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Dr. J. Marion Sims (1813–1883) (J. Marion Sims - Wikipedia)Thanks Sean. I apologize for the length, but it is necessary to illustrate how someone so celebrated in the press and medical community became reviled.Dr. James Marion Sims, a pioneering American gynecologist, is often credited with establishing the country’s first women’s hospital in Manhattan in 1855[1] — but in fact the Woman’s Hospital in the State of New York was not the first institution he opened. In 1844, Sims had his slaves build a women’s hospital in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, expressly for experimenting on enslaved women who suffered from a common gynecological condition caused from childbirth injuries.[2]Vesicovaginal fistula was a catastrophic complication of childbirth among 19th century American women.[3]Sims’ surgical work in Alabama — performed with the assistance of other enslaved patients, whom he trained as nurses — helped to launch his career as one of the country’s most famous gynecologists. Celebrated as the “father of modern gynocology”[4] , his name appeared in the press and in medical textbooks, and his likeness was memorialized in statues throughtout the eastern seabord and south. He stands as the first person to successfully perform gallbladder surgery,[5] and he developed a groundbreaking technique to treat women with vesicovaginal fistula. He invented the modern speculum,[6] and the Sim's position for vaginal exams, both of which he tested on his female slaves.[7]Yet, despite the popularity and notoriety, that Sims attracted, there were a small group of contemporary detractors who questioned the doctor's methodology and ethics. Drowned out by the praise of thousands of upper and middle class Caucasian women whose lives and reproduction systems were saved by Sims’ techniques[8] , critics would not find a willing audience for their concerns for over a hundred years. From the late 1970s onwards, numerous modern authors have criticised and attacked Sims's medical ethics, arguing that he manipulated the institution of slavery to perform ethically unacceptable human experiments on powerless, unconsenting women.Marion Sims (called Marion) was born in Lancaster County, South Carolina, ,the son of John and Mahala (Mackey) Sims.[9] For his first 12 years, Sims's family lived in Lancaster Village north of Hanging Rock Creek, where his father owned a store. Sims later wrote of his early school days there.[10] After his father was elected as sheriff of Lancaster County in 1825, Sims was enrolled the newly established Franklin Academy, in Lancaster (for white boys only).[11]In 1832, after two years of study at the predecessor of the University of South Carolina, South Carolina College, where he was a member of the Euphradian Society,[12] After interning with Dr. Churchill Jones in Lancaster and completing a three-month course at the Medical College of Charleston (predecessor of the Medical University of South Carolina)[13], Sims moved to Philadelphia in 1834, enrolling in Jefferson Medical College, where he graduated in 1835, "a lackluster student who showed little ambition after receiving his medical degree".[14]As he put it,"I felt no particular interest in my profession at the beginning of it apart from making a living.... I was really ready at any time and at any moment to take up anything that offered, or that held out any inducement of fortune, because I knew that I could never make a fortune out of the practice of medicine."[15]Sims returned to Lancaster to practice. After his first two patients died, Sims left and set up a practice in Mount Meigs, near Montgomery, Alabama. He described the settlement in a letter to his future wife Theresa Jones as "nothing but a pile of gin-houses, stables, blacksmith-shops, grog-shops, taverns and stores, thrown together in one promiscuous huddle".[16]J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of AlabamaIn.December 1836, he married Theresa, also from Lancaster and the daughter of the wealthy widow of a local doctor, with whom he had nine children.[17] In 1840 the couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where they lived until 1853. In 1841, after suffering bouts of malaria and intestinal disorders, he moved his practice into Montgomery, trading in his pony for a four-wheeled cart with a horse and driver.[18] There Sims had what he described as the "most memorable time" of his career.[19] Within a few years he "had the largest surgical practice in the State", the largest practice that any doctor in Montgomery had ever had, up to that time, and was considered immensely popular, and greatly beloved."[20] The family owned 17 slaves, a house, and a building for treating 8 patients.It was in Montgomery that Sims established his reputation among rich, white plantation owners by treating their human property.[21] Sims’s practice was deeply rooted in the slave trade, building an eight-person hospital in the heart of the slave-trading district in Montgomery.[22] While most healthcare took place on the plantations, some stubborn cases were brought to physicians like Sims who patched up slaves so they could produce—and reproduce—for their masters again.[23] Otherwise, they were useless to their owners.Soon after, he developed a precursor to the modern speculum using a pewter spoon and strategically placed mirrors.[24] From 1845 to 1849, Sims started doing experiments on enslaved women to treat vaginal problems. He developed techniques that form the basis of modern vaginal surgery. A key component was silver wire, which he had a jeweler prepare.[25] The Sims vaginal speculum aided in vaginal examination and surgery.Sims' position - WikipediaWhen a woman came to him with an injured pelvis and retroverted uterus from a fall from a horse, he placed the patient on the left side with the right knee flexed against the abdomen and the left knee slightly flexed,.[26] Inserting his finger into the vagina triggered a full distention of the vagina with air. The distention inspired him to investigate fistula treatment.In Montgomery, between 1845 and 1849, Sims conducted experimental surgery on 12 enslaved women with fistulas in his backyard hospital. They were brought to him by their owners. Sims asked for patients with this fistula, and succeeded in finding six or seven women.[27]“I made this proposition to the owners of the negroes: If you will give me Anarcha and Betsey for experiment, I agree to perform no experiment or operation on either of them to endanger their lives, and will not charge a cent for keeping them, but you must pay their taxes and clothe them. I will keep them at my own expense.”[28]Sims took responsibility for their care on the condition that the owners provide clothing and pay any taxes; Sims provided food. One woman, Lucy, he purchased "expressly for the purpose of experimentation when her master resisted Sims' solicitations."[29]Sims referenced three enslaved women in his records: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy; many others remain unidentified. Each suffered from fistula, and all were subjects of his surgical experimentation.[30] From 1845 to 1849 he conducted experimental surgery on each of them several times.[31] Sims performed these fistula repair operations without benefit of anesthesia but gave these women substantial doses of opium afterwards.[32] It has been alleged that Sims did this in order to addict them to the drug and thereby to enhance his control over them.Seventeen-year old Anarcha Westcott had a severe form of rickets caused by a lack of vitamin D and malnutrition , which had disfigured her pelvis, making it impossible for her to give birth.[33] She went into labor during June 1845 and after trying to give birth for three days, Sims showed up to assist her in her labor. The use of “forceps” was common in those days, but Sims had never used them before, and, according to one historian, Sims tried it repeatedly on other slave women.[34] Each of these attempts, however, resulted in an infant fatality. Sims blamed all of these deaths not on his own use of the forceps, but the slave mother’s inherent stupidity.[35]Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern GynecologyAnarcha had both vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas, which Sims struggled to repair. operating on the young woman thirty times.[36] She was isolated from other slaves, separated from her infant and under the complete supervision of Sims.Notwithstanding repeated failures during four years' time, he kept his six patients and operated until he tired out his doctor assistants, and finally had to rely upon his patients to assist him to operate.[37] Unlike his previous essays, which included at least a brief description of his patients, the article issued in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences is devoid of any identifying characteristics of Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy.[38]Years after Sims claimed to have cured Anarcha's fistula, Anarcha traveled to Sims’ New York Woman’s Hospital to be operated on again by him. Anarcha actually had a double fistula when she first was sent to Sims—a rupture in the lining between vagina and urethra and between vagina and rectum. She was probably never really fully cured. While a decade later she was living in Virginia as a midwife, “she [appeared] to be living at a separate house from the main house.” While it’s unclear whether it was due to separate quarters for people enslaved generally or stigma, her separation could be explained as “what you would expect from a woman with an ongoing fistula condition.”[39]Although anethesia had very recently become available, Sims did not use any anesthetic during his procedures on these three women. According to Sims, anesthesia was not yet fully accepted into surgical practice, and he was unaware of the use of diethyl ether. [40] Ether as an anesthetic was available as early as the beginning of 1842, but not publicly demonstrated until 1846, a year after Sims began his experimental surgery.