American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

by Joseph J. Ellis

II. It also became received wisdom that the Second Amendment was in part motivated by bitter memories of British patrols going house to house during the American Revolution, disarming potential rebels. But there is no record of any such confiscations of muskets ever occurring before or during the war. Patrick Henry became a new hero, and the NRA paid $1 million to endow a chair in his name at George Mason Law School with a plaque quoting Henry’s famous words: “the great object is that every man is armed.” Unfortunately, Henry never said that. The misquotation comes from a speech in which Henry was complaining about the excessive cost of arming a large militia. Nor did Henry ever say, as some publicity for the endowed chair claimed, that “they want to take away your guns.” At the Virginia ratifying convention he did say, reportedly to gales of laughter, “They’ll take your niggers from you.”