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Amid today's heated debates about gun laws and the Second Amendment, what many people may not realize is that the phrase "the right to keep and to bear arms" is older than the Bill of Rights. It was penned years before the United States won its independence from England.
In 1779, Founding Father and future president John Adams wrote this phrase at his law office in Quincy, Mass., as he drafted the Massachusetts Constitution — the oldest in the world. He did so a decade before the phrase appeared in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Today's tourists can visit the site where Adams drafted the document and authored the powerful words, as part of the Adams National Historical Park.
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Interest in the "right to keep and bear arms" has only grown as the Supreme Court shot down a New York law that had made it difficult for citizens to carry concealed weapons.
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution notes that the phrase "the right to keep and bear arms" is one that "shall not be infringed." (iStock)
The Supreme Court's 6-3 decision this past Thursday, June 23, is widely seen as a victory for the Second Amendment.
While the American Revolution raged
The phrase "the right to keep and to bear arms" is codified in Article XVII of the Massachusetts Constitution, which Adams wrote in his office as a "subcommittee of one," as he called himself.
Massachusetts voters in 1780 approved the document. It went into effect later that year while the American Revolution still raged elsewhere in the colonies.
The Massachusetts Constitution, written by John Adams in his Quincy, Mass., law office in 1779, was the first document to feature the phrase "the right to keep and to bear arms." That was a decade before it was included in the U.S. Bill of Rights. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
The U.S. Constitution was not ratified until 1789.
James Madison argued on behalf of an armed citizenry as a bulwark to federal overreach in Federalist No. 46, published in 1788 as debate took place over shape of the new American government.
A national army of 25,000 to 30,000 men "would be opposed by a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands," wrote the statesman often dubbed "Father of the Constitution."
The nation’s population was about 4 million people at the time.
Facsimile of the Constitution of the United States, dated Sept. 17, 1787. (Fotosearch/Getty Images)
The English Bill of Rights of 1689 offered a tepid call for an armed citizenry a century earlier — but only for those who attended the state-approved church.
"The subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law," the document declared in the immediate aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, which overthrew King James II, the last Catholic English monarch.
Saltbox-style colonial home
Adams created modern constitutional government in the office of his simple 17th-century saltbox-style colonial home — better known today as the John Quincy Adams Birthplace.
The plot of land with the two original period homes outside Boston is the only place in America where two presidents were born.
It’s where John and Abigail Adams raised their family, including the sixth president of the United States, John Quincy Adams.
John Adams himself was born in another saltbox-style home right next door, a similar structure but unadorned with paint. The plot of land with the two original period homes just outside Boston is the only place in America where two presidents were born.
The John Quincy Adams Birthplace, part of the Adams National Historical Park. John Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, with the first use of the phrase the "right to keep and to bear arms," in his office here in 1779; it's the the room located inside the window on the ground floor, next to the door. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
Among the few artifacts in the John Quincy Adams Birthplace is a copy of the Massachusetts Constitution, containing the phrase "the right to keep and to bear arms" — along with many other foundations of constitutional government.
A bicameral legislature, a system of checks and balances and a bill of rights all appeared in the Massachusetts Constitution a decade before Adams helped secure them in the U.S. Constitution.
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The Massachusetts Constitution specifically notes the right of citizens to keep and to bear arms "for the common defense."
Scholars say The Boston Massacre of 1770 cemented the desire of colonists to be armed against forces of the government. John Adams defended the British soldiers in court, but also codified the "the right to keep and bear arms" in the American political lexicon.
The U.S. Constitution does not specify for the common defense. It also adds that the phrase "the right to keep and bear arms" is one that "shall not be infringed."
The Boston Massacre, in which soldiers shot and killed unarmed civilians in 1770, reinforced in the minds of colonists their desire to be armed against government, scholars have argued.
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Adams was certainly familiar with the colonial sentiment. The attorney famously defended the eight British soldiers charged in the massacre.
John Adams was born into humble circumstances in this saltbox-style colonial home in Quincy, Mass., outside Boston. It's part of the Adams National Historical Park today. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
The states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Vermont all have declarations of rights that precede the U.S. Constitution and mention a "right to bear arms."
But none contain the turn of phrase by Adams about the rights both "to keep" and "to bear" arms. One means to possess; the other means to carry.
"The right to keep and bear arms" is older than the nation itself.
Adams wrote the Massachusetts Constitution two years before the end of the American Revolution and four years before the Treaty of Paris (negotiated by Adams) officially recognized American independence.
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Massachusetts, which booted out the British in 1776, was a free, independent, constitutional republic — the first of its kind — while the war raged on elsewhere in the American colonies.
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"The right to keep and bear arms" is older than the nation itself.