[41] While ether's use as an anesthetic spread rapidly, it was not universally accepted at the time of Sims' experimental surgery.In addition, a common belief at the time was that black people did not feel as much pain as white people. One patient, named Lucy, nearly died from sepsis. He had operated on her without anesthetics in the presence of twelve doctors, following the experimental use of a sponge to wipe urine from the bladder during the procedure.[42] She contracted sepsis because he left this sponge in her urethra and bladder. He did administer opium to the women after their surgery, which was accepted therapeutic practice of the day.[43]Dr. J. Marion Sims in Montgomery, Alabama (J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama)Sims moved to New York in 1853 because of his health and was determined to focus on diseases of women. He had an office at 267 Madison Avenue.[44] In 1855 he founded Woman's Hospital, the first hospital for women in the United States. His project met with "universal opposition" from the New York medical community; it was due to prominent women that he established it.They were visited by "prominent doctors, who endeavored to convince them that they were making a mistake, that they had been deceived, that no such hospital was needed, etc. I was called a quack.and a humbug, and the hospital was pronounced a fraud. Still it went on with its work."[45]In the Woman's Hospital, he performed operations on indigent women, often in an operating theatre so that medical students and other doctors could view his procedures as it was considered fundamental to medical education at the time.[46] Patients remained in the hospital indefinitely and underwent repeated procedures.At the onset of the Civil War in 1861, Sims left the United States and settled in Paris. He became internationally famous after ministering to European royalty, including the empress of Austria.[47] After the end of the Civil War, he returned to the United States until his death.In 1871, Sims returned to New York. He got into a conflict with the other doctors of the Woman's Hospital, with whom he carried on a dialogue by means of published pamphlets.[48] One issue was whether the hospital would treat women with uterine cancer, because the hospital was founded to treat diseases of women, and cancer was not a disease peculiar to women.[49] In addition, cancer was feared as contagious.[50] The second issue was how many outsiders (doctors or medical students) could observe any given operation, as was common at the time.[51] This meant they could observe the sexual organs of white women patients; there were no African-American patients.After a conflict with the hospital administration, Sims resigned from the Woman's Hospital of New York State in 1874[52] and maintained a successful private practice. In 1876, he was named president of the American Medical Association.[53]Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New YorkIn 1880, Sims contracted a severe case of typhoid fever. Although Sims suffered delirium, he was "constantly contriving instruments and conducting operations".[54] After several months and a move to Charleston South Carolina to aid his convalescence, Sims appeared healthy by.June 1881.[55]After travelling briefly to France, Sims began to complain of an increase in heart problems. He had previously suffered two angina attacks in 1877. Sims was positive that he had a serious disease of the heart, resulting in a deep mental depression.[56] Halfway through writing his autobiography and planning a return visit to Europe, Sims died of a heart attack on November 13, 1883 in Manhattan, New York City.[57] After Sims’ death in 1883, the Mt. Meigs hospital continued to serve the local African-American population.[58]That Sims achieved all this has long won him acclaim; how he achieved all this—by experimenting on enslaved women—started being included in his story much more recently. And on a Tuesday morning in April 2018, in the face of growing controversy, New York City removed a statue honoring him from Central Park.[59]J. Marion SimsThe move came after decades of concerted effort by historians, scholars, and activists to reexamine Sims’s legacy. Sims’ critics have discounted the enormous suffering experienced by fistula victims, have ignored the controversies that surrounded the introduction of anaesthesia into surgical practice in the middle of the 19th century[60], and have consistently misrepresented the historical record in their attacks on Sims. Although enslaved African American women certainly represented a “vulnerable population” in the 19th century American South, the evidence suggests that Sims's original patients were willing participants in his surgical attempts to cure their affliction—a condition for which no other viable therapy existed at that time.[61]Sims’s defenders say the Southern-born slaveholder was simply a man of his time for whom the end justified the means—and that enslaved women with fistulas were likely to have wanted the treatment badly enough that they would have agreed to take part in his experiments.[62] But history hasn’t recorded their voices, and consent from their owners, who had a strong financial interest in their recovery, was the only legal requirement of the time.Critics say Sims cared more about the experiments than in providing therapeutic treatment, and that he caused untold suffering by operating under the racist notion that black people did not feel pain.[63] They say his use of enslaved black bodies as medical test subjects falls into a long, ethically bereft history of medical apartheid that includes the Tuskegee syphilis experiment[64] and Henrietta Lacks.[65]The first serious challenge to Sims’s lionization came in a 1976 book by the historian G.J. Barker-Benfield titled The Horrors of the Half-Known.Barker-Benfield juxtaposed Sims’s “extremely active, adventurous policy of surgical interference with woman’s sexual organs” with his considerable ambition and self-interest. The man who once admitted “if there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis,” took to gynecology with a “monomania” once he realized it was his ticket to fame and fortune.[66]In response, during the 1978 annual meeting of the American Gynecological Society, doctors took turns vigorously defending Sims against Barker-Benfield’s book. The most fervent of them was Lawrence I. Hester Jr., who said, “I rise not to reappraise J. Marion Sims, but to praise him.”[67] He then announced that his institution, the Medical University of South Carolina, which Sims also attended, was raising $750,000 for an endowed chair named after J. Marion Sims.[68]The Secret History of the SpeculumAnother physician, Irwin Kaiser asked the audience to consider how Sims ultimately helped the enslaved women he experimented upon. The surgery that he practiced on Lucy, Anarcha, Betsey, and the other enslaved women was to repair a vesicovaginal fistula—a devastating complication of prolonged labor. When a baby’s head presses for too long in the birth canal, tissue can die from lack of blood, forming a hole between the vagina and the bladder.[69] The condition can be embarrassing, as women with it are unable to control urination. “Women with fistulas became social outcasts,” said Kaiser. “In the long run, they had reasons to be grateful that Sims had cured them of urinary leakage.” He concluded that Sims was “a product of his era.”[70]This did not quell criticisms, of course. Over the next few decades, scholars continued to criticize Sim's practice of experimenting on enslaved women.[71] Medical textbooks, however, were slow to mention the controversy over Sims’s legacy. A 2011 study found that they continued to celebrate Sims’s achievement, often uncritically. In contrast to the vigorous debate of Sims’s legacy in historical texts and even in the popular press, medical textbooks and journals have largely remained static in their portrayal of Sims as surgical innovator.[72]In recent years, one of the most prominent defenders of Sims’s legacy has been Lewis Wall, a surgeon and an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis.[73] Wall has traveled to Africa to perform the vesicovaginal fistula surgery that Sims pioneered[74] , and he has seen firsthand what a difference it makes in women’s lives.“Sims’s modern critics have discounted the enormous suffering experienced by fistula victims,” he wrote in a 2006 paper. “The evidence suggests that Sims’s original patients were willing participants in his surgical attempts to cure their affliction—a condition for which no other viable therapy existed at that time.”[75]Wall also defended Sims on the charge that he refused to give anesthesia only to black patients.[76] Anesthesia was not yet widespread in 1845, and physicians who trained without anesthesia sometimes preferred their patients to be awake.There is debate over whether Sims’s specific surgical practices were unusually gruesome for his time. But his practice of operating on enslaved women was certainly not unusual. He wrote about it openly. It is this ordinariness that is noteworthy.Should women be standing alongside the 'father' of modern gynecology?Sims did not induce illness into his subjects, nor is there any evidence that he intentionally inflicted pain or even contemplated the loss of a life in order to find a solution to the problem. On the contrary, there is every indication that his attempts were purely to find a cure for a most debilitating malady and is well documented that all of his slave patients recovered, and we can assume lived better lives because of the surgery.[77] There are no reports of fatalities among Sims participants and it is widely acknowledged that his work aided tens of thousands of females, both black and white.[78]Sims was able to advance so quickly, because he had access to bodies—first enslaved women in the south, and later also poor Irish women when he moved to New York..[79] These institutions that existed in this country, which allowed easy access to enslaved and impoverished women’s bodies, allowed certain branches of professional medicine to advance and grow and to also become legitimate. The history of medicine has often been written as the history of great men, rather then their forgotten female patients.In 2006, the University of Alabama at Birmingham removed a painting that depicted Sims as one of the “Medical Giants of Alabama.”