John writes:

> Wirt writ :
>  {snip]
>  > In toto, what the State of New York wrote in its proposed amendment was
> the
>  > following:
>  [snip]
>  > That the Militia should not be subject to Marital Law except in time of
> War, Rebellion
>  > or Insurrection.
>
>  Hmm. I didn't realise that being part of the NY militia enabled you to
>  commit adultery legally! :o)

In the cold light of day, I am embarassed by the number of misspellings in
that post. I've found dozens more. I am particularly embarassed by the
insertion that I put into Jefferson's letter to Madison: "A Galloman [German]
..." A Galloman is a Frenchman, not a German.

Regarding these errors, please put your minds on autoerase and correct the
necessary text.

Otherwise, I have further checked the facts as I stated them and I can find
no significant errors, so I'll stand by the basic dialog. Most especially, I
very strongly believe the historical interpretation to be correct and proper.
Every government has to decide how civil order is to be maintained and how to
provide for the common defence, and to what extent individual liberties are
to be surrendered to these necessary forces.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, Greek society was the first to clearly
recognize that the individual liberties of the whole are expanded when the
liberties of the few are constrained. In a society where anyone can do
anything, no one is truly free, and tyranny quickly takes hold.

On the other hand, the greatest problem facing the formation of a new
government, especially one based on the notion of a State of free men, was
the maintenance of control by the government of the people of these police
and national defense forces. They could not be allowed then, or most
especially in the future, to become a government unto themselves.

Reading over the letters of Washington and Jefferson again last night, I was
struck how "modern" the problems were that they grappled with, and how
extraordinarily reasonable and gentle their commonly arrived-at solutions
were.

Wirt Atmar