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Myths and Misquotes: Tench Coxe |
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Coxe, Tench
The quote is accurate. The myth is in the claim, originated by Don Kates that Madison commended Coxe's "explanatory strictures" (Don B. Kates, Jr., Handgun Prohibition and the Original Meaning of the Second Amendment, 82 Mich. L. Rev. 204, 224 n.81 [1983]) and then extended by Glenn Harlan Reynolds that "James Madison approved of Coxe's construction of the Second Amendment." (Glenn Harlan Reynolds, A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment, 62 Tenn L. Rev 461, 498 n.29[1995]) First the date of Coxe's essay (June 18) is ten days after Madison first offered his amendments to the House of Representatives and,as such, addresses Coxe's interpreation of the form in which Madison first offered the amendment, not the amendment as finally approved. Second, Madison's response (on June 28 -- still well before the House took up the amendments) was:
In other words, Madison is thanking Coxe for promoting the amendments, not approving of his interpretation. Gary Wills (in A Necessary Evil, Simon & Shuster, NY, 1999, pg 215) notes that the idea the idea that Madison's comment signified an apporoval of Coxe's interpretation would be even odder in light of Coxe's statement, in the paragraph preceding the one cited here that Madison's anti-establishment clause restrainined only "impious" and "self-righteous" religions. As Rakove further notes in n48, it would be odd for even Coxe to have the interpretation of the 2nd amendment given by the Gun lobby, as Coxe had written a number of essays during the Constitutional ratification process assuring Pennsylvanians of the reserved legislative powers of the states, including the police powers associated with public health and welfare. Rakove doesn't note (but others do) that it was Pennsylvania which had passed the Test Acts, demanding a loyalty oath of its citizens before they could own firearms.
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