[80] In February, the Medical University of South Carolina quietly renamed the endowed chair honoring J. Marion Sims—the one announced by Hester after the publication of The Horrors of the Half-Known.[81] The minutes of the board of trustees meeting where it happened did not even mention Sims’s name—just the new name of the endowed chair. The decision was made in recognition of the controversial and polarizing nature of this historical figure despite his contributions to the medical field.[82]A worker removes the 19th-century statue of J. Marion Sims from New York's Central Park (Controversial statue of J. Marion Sims removed from Central Park)A bust of Sims on display at his alma mater, Thomas Jefferson University, was abruptly removed without explanation and placed in storage.[83] The J. Marion Sims statue that stood in Central Park is being relocated to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where Sims is buried.[84] Eventually, the statue will be demoted to a lower pedestal and displayed with a sign explaining the statue’s history. There may be an opportunity, now, to use the statue to tell the full story—to tell the stories of Lucy, Anarcha, Betsey, and the other enslaved women, who were the unknown “Mothers of Modern Gynocology”, assuring their place in the history of medicine.Footnotes[1] Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New York[2] J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama[3] James Marion Sims's Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula[4] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[5] J. Marion Sims, the father of gynecology: hero or villain?[6] The Secret History of the Speculum[7] Sims' position - Wikipedia[8] Peering ‘Behind The Sheet’ Of Gynecology’s Darker History[9] Marion Sims and the Origin of Modern Gynecology[10] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[11] SC-29-8 Franklin Academy[12] Euphradian Society - Wikipedia[13] From Midwives to Medicine[14] Scholars Argue Over Legacy of Surgeon Who Was Lionized, Then Vilified[15] The Story of My Life - Google Play[16] The Story of My Life - Google Play[17] From Midwives to Medicine[18] Savior or butcher? Doctor's legacy under fire[19] J. Marion Sims, the controversial "father of modern gynecology," conducted experiments on slaves and did not use anesthesia[20] Tribute to the late James Marion Sims ... by W.O. Baldwin ... November, 1883. [21] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[22] Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology on JSTOR[23] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1003%26context%3Dlegacy&ved=2ahUKEwjFsbCZxPnmAhWQB80KHXx3BKwQFjAOegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw1oX8Z_yvGKGGu7ccqb96HK[24] Women as victims of medical experimentation: J. Marion Sims' surgery on slave women, 1845-1850.[25] J. Marion Sims: Paving the way | The Bulletin[26] J. Marion Sims: Paving the way | The Bulletin[27] https://as.vanderbilt.edu/archived/gfc/sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/files/dG8FJS/Kapsalis%202002.pdf[28] The Women Behind the Statue - Rewire.News[29] Public Privates[30] Scholars Argue Over Legacy of Surgeon Who Was Lionized, Then Vilified[31] Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey — Michelle Hartney[32] Did J. Marion Sims deliberately addict his first fistula patients to opium?[33] http://Washington, Harriet A. (2006). Medical Apartheid The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (1st ed.). NY: Doubleday.[34] Anarcha & Her Sisters in Slavery, Lucy & Betsey[35] Gifted Hands[36] https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/3248[37] Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity[38] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://medium.com/%40Rondaisms/do-you-know-the-story-of-anarcha-lucy-and-betsy-fa1fb1a652ea&ved=2ahUKEwiV1quQkvjmAhWVPM0KHfMqBpEQjjgwBXoECAoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw23WVoOxow_RfmvgrWlARQJ[39] The Women Behind the Statue - Rewire.News[40] The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record[41] Sept. 30, 1846: Ether He Was the First or He Wasn't[42] Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology[43] As The Opium Trade Boomed In The 1800s, Boston Doctors Raised Addiction Concerns[44] History of the discovery of anaesthesia : Sims, J. Marion(James Marion),1813-1883 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[45] Women’s Hospital New York – Ephemeral New York[46] Public Privates[47] Life for this Bavarian princess was no fairy tale[48] National Library of Medicine[49] The Woman's Hospital in 1874 : a reply to the printed circular of Drs. E.R. Peaslee, T.A. Emmet, and T. Gaillard Thomas, addressed 'to the medical profession,' 'May 5th, 1877' : Royal College of Surgeons of England : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[50] Student guest post: Cancer isn’t contagious…or is it??[51] Reply to Dr. J. Marion Sims' Pamphlet Entitled "The Woman's Hospital in 1874"[52] Eponyms and Names in Obstetrics and Gynaecology[53] Women as victims of medical experimentation: J. Marion Sims' surgery on slave women, 1845-1850.[54] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[55] Dr J Marion Sims[56] Memorial sketch of the life of J. Marion Sims, M.D. : Wylie, W. Gill (Walker Gill), 1848-1923 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive[57] A FAMOUS SURGEON DEAD; THE IMPORTANT LIFE WORK OF DR. J. MARION SIMS.[58] J. Marion Sims | Encyclopedia of Alabama[59] Why a Statue of the 'Father of Gynecology' Had to Come Down[60] Ether day: an intriguing history[61] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file%3Faccession%3Dosu1492473135829899%26disposition%3Dinline&ved=2ahUKEwiD18uP2vfmAhUObq0KHf_uAi0QFjAJegQIARAB&usg=AOvVaw0fCdrLnzKLMWtXXrDdt5KS[62] The ‘Father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Slaves[63] Pain Sensitivity: An Unnatural History from 1800 to 1965[64] An Unethical Medical Study Took a Year Off the Lives of Black Men[65] Henrietta Lacks’ ‘Immortal’ Cells[66] The Horrors of the Half-Known Life[67] Skin Deep, Spirit Strong[68] 'Father Of Gynecology,' Who Experimented On Slaves, No Longer On Pedestal In NYC[69] History of the Procedure[70] Reappraisals of J. Marion Sims[71] The medical ethics of the 'father of gynaecology', Dr J Marion Sims.[72] The Portrayal of J. Marion Sims' Controversial Surgical Legacy[73] L. Lewis Wall, MD, DPhil, MBioeth | Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis[74] Obstetric Fistula Is a “Neglected Tropical Disease”[75] The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record[76] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/29/a-surgeon-experimented-on-slave-women-without-anesthesia-now-his-statues-are-under-attack/%3foutputType=amp[77] J. Marion Sims, MD: Why He and His Accomplishments Need to Continue to be Recognized a Commentary and Historical Review[78] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=James%20Marion%20Sims:%20some%20speculations%20and%20a%20new%20position#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3DVwcwilNKUFUJ[79] Medical Bondage[80] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2006/01/29/a-19th-century-doctor-38/b7534292-bdce-45f0-b5e0-c01ec647bcc9/[81] J. Marion Sims, the controversial "father of modern gynecology," conducted experiments on slaves and did not use anesthesia[82] The Surgeon Who Experimented on Slaves[83] The controversial legacy of Jefferson University-educated 'father of gynecology'[84] City Orders Sims Statue Removed From Central Park

Matthew Henson - this African-American explorer was the first man to stand on top of the world.Matthew Henson“The lure of the arctic is tugging at my heart. To me the trail is calling! The old trail, the trail that is always new.” ~Matthew Henson[1]In 1909 a team of six men and dog sledges made their way to a single at the center of vast Arctic wilderness. It was a block of ice 413 nautical miles off the coast of Greenland believed to be the North Pole. There were many who refuted the events that led up to the day, April 6th, when an American flag was planted there.[2] But in the years that followed an irrefutable truth would be revealed. The first person to stand on top of the world was an African-American male named Henson.When Commander Robert Edwin Peary set out on the expedition, his company included 24 men, 19 sledges, and 133 dogs.[3] After months of travel across an immense field of ice from the edge of Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island, as planed, one by one members of the party began turning back. So there were only a handful of men who could substantiate the claim. When the first human footprints were pressed into the snow at the most northern point on the planet all that remained of the original corps were Peary, 40 dogs, four native Inuit hunters and an African-American man who would be forgotten by history for almost half a century .Matthew Alexander Henson was born on August 8, 1866, to a family of freeborn sharecroppers in Nanjemoy, Maryland.[4] It was one year after emancipation and the end of the Civil War. An African-American of the first generation to roam the world after the abolition of slavery, Henson led a singular life of exploration and discovery that would usher in the modern era of adventure that continues now through the 21st century.Along with many former slaves, Matthew's parents were subjected to attacks by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups that terrorized southern blacks after the Civil War.[5] To escape from racial violence, in 1867 the Henson family sold the farm and moved to Georgetown.When he was 10 years old, he went to a ceremony honoring Abraham Lincoln, the American president who had fought so hard to preserve the Union during the Civil War and had issued the proclamation that had freed slaves in the Confederate states in 1863.[6]At the ceremony, Matthew was greatly inspired by a speech given by Frederick Douglass, the longtime leading figure in the American black community.