What does the story of Reconstruction teach us about the Second Amendment?
About this video
This video explains how fear of slave revolts led to laws banning even free Black people from owning weapons, and how Southern states used the Black Codes after the Civil War to disarm and oppress freedmen. It argues that the 14th Amendment was designed in part to guarantee everyone, Black or white, a personal right to own a firearm for self-defense.
You'll be able to
- explain why slave owners and later the Black Codes tried to keep Black people from owning guns.
- name the three Reconstruction Amendments and what each one protected.
- explain how the 14th Amendment connects to an individual right to bear arms.
Key words
- Black Codes
- Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War that restricted the rights of newly freed African Americans.
- Freedmen
- African Americans who had been enslaved and were newly freed after the Civil War.
- 13th Amendment
- The amendment that formally ended slavery as a legal institution in the United States.
- 14th Amendment
- The amendment protecting due process and equal protection of the laws, among other rights.
- 15th Amendment
- The amendment saying the right to vote cannot be denied on the basis of race.
- Reconstruction
- The period after the Civil War when the nation tried to rebuild and secure rights for freed people.
Transcript
[MUSIC] One of the things to keep in mind is that slave owners, one of the things that really kept them up at night and what terrified slave owners was the prospect of a slave revolt or rebellion. The idea that enslaved people would rise up would seize whatever weapons were available to them, try to shed their bonds through force of arms. There were very tight controls and prohibitions on the ability of even Black people who had bought their freedom, and were no longer in a condition of servitude. They were no longer slaves, but they weren't permitted to own weapons and I think in part because it was feared that they might help supply arms to people who remain enslaved. In the wake of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which formally ended slavery in this country as a legal institution, a number of states essentially tried to maintain that institution informally by developing a whole set of laws called
the Black Codes that applied particularly to what we call Freedmen. These were newly freed African Americans who had been in a condition of servitude and were now free. Again, the most important features of a Black Code was the prohibition on personal gun ownership. The idea that newly freed slaves would not be permitted to own firearms and, of course, this made it much easier to terrorize and oppress them and not by accident, so that they could be victimized so that they could be silent, so they could be discouraged from exercising the rights that they had fought so hard and others had fought so hard and that were embodied in the reconstruction amendments, the 13th Amendment banning slavery, the 14th Amendment protecting due process and equal protection, among other things, and the 15th Amendment assuring that the right to vote would not be withheld on the basis of race. Was a strong desire in many parts of the South
to basically functionally erase all of those protections. One of the most effective ways to do that is to oppress a population and prevent it from having the means of fighting back, which is exactly what happened in many of those Southern states and the 14th Amendment, I think, very clearly, was designed to thwart that effort by ensuring, among other things that everybody, white or black, regardless of their previous condition of servitude, had a personal ability to own a firearm to protect themselves, to protect their families, and to assert their rights.
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