, were dangerous to liberty, having the potential to fall under the control of a tyrannical government.

The founding document of the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence, lists standing armies as one of the tyrannies of King George III:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

George Washington, in his 1783 Sentiments on a Peace Establishment, written six years before the Bill of Rights and Second Amendment, noted,

…a large standing Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a Country…

Fitzpatrick, John C., ed., The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745--1799. 39 vols. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1931--44.

And Thomas Jefferson stated even more emphatically,

There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army.

Washington, H.A., ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, volume III, Washington: Taylor & Maury, 1853. 13. Print.

The Founders’ solution to the ready defense of the United States of America was the Militia. George Washington’s Sentiments on a Peace Establishment expresses the militia concept as being so natural in America that it should be unnecessary to prove or explain:

Were it not totally unnecessary and superfluous to adduce arguments to prove what is conceded on all hands the Policy and expediency of resting the protection of the Country on a respectable and well established Militia…

and

…we might see, with admiration, the Freedom and Independence of Switzerland supported for Centuries, in the midst of powerful and jealous neighbours, by means of a hardy and well organized Militia. We might also derive useful lessons of a similar kind from other Nations of Europe, but I believe it will be found, the People of this Continent are too well acquainted with the Merits of the subject to require information or example.

Also in 1783, George Washington stated,

The adoption of a proper peace establishment, in which care should be taken to place the militia throughout the Union on a regular, uniform, and efficient footing. The militia of this country must be considered as the palladium of our security and our first effectual resort in case of hostility. 

Sparks, Jared, The Writings of George Washington, volume VIII, Boston: Russell and Metcalf and Hilliard Gray and Co., 1835. 450. Print.

James Madison combined the Founders’ disdain for standing armies with the desire for a strong militia when he said,

As the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a good militia.

Elliot, Jonathan,The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol. 5, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1861. 466. Print.

Similarly, in 1803, President Thomas Jefferson said,

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army; to keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

Washington, H.A., ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, volume IV, Washington: Taylor & Maury, 1854. 469. Print.

Later, in 1808, he further expressed,

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security.

The Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States at the Second Session of the Tenth Congress in the Thirty Third Year of the Independence of the United States,  Washington: A. & G. Way, 1808. 16. Print.

Jefferson’s words convey the understanding that the militia is simply an “armed nation” of “people who are free,” organized and disciplined to be able to protect the country. That the nation is armed and free is given. The crux of securing the safety of the nation is how well the people can be organized and disciplined to be a ready and effectual fighting force.

That organization and discipline became broadly known as “well-regulated” in the Bill of Rights as the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. By 1794, three years after ratification of the Bill of Rights, George Washington had aligned his language to the amended Constitution, saying,

The devising and establishing of a well-regulated militia would be a genuine source of legislative honor, and a perfect title to public gratitude.

Williams, Edwin, ed., The Addresses and Messages of the Presidents of the United States, Inaugural, Annual and Special, from 1789 to 1846, volume I, New York: Edward Walker, 1846. 59. Print.

This is the meaning of, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,…” The well-regulated Militia of the Founders was viewed as a sacrosanct institution for protecting liberty in the United States of America; the “palladium of security” and the best security institution “for a people who are free, and who mean to remain so.”