[7] A former slave turned abolitionist, Douglass called upon blacks to vigorously pursue educational opportunities and battle racial prejudice.[8]Orphaned at a very young age, Henson made his own way in life with uncommon courage and tenacity. When he was only 12, he signed on as a cabin boy aboard a three-masted sailing ship called the Katie Hines.[9]For the next six years under the mentorship of a Captain Childs, Henson received an education, learned a variety of technical skills, became a competent sailor, and traveled around the world visiting the then Orient, North Africa, and the Black Sea.[10]The Legacy of Arctic Explorer Matthew HensonCaptain Childs died in 1887. Upon his passing, Henson left the Katie Hines to take a job as a shop clerk for a furrier in Washington, D.C.[11] Though his time at sea as a sailor was a thing of the past, Henson was still very interested in a life of travel and adventure. So it was no small quirk of fate when a naval officer entered the shop one day to sell a collection of seal and walrus pelts that had just arrived from an expedition to Greenland.[12] Impressed with Henson’s experience and enthusiasm to see more of the world, Robert Peary hired him almost immediately as his personal assistant and invited him to take part in his next assignment.[13]Matthew Henson - Arctic ExplorerServing in the Navy Corps of Civil Engineers Peary was tasked to map and explore the jungles of Nicaragua in the hopes of creating a canal to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific.[14] Henson and Peary spent the next two years traveling together through the rainforests of Central America, a journey that would cement their friendship and bind their destinies together for the rest of their lives.When they returned from Nicaragua, Peary helped Henson to get a job working as a messenger at the League Island Naval Yard in Philadelphia.[15] On leave from the Navy to do more exploring in Greenland, Peary once again invited Henson to join his party. In 1891 the two companions began an 18-year partnership of Arctic exploration that included the complete mapping of the Greenland ice cap.[16]From Our Vault: 1897 Meteorite RecoveryTogether Henson and Peary discovered the great island’s northern most terminus. And in two expeditions in 1896 and 1897 they recovered three enormous meteor fragments that they sold to the American Museum of Natural History in New York for $40,000.[17] The largest piece called the Cape York meteorite is also known by its Inuit name Ahnighito, which means the Tent.[18] The massive iron rock weighs 31 metric tons, is the third largest intact meteor ever discovered and the heaviest ever transported by human beings.[19] The funds Peary and Henson acquired through these two ventures would go to support other expeditions over the next ten years.Although Peary was the public face of their partnership, Henson was the front man in the field. With his skills as a carpenter and craftsman, Henson personally built and maintained all of the sledges used on their expeditions. He was fluent in the Inuit language and established a rapport with the native people of the region.[20] He was known by all he encountered as “Matthew the Kind One”.[21] Henson learned the methods the Inuit used to survive and travel through the incredibly hostile landscape of the Arctic. “He was more of an Eskimo than some of them.” Peary once said .[22]Matthew Henson Top the WorldHenson was a very capable hunter, fisherman, and dog handler. And it was he who trained even the most experienced of Peary’s recruits on each of the eight attempts they made to reach the North Pole.[23] It’s fair to suggest then that much of the success in their expeditions was due to Henson’s expertise. Though Peary repeatedly failed to reach his goal, he managed to return safely time and time again having progressed a little further with every trip.[24] In 1906 with the support of President Theodore Roosevelt, Peary and Henson managed to get within 174 miles of the North Pole by ship using a state-of-the-art ice breaker.[25] On the three-masted steam-powered schooner called the Roosevelt, Peary and Henson made it closer to the pole than on any expedition to date. “When my observations were taken, Peary wrote in his journal, “they showed that we had reached 87°6′ north latitude, and had at last beaten the record, for which I thanked God.”[26]Two years later Peary and Henson would make their eighth and final attempt to reach the North Pole. Whether they succeeded or not both men, now in their 40s, could feel the strain of their long careers and decided this would be their last voyage together.[27] Once again aboard the Roosevelt, a hand-picked team sailed from New York Harbor on July 6, 1908. Joining the party was Dr. John W. Goodsell, Donald B. MacMillan, Ross G. Marvin, George Borup and Robert Bartlett, the ship’s captain .[28]Robert Peary and Matthew Henson become the first to reach the North Pole...or Were They?In a now classic system of caches[29], the plan was to ferry and deposit loads of gear and food along the way with each successive team of dog mushers returning to the ship that was iced into port at Ellsemere Island.[30] A smaller team of two Americans and four Inuit companions would make the final push to their objective. Peary and Henson were the most likely choices to lead the Pole team.“With years of experience equal to that of Peary himself, [Henson] was indispensable,” MacMillan would recall later.[31] And even Peary agreed that the expedition would never be completed without his trusted friend. “Henson must go all the way,” he said as they planned the trip months earlier. “I can’t make it there without him”.[32]The group arrived at their starting point at Cape Sheridan on September 5, 1908.[33] There they spent the long Arctic winter storing supplies of meat that included muskox, deer, and rabbit. Several of the Inuit men brought along their wives and children who set about the task of creating all the clothing and perishable supplies the expedition would need.[34] In February, Peary lead the party by sledge to Cape Columbia where out on the ice he established a forward base camp. The expedition began in earnest as Henson lead the first group of sledges toward the pole on March 1, 1909. [35] And for the next five weeks the teams raced toward their goal.Along the way in addition to temperatures that fell to 65 degrees below zero they encountered the frequent hazards of cracking and drifting ice that formed patches of open water called leads.[36] But the group made steady progress as each of the support teams deposited their supply caches and turned back the way they came. McMillan lead the first team back with Dr. Goodsell.[37]They were followed days later by Borup, then Marvin.[38] Bartlett was the last to return to the ship. Once he arrived the captain of the Roosevelt readied the ship for the Pole Team’s safe return.In his account of the adventure The Negro at the North Pole published in 1912 Henson made a detailed summary of the five-day march. He, Peary, and Inuits Ooqueah, Ootah, Egingwah, and Seegloo drove the five remaining dog sledges at a breakneck pace day after day for stretches that lasted 12 to 14 hours. Moving quickly to avoid the possibility of a massive lead opening up behind them and blocking their way back home they traveled more than 170 miles. In a series of hard pushes they made their way navigating by sexton and dead-reckoning until finally on April 6th, as conditions on the trail ahead seemed to improve Henson reported in his account that he felt certain their objective was within reach.“We crawled out of our igloos and found a dense mist hanging over everything,” he wrote. “Only at intervals, when the sun’s rays managed to penetrate the mist, could we catch even a glimpse of the sky. Estimating the distance that we had come during the last four days, we figured that, unless something unusual happened to us during the course of this day, we should be at the Pole before its close.”[39]According to his own recollection Henson was in the lead sledge through much of the day scouting the trail ahead.“The Commander, who was about fifty yards behind, called out to me and said we would go into camp,”wrote Henson . “We were in good spirits, and none of us were cold. So we went to work and promptly built our igloos, fed our dogs and had dinner. The sun being obscured by the mist, it was impossible to make observations and tell whether or not we had actually reached the Pole. The only thing we could do was to crawl into our igloos and go to sleep.”[40]The following day when the mist had cleared Peary took measurements of their location relative to the position of the sun at the noon hour. “The results of the first observation showed that we had figured out the distance very accurately, for when the flag was hoisted over the geographical center of the Earth it was located just behind our igloos,” Henson wrote.[41]The party had indeed reached the North Pole. But the question remained who had arrived there first. “I was in the lead that had overshot the mark by a couple of miles,”[42] Henson was quoted in a newspaper article upon their return. “We went back then and I could see that my footprints were the first at the spot”.[43]Upon their return to the United States some reports in the press indicated that there was tension between Peary and Henson as to whom between them deserved credit for reaching the North Pole first. “From the time we knew we were at the Pole, Commander Peary scarcely spoke to me,” Henson would later reveal. “It nearly broke my heart … that he would rise in the morning and slip away on the homeward trail without rapping on the ice for me, as was the established custom”.[44]Henson and Peary (Matthew Henson)It seems odd that after such a long and successful partnership the two men would become estranged from one another. With a difference of a few hours at most it would be reasonable to give Peary and Henson equal credit for having reached the North Pole together as a team. But the racially divisive climate of time would not give an African-American man the same standing in the public eye for the accomplishment of such a monumental feat of human achievement.