> It makes more sense in context I disagree, especially with these quotations, which are disingenuous. Patrick Henry was a firebrand. His words were meant to

> It makes more sense in context I disagree, especially with these quotations, which are disingenuous. Patrick Henry was a firebrand. His words were meant to incite violence and insurrection for the financial advantage of the order of people to which he belonged. The Jefferson letter you are quoting[1] doesn't mean what you imply with how you quote it. The real meaning, if you use the sentences right before that, says that some part of the population is always going to be ignorant and misinformed and discontent in proportion to that, and that it's better they rebel openly so they can be corrected, patted on the head, and sent home instead of stewing silently. From that point of view, the people should be minimally armed so this could be accomplished with as little bloodshed as possible. It's also fraught to impute anything about constitutional matters to Jefferson, since he regarded a constitution perpetuated more than a generation or two as a form of tyranny. The scholarship on Sparta has been pretty thoroughly revised over the past few decades. Any reference to Sparta rooted before that is of at best suspect legitimacy. [1]: https://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/jefferson/thomas-jefferson-letter-to-william-stephens-smith-11-13-1787 https://thefederalistpapers.org/founders/jefferson/thomas-je...