[45] Peary was the recognized discoverer of the Pole while Henson was relegated to the role of trusty companion. Despite Henson’s indispensable contributions to their efforts for almost 20 years he received very little acknowledgment.Matters only got worse when even Peary’s claim of success was called into question. A member of a previous Greenland expedition, a man by the name of Frederick Cook, professed to have reached the North Pole one year earlier on April 21, 1908.[46] But the controversy quickly faded when several individuals came forward with compelling evidence to dispute Cook’s contrived story of discovery.[47] Unfortunately, many doubts were raised to suggest that Peary had also failed to reach the North Pole. Several skeptics speculated that he missed the mark by several hundred miles.[48]With few ways to verify the success of this kind of remote expedition, reports of a successful outcome were made on the honor system. Really the only other person to back up Peary’s story was Henson, as the four Inuit hunters didn’t speak English. Though as a black man his testimony was likely deemed by many to be less than credible, the strength of his character as substantiated other members of the party carried a great deal of weight in affirming the truth of their journey to the top of the globe.[49]Robert Perry died on February 20, 1920. After returning from his last polar expedition he was promoted to Rear Admiral and traveled the world through his remaining years of life as an acclaimed hero.[50]But history would treat Matthew Henson much differently. Upon his return from the Pole, Henson took a job as a clerk with the federal customs house in New York City, on the recommendation of Theodore Roosevelt.[51] He would spend the next 30 years leading a quiet life in relative seclusion. But in 1937 his contributions to the discovery of the North Pole would finally be recognized. The Explorers Club of New York made him an honorary member.[52]A few years later in 1946 Henson was awarded a medal, identical to the one given to Peary, by U.S. Navy.[53] In 1954 he was invited to the White House by President Dwight Eisenhower to receive a special commendation for his early work as an explorer on behalf of the United States of America.[54]He also received honorary degrees from Howard University and Morgan College.[55] It is said, though, that his most-prized award was a gold medal from the Chicago Geographic Society.[56]Henson's grave in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, U.S. The grave of Peary is behind it. (Matthew Henson)During their expeditions, Henson fathered his only child, Anaukaq, with a woman named Akatingwah.[57] Peary too, fathered an Inuit son, Kali.[58] Harvard professor and Henson biographer, Dr. S. Allen Counter, met the men’s sons on a Greenland expedition decades later, and brought them to public attention. Though Henson never saw his son again after 1909, in 1987 Anaukaq visited the U.S. with Kali, to visit their father’s graves (Peary died in 1920 and Henson died on March 9, 1955) and to meet their extended families.[59] The documentary North Pole Legacy: Black, White, and Eskimo, speaks further in depth of their experience.[60] Anaukaq’s 5 sons and numerous grandchildren still live in Greenland.Henson died the following year on March 9, 1955.[61] Though he was buried in Woodlawn cemetery in the Bronx, New York on April 6, 1988 his remains along with his wife’s were relocated to Arlington National Cemetery.[62] On the 79th anniversary of his having reached the North Pole Henson was laid to rest with full military honors near the monument to Robert Peary . In 1996, an oceanographic survey ship was commissioned as the U.S.N.S Henson in his honor.[63] And in the year 2000, the National Geographic Society presented Henson posthumously its most prestigious award the Hubbard Medal.[64] Ironically, the first recipient of this prize was Robert Peary in 1906.Footnotes[1] A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson[2] North Pole - Wikipedia[3] The Legacy of Arctic Explorer Matthew Henson[4] Matthew Henson[5] http://Biography of Matthew Alexander Henson". Arlington National Cemetery. Retrieved January 18, 2018.[6] http://Michael., Gilman, (1988). Matthew Henson. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 1555465900. OCLC 16581828.[7] http://Michael., Gilman, (1988). Matthew Henson. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 1555465900. OCLC 16581828.[8] Biography of Frederick Douglass-Champion of Civil and Women's Rights[9] Matthew Henson, the Arctic Explorer Who Stood on Top of the World[10] Virtual Exploration Society - Matthew Hensen[11] Matthew Henson, the Arctic Explorer Who Stood on Top of the World[12] Who Discovered the North Pole?[13] Matthew Henson, the Arctic Explorer Who Stood on Top of the World[14] Matthew Henson Biography[15] http://Deirdre C. Stam, "Introduction to The Explorers Club Edition," Matthew A. Henson's Historic Arctic Journey: The Classic Account of One of the World's Greatest Black Explorers, Globe Pequot, 2009[16] Matthew Henson: Black Explorer Used and Discarded by Peary[17] Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer[18] From Our Vault: 1897 Meteorite Recovery[19] Virtual Exploration Society - Matthew Hensen[20] Akatingwah & Matthew Henson[21] Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer[22] A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson[23] Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer[24] Durham Haus - Matthew Henson[25] The Pole at Last[26] Matthew Henson, Polar Explorer[27] Virtual Exploration Society - Matthew Hensen[28] Who Discovered the North Pole?[29] Matthew Henson[30] Who Discovered the North Pole?[31] Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer[32] Who Discovered the North Pole?[33] "Cape Sheridan" on Revolvy.com[34] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4d16/90f57210dbe9421a2973602bbe67300721d2.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwil7-S2pqnjAhUIVK0KHTkJBWg4ChAWMAR6BAgGEAE&usg=AOvVaw2GZzqLm0d5k8USXU4l1IEw[35] Who Discovered the North Pole?[36] A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson[37] The Cook & Peary files: January 8, 1912: Dr. Goodsell rebukes Dr. Cook’s account.[38] Polar Pathways: The North Pole[39] A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson[40] A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Alexander Henson[41] The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, by Matthew A. Henson.[42] Who Was the First Person To Reach the North Pole?[43] The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, by Matthew A. Henson.[44] We Still Don't Know Who Was First to the North Pole[45] Who Was the First Person To Reach the North Pole?[46] The Race to the North Pole[47] Did Peary Reach the North Pole on April 6, 1909? - New England Today[48] List of firsts in the Geographic North Pole - Wikipedia[49] Matthew Henson: First Man on the North Pole?[50] Robert Peary[51] Did You Know... A Customs Employee was the 'First Man to Sit on Top of the World?'[52] Matthew A. Henson and Herbert M. Frisby: Maryland's Arctic Explorers[53] Page on washingtonpost.com[54] Matthew Alexander Henson, Explorer[55] Matthew Henson's Achievements[56] Matthew Henson[57] The incredible story of Inuits fathered by a U.S. polar explorer and his aide who are making their way into a globalised world[58] Eskimo Son of Explorer Peary Has Few Regrets[59] ANAUKAQ HENSON, SON OF DISCOVERER OF NORTH POLE[60] Greenland’s North Pole Legacy – Black, White and Eskimo[61] Matthew Henson (1866-1955) • BlackPast[62] Matthew Henson[63] USNS Henson (T-ASG-63) Oceanographic Survey Ship - United States[64] Hubbard Medal for Henson by Allen Counter

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.It is not that difficult to determine the meaning of these terms as used in the Second Amendment. Though not a scholar, I have some experience in linguistics and textual and historical criticism, so I will give my opinion. It is critical to research how these words were used in a similar context in the historical documents of the time. Though I said it was not difficult to determine the meaning of these words, I did not say it would be simple or short. It takes time to sift through historical documents to see how these words were used during that period, and I provide just a few examples, though there are many more.It is also important to note that the meaning of the words and the meaning of the entire text are different things, though the former has bearing upon the latter. Historical and linguistic context are critical in determining the meaning of the entire text, as we tend to interpret things by the context we know today rather than the historical context in which it was written. We first have to know what the writers of the Constitution were speaking of before we can determine how that applies to legal situations today.The first word is easy. “Arms” as used at the time has basically the same meaning as today: weapons capable of being used for offense or defense. At the time, this referred to muskets, long rifles, pistols, bayonets, sabers, mortars, cannon, etc. and the necessary ammunition. Since cannon and mortars were expensive and not many individuals owned them, they may not have necessarily been included in the intent of the amendment, but they met the definition, and were not excluded. Arms meant weapons, then and now.“Well regulated” is probably the most debated and misunderstood term. Both the terms "well regulated militia" and "well regulated army" and “regulating” the militia were often used at that time, and can be found in the Federalist Papers, the Journals of the Continental Congress and various state constitutions.One example is in the Federalist Papers, no. 29, "Concerning the Militia" (The Federalist Papers):The power of regulating the militia, and of commanding its services in times of insurrection and invasion are natural incidents to the duties of superintending the common defense, and of watching over the internal peace of the Confederacy. It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense.A second is Virginia’s “An Act for Regulating and Disciplining the Militia” passed by they Virginia Assembly on May 5, 1777, which statedThat a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free stateThe last example is from discussions during the Continental Congress, where the term “well regulated” is so used in reference to the making the American army "a well regulated army" (Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 9, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774);Resolved, As the opinion of this Congress that it is essential to the promotion of discipline in the American army and to reformation of the various abuses which prevail in the different departments, that an appointment be made of inspectors general, agreeable to the practice of the best trained European armies:Resolved, That this appointment be conferred on vigilant and experienced general officers, who are acquainted to whatever relates to the general economy, maneuvers and discipline of a well regulated army.To review from time to time the troops, and to see that every officer and soldier be instructed in the exercise and maneuvers which may be established by the Board of War: that rules of discipline are strictly observed, and that officers command their soldiers properly, and do them justice.These and other documents of the time make it clear that when referring to either the militia or the army, “well regulated" meant a militia or army that was properly organized, equipped, drilled, disciplined, and ready to fight. The term was used in conjunction with outfitting a militia or army, training an army or militia through drilling and instruction to prepare them for battle, and making sure officers were trained in tactics and maneuvers that would enable them to direct the militia in battle. In this context, "well regulated" had nothing to do with government regulation of the sale and distribution of firearms to individuals.That brings us to the third word which the question asked to be defined, “militia.” Again, we want to look at the historical use of the word at the time in the same context. The term militia was used in two ways. The first defined the broad category of people who made up the militia: all able-bodied men, in most instances with defined age limits, such as able bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45. If you fit that description you were technically militia. The second use was in referring to an organized body of militia under the control of a state or local government authority. That authority could call up for service the entire militia or a portion thereof.In Colonial America - before the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and US Constitution - towns, counties, and colonies organized the militia for defense. In times of trouble, the militia was called up or activated. For example, the Massachusetts Charter of 1691 gave the royal governor and his officers power totraine instruct Exercise and Governe the Militia there and for the speciall Defence and Safety of Our said Province or Territory to assemble in Martiall Array and put in Warlike posture the Inhabitants of Our said Province or Territory and to lead and Conduct themAlmost a hundred years later at the time of the American Revolution the term militia was used in much the same way, but the government authority under which the militia was organized had changed. As each of the colonies determined that they had the right to govern themselves independently from the British Crown and Parliament, each colony and later each state set up laws governing militias in their constitution or in separate legislation, or both.The Militia Act of 1775 formalized the organization of the militia in Pennsylvania and a few adjacent areas, as the existing groups of militia werevery willing to defend themselves and their Country, and desirous of being formed into regular Bodies for that Purpose, instructed and disciplined under proper Officers, with suitable and legal Authority; representing withal, that unless Measures of this Kind are taken, so as to unite them together, subject them to due Command, and thereby give them Confidence in each other, they cannot assemble to oppose the Enemy, without the utmost Danger of exposing themselves to Confusion and Destruction.The section of the Virginia Declaration of Rights June 12, 1776 addressing the militia had similar language to the Second Amendment, but does not mention the right to bear arms:That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state.Subsequently, the Virginia Assembly passed “An Act for Regulating and Disciplining the Militia” on May 5, 1777. It is a lengthy document fully outlining the makeup and organization of the Virginia militia. The act stated the militia were to beformed into companies of not less than thirty two, nor more than sixty eight. . . and these companies shall again be formed into battalions of not more than one thousand, nor less than five hundred men, if there be so many in the county. . . Each company shall be commanded by a captain, two lieutenants, and an ensign; each battalion by a colonel, lieutenant colonel, and major, who shall take precedence and command of each other according to rank and seniority, and the whole by a county lieutenant. These officers shall be resident within their county, and before they enter on the execution of their office shall, in presence of the court of the same county, take the following oath: I [space] do swear, that I will be faithful and true to the commonwealth of Virginia, of which I profess myself to be a citizen. . .There shall be a private muster of every company once in every month, except the months of January and February, at such convenient time and place as the captain, or next commanding officer, shall appoint, and a general muster in each county, on some day in the months of April and October, in every year, to be appointed by the county lieutenant, or other commanding officerOther state constitutions and documents specifically use the term militia in this manner. In all of these quoted documents and others written at the time, just prior to the writing of Second Amendment, the use of the term militia always referred to a body organized under the authority and command of a duly recognized government. Such militias were to be well regulated: organized, trained, outfitted, prepared for battle, and led by officers answerable to the government. Militias at the time were not activated until a government authority called them into action, usually a state governor, but also local officials. During the American Revolution these local and state militias were called up under various authorities and provided the bulk of the fighting power, particularly until army “regulars” under Congressional control could be outfitted and trained, but also throughout the war.Technically, that completes the answer to the question, which asked merely what these terms meant. However, since the Second Amendment and its meaning are at the heart of the current debate about gun control, and since various self-appointed bodies claiming to be militia are arming themselves today and patrolling the streets, I will extend my answer to talk about the overall meaning of the text.First, since we have just discussed it, note that in the documents of the time the term militia never refers to a band of citizens who take it upon themselves to use armed force apart from the authority of a government body. Though in one sense the term militia was used to define all able-bodied men in a municipality, county, or state, the idea of a group of armed citizens from this pool of men banding together and using armed force apart from a government authority was not entertained as healthy to the peace and security of a state or the nation. In fact, it was the fear of such groups that eventually led to the adoption of the US Constitution. Armed insurrections began to occur in the new nation, the most well known being the 1786–87 Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts. This rebellion began in rural Massachusetts as citizens there rebelled against state taxes and bank practices they felt were unfair toward farmers and rural landowners. Though many were sympathetic, state and national officials, including George Washington, became alarmed as a large group of armed citizens through threat of force shut down courts and tax collectors. In historical documents referring to Shay’s rebellion and others incidents, a clear distinction can be seen between a duly appointed militia and an unauthorized band of armed citizens. Participants in Shay’s Rebellion “marched on the federal Springfield Armory (at which weapons were not only manufactured but also stored) in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government.” Under the Articles of Confederation, the “federal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a privately funded local militia.”The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791–94 is another example. It began as farmers in western Pennsylvania refused to pay the federal tax on whiskey, took up arms against federal authority, burned the home of a tax collector, and some threatened to declare independence from the United States. To stem the insurrection, President Washington asked several state governors to call up their militias according to the Militia Acts of 1792. This militia force of over 12,000 was federalized by President Washington to march to western Pennsylvania and put down the insurrection. To show this militia was federally sanctioned, President Washington, the hero of the American Revolution, ceremonially led the militia on horseback for a time as they marched west. The 500 or so armed tax resistors were not considered militia, they were considered insurrectionists, in rebellion against the United States.Fries's Rebellion was a similar incident in 1800, and again based on opposition to a federal tax by Congress. In this case, a local group of militia, unauthorized by the state, attempted to detain federal tax collectors. Federal marshals arrested some of the armed group, but later other armed members of the group, under threat of violence, forced their release. President John Adams and Congress used both federal troops and duly authorized state militia to arrest the unauthorized armed group of insurrectionists and bring them to trial in federal court.These incidents make two things quite clear. First, now that the states had become independent and had representative governments, citizens were expected to pay their taxes. Second, unauthorized bands of armed citizens who opposed the laws of the state or federal government by violent means would not be tolerated. In the first incident, under the Articles of Confederation the weak federal government could not act, so duly authorized state militias put down the insurrection.Shay’s Rebellion was one of the reasons the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution, in which the federal government was strengthened to be better prepared to deal with domestic and foreign threats. In the second two incidents occurring after the Constitution had been adopted, the President of the United States and Congress expected citizens of the United States to pay their federal taxes. This was not taxation without representation, as they were represented in Congress by duly elected officials. If they opposed the tax, they had peaceful and legal means to express their opposition. Again, the President, Congress, state governors, and state governments would not allow groups of armed individuals or an unauthorized group of militia to roam the country and use violence or the threat of force just because they disagreed with the the law. Such groups were considered insurrectionists, in rebellion against the United States. The organization of lawful US militia has changed over the years with the passage of several laws, but the basic premise of militias remains the same (see notes at end). The state militias include the National Guard, Naval Militias, and State Defense Forces. All able-bodied men between 17 and 45 are considered part of the “unorganized militia” eligible to be called up to serve, but only if current laws concerning compulsory service are changed, either temporarily or permanently.It is both sad and ironic that today unauthorized groups of armed individuals acting apart from any government authority consider themselves patriotic militias and appeal to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers they so revere. By all the official documents and writings of the Founding Fathers, they would have considered these groups dangerous, at best, or illegal, depending on their activities. It is not illegal to form a group to collectively conduct training in firearms or even military tactics. It is illegal for such a group to claim or assert official authority or take military or law enforcement action as a group. The type of law and order envisioned by state and national leaders in the newly formed United States was one that existed through the will of the people as expressed through their elected officials, who were to create local law enforcement and well regulated militias answerable to the government elected by the people. It was the will of the people as they expressed it through duly elected representatives that mattered, not the opinion of a group of people who believed government should function according to their ideas of how it should be run.Let’s now look at the entire Second Amendment and its grammatical construction. As you may know, there were four written versions of the second amendment ratified by various states, the main difference being in capitalization and punctuation. This was not uncommon for that era, as government documents were handwritten, and capitalization, punctuation, and even spelling were not as standardized as they became after type-printed government and legal documents became the norm. In my opinion, these differences did not in any way change the meaning of the amendment as written. This is the version originally approved by Congress for ratification by the states:A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.Here is one variation, with the first comma omitted, which was the version approved by New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. In my opinion, this is the most “correct” punctuation in that it separates the two main ideas contained in the amendment, and probably the one most used today, but in any case the meaning is the same in all versions.A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.The first part of the amendment is introductory, making a statement supporting the validity of the rest of the amendment. It is easier to distinguish this if you look at it from the interrogative:Q: Why should the right of the people to keep and bear arms not be infringed?A: Because a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.Now comes a key definition, not included in the original question: who are “the people” who have the right to keep and bear arms? In the context of language used at the time, there are only two possibilities. “The people” is used as a collective term to represent all of the people in a state or the nation. It is also used to allude to the collective will of the people expressed by the government through representatives of the people. The Tenth Amendment makes this distinction:The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.In the Preamble to the Constitution, “the people” is used in the second sense.We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.Obviously, all of the people in the United States did not collaborate in the writing of the United States Constitution. Rather, their representatives at the Constitutional Convention entered into debate and discussion to forge and approve the document. It was then ratified by Conventions in each state representing the people of each state.“The people” was used in state constitutions, also. The Virginia Constitution opened with, “A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia.” New York’s Constitution made its declarations, “in the name and by the authority of the good people of this State.” South Carolina’s constitution stated the framers to be Serving as a “full and free representation of the people.” In the Massachusetts constitution you find, “We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts” and in Pennsylvania’s “the people of this State.”The people, then, who have this right are the people of the United States, or in each state, and the governments who represent the will of the people. The Tenth Amendment, which was added primarily to allay the fears of anti-Federalists, makes clear what the Constitution and first nine amendments had already established: In matters of individual and states rights, if any branch of the Federal government using its proper authority had not or could not exercise that authority on a matter of governance or individual liberty, state governments had the right to do so, and if the matter had not been acted upon by the state government, the people retained the right to make their own decision, including their right to address a matter through representative government - be it local, state or federal.The Tenth Amendment was patterned after a similar statement in the Articles of Confederation, Article II:Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.That the Second Amendment speaks of both states and “the people” makes sense, as the context of the Second Amendment and the nine other amendments that came to be known as the Bill of Rights was the resolution of the conflict between the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the authority of the federal government over the states, and the principle that all just governments derive their authority from the people. For various reasons, from trade to slavery to fear of centralized power, individual states wanted autonomy on certain matters. Originally, the binding together of the states came about as each colonial government sought to become independent of British rule. The loosely written Articles of Confederation attested to the reluctance to yield power to a central authority. As it became clear the collective United States needed better protection from foreign powers and internal insurrections, a Constitutional Convention was called so “the people” could “form a more perfect Union” between the state governments. The bitter disagreement between Federalists and anti-Federalists, and the different priorities of the states with an economy based on agriculture and slave labor vs the other states, resulted in many compromises, such as the Three-Fifths Compromise.Perhaps the most significant compromise was the addition of the Bill of Rights, which several state Constitutions already had. Federalists who had opposed a bill of rights being in the Constitution now supported it being added by Amendment. It speaks well of those on both sides that these differences were resolved peacefully. That is not to say that the Federalists, anti-Federalists, delegates to the Constitutional Convention, state governors, and state legislators always acted nobly or without self-interest. It does mean that, having just survived a costly war for independence, they valued the peaceful, political resolution of differences over armed conflict. There were a few anti-Federalists who wanted to resist the implementation of the new Constitution by force. However, even the ardent anti-Federalist Patrick Henry refused to take up arms against a government established by the will of the people, and other prominent anti-Federalists agreed. The Constitution was now the law of the land, so compromise was sought to add a Bill of Rights to protect the rights of the people and the states.I said all that to again emphasize it would be historically inaccurate to think that the Second Amendment was not written in the context of protecting the rights of state governments duly elected by the people. State governors and state legislatures had the right and duty to protect their citizens, and included in that right and duty was the the establishment, organization, and training of a well regulated militia. Standing armies, like those the British had quartered among the people, were suspect. This was the impetus for the Third Amendment:No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.The best way to keep the necessity of a large standing federal army to a minimum was to have organized, well trained, well outfitted, well commanded state militias available. This was also the best way for each state to protect itself, as deploying a federal force to a threatened region could take weeks. In the case of a threat to the entire nation or an overwhelming threat to one or more states, the federal government at the time, specifically the Executive Branch and the President as Commander in Chief, could call up state militias to be put under federal control, as was done in the case of insurrections, including the Whiskey Rebellion and Fries’ Rebellion.What, then, does the Second Amendment have to do with today’s debate about gun control and the right of a citizen to own firearms? Not much. The right of individuals to own firearms was never questioned at the time the Second Amendment was enacted. It was assumed that most people did own firearms. Though of late there has been a debate about the number of households that owned guns at the time of the American Revolution, written records support a high percentage of gun ownership. Probate inventories are one good source, though obviously incomplete since not every estate went through probate, and often the items listed were incomplete. Still, a study was done of “250 estates of farmers with sufficient itemization to list beds in five counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. . . in six, one year samples made between 1714 and 1789. The percentages of guns in probate estates is 60% in the frontier and 50% in more settled regions.” In another comparison of “221 probate inventories in Surry County, a relatively poor agricultural Virginia county, from 1690 to 1715” and where “the staple crops-tobacco and corn-needed to be hoed several times a year” only 34% of estates listed any hoes. However, In the middle income group (30th to 90th percentile), where 35–41% of household estates listed hoes, 63–69% listed guns. Tables were listed at 50-64% and seating furniture at 40-68%. Are we to conclude that only 50% of middle income people had chairs and tables? I think not. More accurately, ownership was transferred without probate or the ownership of these items had been settled apart from probate. The same can be concluded of guns. However you extrapolate it, gun ownership was quite common, probably more common in rural areas but also in urban areas.The second amendment was not specifically about the right of individuals to own firearms. It was about the right of “the people” and their representatives in state and local governments to organize, train, outfit, and maintain militias apart from federal authority. Though many called up to serve in state and local militias used their own firearms, state and local militias also maintained armories in which assorted arms were kept, including canon and mortars but also musket, long rifles, powder, and shot. The Battled of Lexington and Concord began because the colonial militia was alerted that British troops were marching to seize their stores of arms and supplies.Let me restate the significance of the historical context again. The second amendment specifically addressed the right of “the people,” through duly elected state and local governments, to organize, train, outfit, and maintain state and local militias apart from federal control. The second amendment did not address the rights of individuals to own firearms, as that right was already assumed. In my opinion it is wrong for either side of the debate about gun control to deny the historical context in which the Second Amendment was written. It was wrong, in my opinion, for SCOTUS to make any decision about individual gun ownership based solely on the Second Amendment, since the right of individuals to own firearms was already assumed when the Amendment was written. What was in question was the right of “the people” in each state to organize armed militias for their defense apart from the federal government “allowing” them to do so.Here is the larger question: Does this mean the government cannot regulate firearms? No. Absolutely not.Whether you take the position that the Second Amendment protects individual ownership of firearms (as SCOTUS ruled in some instances) or that this right was assumed, that does not mean the government does not have the right to regulate firearms or the conditions under which this right can be exercised. Constitutionally, in order to protect the rights of all citizens, all rights have limitations. Freedom of speech does not mean you can intentionally attempt to persuade a crowd to commit illegal or violent acts. In the case of inciting criminal or violent action, protecting the public takes precedent over free speech.Also, the Federal, State, and local governments have always asserted the right to regulate arms among citizens, which is why you cannot buy an RPG launcher or fully automatic weapon at Walmart, and why there are restrictions on sawed-off shotguns and .50 caliber machine guns. The state of Arkansas had laws making it illegal to carry Certain firearms since 1838.Carrying a weapon has been proscribed in Arkansas since 1838. The earliest version of the law against carrying weapon barred carrying “any pistol, dirk, butcher or large knife, or a sword in a cane, concealed as a weapon, unless upon a journey.” The penalty was one to six months in the county jail and a fine of $25 to $100.Univ. of Arkansas Taff v. StateOver the course of your other weapons were added, but the statute was never challenged on Second Amendment grounds in court. It remained valid until “In the 2019 legislative session, both houses of the Arkansas General Assembly passed resolutions declaring that Arkansas is a constitutional-carry state in light of the Arkansas Court of Appeals’ 2018 decision in Taff v. State” - a case that never mentioned Second Amendment tights, but rather sought to exclude confiscated drugs and a confiscated handgun based on illegal seizure.Another such long was passed in reconstruction Texas in 1870, after the the radical reformist Governor Edmund Davis, appealed to the state legislature because of high violent crime rates in TexasThat summer, the state legislature partially fulfilled Governor Da- vis's request by passing a law forbidding the carrying of any "bowie- knife, dirk or butcher-knife, or fire-arms, whether known as a six shooter, gun or pistol of any kind," at a variety of locations:any church or religious assembly, any school room or other place where persons are assembled for educational, literary or scientific purposes, or into a ball room, social party or other social gathering composed of ladies and gentlemen, or to any election precinct on the day or days of any election . . . or to any other place where people may be assembled to muster or to perform any other public duty, or any other public assembly.”The fine for violating the new law was a whopping $50 to $500 (the modern equivalent of $1,000 to $10,000).Texas A&M Law ReviewOf course, these were state laws.The Federal Government’s first forays into gun control were 1934 National Firearms Act, the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, and the 1968 Gun Control Act. There was no uproar in the 1930s when the federal government regulated the purchase of machine guns. The Thompson submachine gun, or Tommy Gun, had become the favorite weapon of organized crime and was perceived as a threat to the public. None of these laws were ever see as unconstitutional or intrusive by the general public, and in United States v. Miller the law was upheld. Neither were any of these laws intended to question the right of citizens to own firearms. Rather, they dealt with regulating certain types of firearms that presented a significant threat to the general public, and regulating the conditions under which citizens could exercise their rights. The basic rules guiding regulations were:Do such firearms present a threat to the general population?Is there a legitimate reason a citizen might need such firearms?The SCOTUS decision in U.S. vs. Miller is an example, though in my opinion a little too brief and narrow (United States v. Miller).By now, I may have succeeded in upsetting people on both sides of the gun control debate. I also suspect that there are a good number of people who don’t care because, to them, the argument is not about gun ownership, but about reasonable restrictions on gun ownership to protect the public. Most Americans are not members of unauthorized, pseudo-patriotic militias and stockpiling weapons and ammunition to fend off their own government, which in their conspiracy-laden mind is out to get them. Most Americans are not preparing to fight a race war, survive the apocalypse, fight off the Antichrist and his minions, or fight off the zombies. Most Americans are not opposed to universal background checks or firearms registration. Most Americans do not want guns to be confiscated, which is why every piece of legislation to date proposing restricting assault style weapons has contained a grandfather clause, allowing current owners to keep their rifles. Sadly, “most Americans” are not controlling the debate over gun control. The most extreme elements on each side are.Footnote: The organization of lawful US militia has changed over the years with the passage of several laws.Militia (United States) - Wikipedia10 U.S. Code § 246 - Militia: composition and classesMilitia Act of 1903National Defense Act of 1916National Defense Act of 1920I welcome comments by people who disagree with me. I don’t have time for trolls or arguments. Also, if you want to know my opinion on gun control, I suggest you read the following answers.Tom Buczkowski's answer to If the United States banned guns, how many gun owners would rather fight to the death than surrender their guns?Tom Buczkowski's answer to As an American gun owner, would you fight back if law enforcement came to confiscate your firearms?